The Sunday Mail
The death of Slydon Chari last Sunday was a reminder of the tenuous bond we have with this world. That it is hollow, pointless and vain to have enemies in the short period we call life.
His death was the definition of that moment when life loses meaning, when you cannot make head or tail of what it means to be alive.he death of Slydon Chari last Sunday was a reminder of the tenuous bond we have with this world. That it is hollow, pointless and vain to have enemies in the short period we call life.he death of Slydon Chari last Sunday was a reminder of the tenuous bond we have with this world. That it is hollow, pointless and vain to have enemies in the short period we call life.
It was the abruptness of his departure, the absence of a goodbye, that made Slydon’s passing all the more unbelievable, unrealistic, and to an extent, appear to be a living lie.
Shattering indeed. More so when one considers that this happened a few hours short of his 57th birthday.
I will not talk of his childhood days in Highfield, where he attended Kudzanai Primary School, nor of his Fletcher High School days. Because I wasn’t part of that period.
Nor of his experiences in Korea, which he seemed never keen to share or let anyone know about.
Rather I will talk of the 25 years that I knew him.
I knew him from the early ‘90s, 1993 to be specific, when I joined Zimpapers. We were together in the Technical Department; him in the Readers’ Box alongside Lynn Zvikaramba, Patience Mambo, Conway Tutani, Stella Chandipa and a host of others; and myself in the paste-up side with Washington Gwanzura, Tendekai Muzanenhamo, Mary Chareka, and Evans Gwendere, again among a host of other names.
Then in 1998 Zimpapers undertook a massive computerisation programme, codenamed Operation Munhenga, which saw many departments collapsed within Herald House and merged.
Some had to be laid off.
Because of Operation Munhenga, Slydon Chari, Johannes Mutyanda and myself found a new home at The Sunday Mail on the sub-editors’ desk, then headed by the highly affable Chris Mutseyekwa and deputised by Nyasha Dzimunwe. The other member of that desk was Memory Joe.
The six of us formed a closely-knit family unit.
Two years later, after graduating at Harare Polytechnic, I was to leave the sub-editors’ desk and move into The Sunday Mail newsroom but that “movement” was technically on paper as I would interact with the subs on a daily basis.
Mr Mutseyekwa was to be promoted to Assistant Editor of the paper, leaving “Sekuru” Nyasha to lead the desk, deputised by Slydon.
And when Nyasha left Zimpapers for South Africa, Uncle Sly became the Chief Sub-editor of The Sunday Mail.
Even when the sub-editors desk at Herald House were converged, with him being charged with the design and layout of weeklies — The Sunday Mail, Kwayedza and The Manica Post, which meant being moved from our floor to one below — we remained in constant touch.
It is not possible to produce any edition of this paper without interacting with the Chief Sub-Editor.
Besides that, we were forced to interact by duty, we shared that same umbilical cord from our Technical Department days and thus we shared any gossip that we thought worth sharing, however, petty. So it was with some profound sense of shock that Uncle Sly to many at Herald House, and Makeyi to me, didn’t share his illness. Or maybe just like we all do when we get that bout of coughing, we feel there is no need to raise alarm.
Maybe he thought he would make it back to work after the extended weekend. But that was not to be.
As the rest of the country was preparing to make a return to work, Makeyi was being laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon.
But if the news of Slydon’s passing away shocked me — just like it did to most of us last Sunday — reality finally sank in on Thursday morning when I walked into the subs-editors’ pool.
Slydon’s desk is right by the entrance and there stood his chair, empty waiting for him to come back. There was his desk, empty, waiting for the week’s pages. There was his computer, switched off, never to be logged into by him again.
I shed a tear.
The jokes that we shared all these years were over, the laughter, the gossip (Makeyi was a huge gossip and a highly talented one as well. If I wanted the “latest” in the building, I knew where to go) and the shouting back and forth over newspaper articles was all over.
If there are any lessons to be drawn from the 57 very short years that fate would have us with Slydon, it should be the humble realisation that there is no need to look down on any soul. That we should share the little time we have on Mother Earth with the outmost respect, love and humility without any need for being showy, full of hate or pain.
The death of Slydon Chari is a sad and painful reminder that we are just sitting in a transit lounge, that we are not here permanently.
It is a stark reminder that we don’t control our lives, that there is a force mightier than us up there, a force so mighty that it calls time on us at any time.
So long, Makeyi.
Who, tell me, will I share that Murphy twins joke — our favourite joke — with now?
