As a Painter’s son with vast interest in the Arts, a colorful upbringing in education and thorough grooming in the media, I have come to understand and appreciate more deeply the dimensions of aesthetics not only in the Arts but in life generally. A beautiful art piece or work goes beyond the beauty from the paint and brush, beyond mixing colors, beyond the ordinary written word, sometimes cold and lifeless, beyond the mere sound of music, the cacophony of drum beats, shekere and agogo or the fluidity of the body gyrating to the symphony of flutes, strings, cymbals, tones and…
Author: Abdulwarees Solanke
Don’t mind my turenci. I’m not about indulging in any political or philosophical sophistry, neither am I embarking on any gruelling intellectual exercise. I just want to tell the story of our lives under this COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and how it’s transforming or shaping our interactions in real life. Let me therefore first unbundle my jargon. COVID-19 is already a cliché. I need not define it for us again. Transformation is also in common knowledge as a dramatic change. What of Transfiguration? Students of the Bible will be familiar with it as I also first came across it in the early 80s…
In the Muslim World, Ramadan fasting is less than two weeks away. But as I stepped out on the morning of Easter Sunday, a Christian festival that signals the end of 40 day Lent, the Christian fast, I noticed that the streets were barren of banners that often proclaim boldly, Lets go A-fishing. Also, there was no happy or Merry Easter in the air. Suddenly, it occurred to me that last Sunday, the Palm Sunday, palm fronds that usually fly in the air on the Sunday preluding Easter were not on the floors at all. Then I remembered that the…
All that we pursue in life is for a purpose or a reason even for as routine as drinking water to quench thirst, much more the quest for power, position and wealth. Immediately we reach that end or purpose, we must put a lever on further search and focus on its righteous, altruistic, utilitarian and purposeful value, using it for the desirable end of public good and service. For, if we seek it more after its fulfilment and become rather engrossed in its enjoyment, we are likely to suffer some consequences of its obsession. If we do not take account…
