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Mourners were treated to skits on the life of the man who lay lifeless in the coffin around which the mourners were dancing.
The singing and dancing grew livelier and dirtier with each passing mug of opaque beer enlaced with a potent spirit.
“Ndimi makauraya, ndimi makauraya, ndimi makauraya hazvina mhosva pahukama,” the imbibers sang at the top of their voices as the thud of their dancing camouflaged that of the drum.
“Aigara zvakanaka nevamwe muraini, aigara zvakanaka nevamwe mumochari,” the singing continued unabated because the copious amount of beer available seemed to moisten their throats.
Attempts to restore order spawned jeers from the guzzlers who were eager to spend as much time as possible drinking as much beer as they could.
In the confusion, the not-so-noble mourners filled the tiny room with mbanje smoke as others drank themselves motherless.
Elsewhere, old lovers were rekindling their love fires in the dimly-lit streets taking advantage of the fact that all community elders were at the funeral.
Welcome to the ghetto funeral.
If you thought this was a sombre event in which solemn songs of adoration punctuate the whole event, then you stand to be corrected.
If you thought a funeral was a place to focus on the need to bury the deceased, then you are mistaken.
A funeral in the ghetto is a place for fun and merrymaking.
Pastors usually attend these events on request, or else they earn themselves a bashing for eating into people’s time to make merry.
“Vana baba vezvemweya imbomirai kutikanganisa. Imbotii swedere parutivi zvishoma tiwirirane,” you hear people saying of men of the cloth.
Depending on the deceased’s social standing and type of friends, funerals in the ghetto have evolved into places where people let the lions in them roar.
The foul-mouthed at times outlive their welcome at these funerals because they just do not know where to start and where to end. Vanoenderera kubvarukira semvemve.
Mourners are treated to free boxing shows at funerals of pugilists while live bands are usually hired to give a befitting send-off to well-known liberty takers.
If the deceased was a dancing queen, lo and behold the whole suburb will come to a virtual standstill as people of various shapes and sizes will be performing the ndombolo dance routine to give one of theirs a perfect send-off from this world of troubles to live with angels elsewhere.
Professional mourners and poets usually enjoy brisk business whenever calamity strikes in the ghetto.
If the deceased was into women, beware some people will be roaming about the whole suburb planting kisses on the mouths of both consenting and unco-operative lasses.
Those who think they have arrived or want the world to believe so, take funerals as a place to show all and sundry that they have set foot on the train of development.
As I commit pen to paper, gentle reader, there are catalogues of funerals that have taken place in the ghetto since time immemorial and people even have the audacity to compare and contrast on which funeral captured the imagination of the ghetto.
“Mudhara nhamo iyi ndizvo, asi haikundi yekumaraini kwedu.
“Vanhu vakadyiswa Nando’s and mabhebhi ikoko yaiva sarura ude,” you hear men saying of funerals while selling bananas by the roadside.
“Billy is very sick these days. I can’t wait to attend his funeral because his monied friends will be out to prove a point or two.
“The last time his eldest sister died we got five-star treatment. He is a man of the people and beer will be flowing at his funeral I tell you,” yours truly heard guys saying while selling airtime recharge cards in Highfield recently. Countless people who grew up in the ghetto now have a knack of being noticed at funerals such that nowadays they are chauffeur-driven to these occasions while donning swanky apparel just for the world to see what they are made of.
Tailors across the length and breadth of the country are enjoying roaring business designing special garments to be worn by certain characters at funerals.
“Kana pafa muchinda ndipo panoda kurohwa sutu yemberi. Ndingati ndiri kuchema here kana ndiine dhetazi? I put on the best to bid a best friend farewell in style,” you hear people plotting in beerhalls.
Whoever introduced bottled water surely did not know what lay ahead.
It is not unusual nowadays to find heaps of bottled water at funerals of the well-heeled where it is used for almost everything from cooking to drinking and even washing garments. Funerals are now places where people showcase their financial muscle by providing more food than is necessary in the spirit of showing the world that one has the capacity to pay.
Some people take these funerals as places to show off their children and whatever they will be doing in life.
“Muchamuziva here uyu? Ndiye mwana wangu mudiki mazuva ano ndidoctor pedu paParirenyatwa apa. Ukangonzwa musoro chete ibva waziva kuti tine mwana aripo,” the mother will tell other mourners with an air of satisfaction while showing off an expensive phone associated with someone who gave birth to a doctor.
Most people in the ghetto now hate the rich for the way they profane their neighbourhoods whenever there is a funeral.
These wealthy men who reportedly grew up in these places usually buy children cigarettes and beer in exchange for sex and even sometimes impregnate poor girls who are unlucky to swing themselves in their way.
The police sometimes have to work extra hard whenever a well-known person dies in the ghetto because the level of crime temporarily goes up as people block roads, beat up love rivals and at times use crowded streets as toilets.
“Many people do not handle themselves properly whenever there is a funeral.
“This is the time they settle old scores and at times do the unthinkable owing to an undying need to be noticed,” a certain police officer confided in this writer.
Gentle reader, nothing beats going down memory lane, but doing so in strict observance of the law may not be a bad idea.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter