We all need Hlaudi, healer of nation’s sick
This genius needs a new Mzwakhe poem and roles on all SABC soapies
Last week I got so sick my wife had to rush me to the doctor. As soon as I got to the surgery, a glucose drip was immediately administered.
Which was then followed by antibiotics, the suspicion being that I was a victim of food poisoning.
Though the doctor buried me under a welter of medical words, I could sense he did not know what was afflicting me. He then wrote a script as long as the death toll of US soldiers who have died in Iraq since Desert Storm.
Two days later, I had a relapse. The doctor carried out further tests. Much later, he admitted he did not know what was wrong with me.
The good doctor lowered his voice, “Look, Mr. Khumalo, Western-trained doctors like myself sometimes get stumped by some of the medical conditions that afflict Africans. Let me be honest with you, I have in the past referred some of my patients to traditional healers, and it has worked.”
I was gobsmacked that a medical doctor – a white one at that! – could actually refer me to an inyanga. I was in no position to contradict him. I was sick. So, my lovely wife – after a long “I’ve been telling you all along” lecture – took me to a sangoma.
The sangoma threw her bones, then pronounced, “There’s a woman at work, a woman with a huge mole on her nose, she is bewitching you. She wants your job!”
Which got me in high dudgeon because firstly I do not know any such woman, and secondly I work from home.
On Wednesday, I found myself in front of a TV. What was happening on screen had a miraculous effect on me. I developed a humongous appetite. My wife, her eyes as big as saucers, watched me demolish a whole chicken and veggies. She watched me throw back a tub of ice cream. She was startled when I grabbed her, and asked for a session of bedroom acrobatics.
“What is it, my dear,” she crooned happily, afterwards, “You seem like a new man.”
The minute we switched off the TV, I fell ill again. Smart as she is, my wife soon realised there was a correlation. I was suffering from what we agreed to call Hlaudimylitis, the illness that afflicts many journalists these days, although they won’t admit it. Take Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Jacob Zuma away, they are stumped for ideas.
Now, I am watching the great Hlaudi addressing the media on the Gupta issue: “What are the implications for South Africa if we chase other people away who are working for the Guptas? South Africans, when you chase them away, you are saying ‘go back to the shacks where you come from’. That is what people are saying because we need to say ‘good governance’, which I support, …”
I’ve been laughing myself silly replaying this week’s Hlaudi episode. Give this man a Bells. He is a life saver to lousy, idealess writers. What did he just say?
“You can’t have the Bold and the Beautiful [from] outside this country, when you have writers in this country … creative people who can write their own stories, and talk about their own culture and tradition…
“So when we came with this 90%, we were informed by the needs of people.”
Motsoeneng seems to have forgotten the SABC has not paid local musicians royalties due in the past seven years. Under Hlaudi’s watch, it owes local musicians in the region of R400-million, and local TV producers at least R150-million, according to this week’s revelations.
But hey, who needs facts and logic when there is Hlaudi? Hlaudi, keep talking, my brother. In fact, Give him a role in all the soapies – Muvhango, Isidingo, all of them. Mzwakhe Mbuli, please compose another poem about Hlaudi, Hlaudi, Hlaudi. The healer of the nation, nation, nation.