The Sunday News
TAKUNDWA by his own admission lived a life full of dreams. He asks, “Was I destined to die the dreamer who would never know the true taste of the good things that life could offer?” Throughout the journey of his life Takundwa is pursuing this dream of getting wealthy. This obsession of getting rich leads to his downfall.
Takundwa is a school dropout who is at the mercy of Nyati, a businessman with political ambitions. As I will show later Nyati convinces Takundwa to kill his youngest daughter Tabitha for ritual purposes to get wealth. Later Nyati forces Takundwa to marry off his daughter Sofia to him. Takundwa has no choice as he is much steeped into evil and cannot extricate himself from it. He does all this because of his love for money.
He says: “I have always admired those men who have made it in life. Men of substance. Men for whom song and verse would be composed. Men who could capture the admiration of every woman on earth. This is the man of my dreams, the man I wish to become one day. How did other men achieve their dreams? Men like Nyati, for example. Fate has always played tricks on me. I have always watched all my well hatched plans turn to ashes. Something goes wrong at the most crucial moment. Why?”
With such dreams and thoughts, Takundwa is already ripe for exploitation by cunning foxes like Nyati. Takundwa is already fertile ground for Nyati’s evil plans. What Nyati needs to do is to dangle a carrot in front of the hungry Takundwa who readily accepts it. “Money is the root of all evil,” goes the old adage. One of Takundwa’s reasons to wish to get rich is just like others to capture the admiration of every woman on earth.
Takundwa believes money can make him more attractive to women. He believes women are of loose morals who falter in the presence of money. This is a wrong view of men towards women. Remember this story also shows us the negative effects of greed and patriarchy. We also see unequal power between women and men, where women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. We will leave this discussion for another day. Meanwhile, we continue with the story of Takundwa.
Although all his hatched plans always turn to ashes, Takundwa’s dream persists. His dream of becoming a man of substance drives him forward. But, he has this terrible fear that is always in his heart. He admits that fear has always ruled his life. It is this fear that ruined his military career in the Rhodesian army. He has, however, failed to identify the source of storms of nervousness that he always experiences even when there is nothing to worry about.
He has found an escape route to counter these fears. He states that maybe that is the reason why he prefers to remain drunk.
He says that beer is the medicine that can effectively cure his fear. He adds that beer makes him feel like a man among other man. Is this true? Beer contributes to Takundwa’s tragedy. On top of this Takundwa expresses happiness that at least he has uncovered the main cause of his failure. He has not come to self-realisation as he pushes the blame of his failure to his uneducated wife.
He says he should never have married such an ignorant and useless woman. Good for nothing and always waiting to be fed.
He says he is going to get rid of her as soon as he is rich enough to get a better wife. This obsession about riches leads Takundwa to self-destruction. Takundwa says he cannot achieve his goals with such a wife who is only good at stealing his money and sending it to her relatives. All this is untrue about his wife. His wife is toiling trying to make ends meet and he comes and grabs all the money from her to spend on beer.
This is clear evidence of abuse where Fatima is caught up in an abusive relationship. Remember Fatima passed Grade Seven with flying colours but was forced to leave school and marry Takundwa, a school dropout. Takundwa hands himself to Nyati who is his son-in-law through a forced marriage to Sofia his daughter. He approaches Nyati to give him a loan of ten thousand dollars. The only snag here is his daughter Sofia he claims does not want to be a good wife to Nyati.
The only word which preoccupies Nyati’s mind is riches. He says he cannot understand why Sofia fails to realise how lucky she is to get married to such a rich husband. Takundwa fails to realise that riches cannot buy true love. Takundwa falls into Nyati’s trap who talks about problem wives. In a dramatic turn of events the advice Takundwa gives to his son-in-law to deal with wayward wives is to divorce them. Ironically he learns that the problem wife is his daughter Sofia. Takundwa cannot believe his ears.
He utters obscenities because Sofia’s behaviour will cost him in a big way as Nyati might not give him a loan. Takundwa is concerned about getting money and is unconcerned about his daughter’s feelings. Nyati convinces Takundwa to kill his youngest daughter for ritual purposes. This act haunts Takundwa and in that stupor Nyati forces him to marry off his daughter Sofia to him. We will leave it here for now as there are more points which help this question. Learners can find more points to give a full answer.
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