By GHK Lall- Let’s dismiss rumours. Let there be less inspiration from speculations, overactive imaginations. I deal with facts standing before. Where is Brother Bharrat? Bharrat Jagdeo? Has anybody seen the real Bharrat Jagdeo recently? The old Jagdeo, flashing fire, wrapped in barbed wire? I had a sighting of him, and I shrank. He looked shrunken, pale around the gills; a man having to live with pills. Is Bharrat Jagdeo ill? Neither rumor, nor gossip, nor snippets of malice, please. I know how much trauma pain can inflict, so the less of it that’s shared, the better. Better if none at all passed around.
If he’s ill, I hope it is not too serious, and that he will be back better than ever sooner than later. Many Guyanese miss him. Yes, I know that Dr. Bharrat has been a student of darkness, but now I have the tuff duty of finding him in the darkness, then extracting him from it. The heavy lifting around here somehow falls on me. I have to start somewhere. Does anybody know where Bharrat Jagdeo is? Help me find him, please. I could save him. From himself. Show him a road that represents a better quality of life, no matter the darkness of the hour. The faith of our fathers, of the ages. I don’t know many things, but that I know well.
It’s been an age since my brother was last seen. Four Thursdays have come and gone, and no firestorms and fulminations leave Guyanese starved for excitement and inspiration. I haven’t had the pleasure of watching and listening, other than for a sliver here and there, but his month-long absence on Thursday past noon has forced half of Guyana into a state of withdrawal. Some swallow liquor, others snort smoke. Guyanese imbibe Bharrat. What will be their lot? With so much happening, so much policymaking waiting, it is not the best time to go MIA.
The other MIA is all drum and what rhymes with that instrument. If the choice is between an unworldly fantasist and a master propagandist cum political-verbal jihadist, I prefer to take the latter. How will the people of this country manage, without their weekly shots of Jagdeo-patented adrenaline inserted in their veins? And their heads, too. This country expects much from Bharrat Jagdeo. Where is he?
What has happened to him? A man who loves the cameras and the microphone as much as Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo does not drop out of sight just like that, like a solitary snowflake dumped into a steaming pressure cooker. I notice the other fella ascending the ladder of arrogance with breathtaking acceleration. Where’s the restraining hand, the internal check-and balance? Who’s going to fill that role? I cautioned the younger brother that pride goes before a fall, and it can make the whole baby party bruk up!
He is not inclined to give anyone and anything a listening. How does anyone get through to a man who listens only to himself? And likes the sounds that comes out of him? It is neither the scriptwriter nor script that matters anymore. Only the script reader. Guyanese are in for it. Interesting times, as my friends from the distant East would say. They should know, since they call themselves Sons of Heaven.
Me, I am praying for the return of Brother Bharrat. In shipshape, boxing shape, and shaping up to continue from where he left off. Guyana is not the same without him. How are Guyanese to go on without him, get the best out of this rich life when a man of his caliber is not around? Forget the other banna, he is a pretender that is more of a mud wrestler. A brawler that is a bluffer. See what I mean, when I insist that Brother Bharrat is the best thing for Guyanese since Burnham! In fact, better than Burnham and the ways of the Kabaka that made him illustrious (or notorious). To aspire to and actually achieve that eye-popping height takes some doing.
Now is not the time for Bharrat Jagdeo to be going. Underground, out of sound range, or out of commission. There’s too much of Guyana resting in his hands and on his head. It would have been inhuman not to wilt and wither a bit. It is human for me to extend a hand to a brother down in the dumps and give him a lift. Come back, Brother Bharrat. The Guyanese people are hoping, praying, waiting. I understand that he is not a man given to prayer, so that’s scratched. Be better, so Guyana’s better.
