Truth and consequences

The trauma of my missing column would have been bad enough. But readers also had to face Mr Jeremie’s sneer, instead of my smirk. And, even as Prime Minister Patrick Manning was making his statement in Parliament, readers’ minds were no doubt occupied with the question of how so serious a matter should be dealt with.

I myself have no answers. It is possible, I suppose, that a skilled plastic surgeon could remodel Mr Jeremie’s curled upper lip. But would this stop him looking as though he is perpetually smelling rotten eggs? I am not suggesting that Mr Jeremie is an arrogant elitist. It is possible that he is a model of humility and egalitarianism, whose only fault is that he grew up near a chicken farm. If this is so, it would mean that, in order to alter his expression, he would need a psychologist rather than a surgeon. But how would he find one, when they are all probably busy treating Newsday’s readers for shock? After all, Christina, who is the paper’s Girl Friday, told me that many readers called — well, one did, anyway — to complain about my column’s non-appearance last week.

One person even wrote a letter to the editor saying that my recent columns make her go to the dictionary, obscure books, or the john. At first, I was worried that, since my column was not used, this reader would become inarticulate, ignorant, and constipated. But then I realised that she is an attorney-at-law, and I began to wonder. Who, for example, was the john she goes to? Can it be coincidental that this is Mr Jeremie’s first name and her letter appeared a day after my column — which was titled “A PNM dictionary” — didn’t? (Readers can read it next week.)

Indeed, just like the CJ, and attorney Anand Ramlogan, and the UNC hijackers, and the talkshow hosts of the Indian-format radio stations - just like all of them, I am beginning to think that there’s a conspiracy afoot. I can even smell the toejam. After all, I regularly badtalk the PNM, the UNC, and men who cannot pronounce “epiphenomenal”. I also continually mock God, yet so far I have not been struck dead by lightning. Since most men in high office in this country seem to think they are god, or at least His favoured son, they would be highly motivated to shut me up. Especially when God’s personal conduit, Benny Hinn, is coming to Trinidad and Tobago, where he will save people’s souls by taking the root of all evil from them and putting it into his ministry’s bank account.

But how to shut me up? That, I suspect, was the problem facing these high-and-mighty men. Except for some Islamic nations, the days when you could just hang writers are long gone. Now, in order to get rid of writers, governments can only keep the price of alcohol high and that of Viagra low. That way, writers will either drink themselves to financial ruin or be too busy to write. I, however, hardly drink.

It is for this reason, I believe, that a plot was hatched involving the PM, the CJ, the CM, the AG, the DPP and, for all I know, the remaining letters of the alphabet. What they needed was a controversy so convoluted that the general public wouldn’t know who was lying, who was standing, and who was just tying their shoelaces. This would allow each party to issue public statements which, if properly timed, would result in my column being bumped. If this seems Machiavellian, remember that he is Patrick Manning’s favourite author. My own view is that the chief instigator — or, I should say, the Chief Instigator — was Mr Sharma, since his statement ran to eight pages.

Unfortunately, I have no proof of any of this. So I want a commission of inquiry (or enquiry, I don’t much care which) to be set up to investigate this setup. The only question is whether the matter should be aired publicly or behind closed doors. I suspect that the principals involved would prefer the latter option, in order to avoid public unrest. Avoiding public unrest seems to be Mr Manning’s main concern in life. That is why he misled even his party chairman Dr Linda Baboolal about going to Cuba for his first heart operation; and why he didn’t want a UNC doctor to operate on him; and why he says wifey Hazel is the best Education Minister this country has ever seen.

Me, I want the plot against me to be revealed in the full glare of the public gaze. I’m not worried about citizens losing respect for the eminent personages amongst us, because I have a pretty accurate idea of how much respect the average citizen has for them. As for me, my only concern is that a public investigation into this issue would reveal that my naturally curly hair is no longer as curly as it once was. But that is a price I am willing to pay in the interest of truth, justice, and grammar.

E-mail: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com