Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady

November, December... I think it was in November that I met this pretty damsel. Actually, my friend, Rasheed Mohammed, was supposed to meet her but by sheer accident, and the fact that he chickened out at the last moment, the gods displayed their prettiest smile on my ugly face. Thinking back on that issue, I’m pretty sure whoever coined the phrase ‘faint heart never won fair lady’ several years ago had some form of precognitive skill. I’m guessing he or she had a precognition of what my friend would do in 2013 to have been able to come up with such a special idiom. 

Being an idiom, ‘faint heart never won fair lady’ actually means that ‘timidity would prevent you from achieving your objective’. This makes lots of sense but as my thoughts have always been shallow, I wouldn’t bother looking beyond what the phrase says in itself- faint heart never won fair lady.

Apart from being brave enough to help the then Gold Coast gain independence from its Colonial Master, the first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was also brave enough to marry Fathia Nkrumah, a fair Egyptian, even though her mother disagreed vehemently with this arrangement.

 
Hip hop icon, Kanye West is also married to a fair lady; Kim Kardashian. You and I know about her sex tape saga with singer, Ray J, and the fact that most people do not like her lifestyle, but hey, Kanye has a brave heart. He went ahead to win the fair lady against all the negative vibe from around.

What actually baffles me is the fact that the bravest of all hearts, Jerry John Rawlings is not married to a fair lady. I mean.. this was a man who was involved in two successful coups d’état. There is none braver. Maybe he settled for a dark-skinned woman because he is a fair man. ‘Black is beautiful’, they say. Maybe he loved a fair lady but could not have her. It’s anyone’s guess, really.

Wait; let me quickly tell you what my friend, Rasheed Mohammed, did before most of you barge into my private circle demanding to know what happened... A couple of friends and I, after quite a hectic day of presentation at lectures, took seats at the cafeteria to relieve stress and quench  our thirsts with bottles of soft drink. Soon, conversation between us -ranging from who was the finest footballer on the planet, who was the best between Eminem and Jay Z, to whom among us had the best taste in women- raged on. Then, then...  a fairly young fair lady walked into the cafeteria. Upon seeing her gliding in, the silence that fell on us was loud enough to resurrect Michael Jackson. We were speechless. Man, any attempt to describe her beauty might inadvertently not appreciate her enough, making room for flaws that do not exist. I wish you had been there to see my friend, Jorio’s open mouth. My glasses were perched on my nose watching the lady’s every move. Rasheed was the first to come back to earth. The knock he gave Chinedu, who was still transfixed, watching the lady still remains a bone of contention between they both. Lowering his voice, Rasheed told us about how he had noticed this same lady a few weeks earlier and how he was crushing on her, blah, blah... Well, the lady bought a bottle of coke and proceeded to step out. Precisely at that moment, another friend of ours, Ranny Bella, was entering to join us. Quickly, Rasheed signalled him to call the fair lady for him. All eyes around the table turned to look at her as she approached with elegant strides. She got to our table, looked at Rasheed and all he could do was to point at me, signifying that I had called her. She turned to me with quizzical eyes and my heart stopped for 7 seconds. I just hoped my face hadn’t turned red from embarrassment as I struggled to regain composure. “H-h-hi,” I managed to stammer. Calmly, and with a coy smile, she replied “hello”. I guess she sensed my discomfort and wanted to make things easier for me. I don’t remember half of what I said to her that day, but I ended up taking her phone number and things have worked out for the both of us since then. Rasheed’s faint heart couldn’t win the fair lady. Guess whose brave heart won this fair lady?