In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Composition No (2)
Describing People
His real name is Saleh, but his friends are used to calling him “Daf” as a nickname after a vehicle called (DAF). The reason behind this nickname is that he is extraordinarily stout- as big as that vehicle.
In fact, he is a young handsome man. Although he is just below 30 years old, his stature erroneously and deceivingly suggests that he is above 50 years old. This misleading estimation of his age is due to his being quite fat as to weigh 90 kilogrammes, besides his being 6 feet tall. He is of brown colour, with black thick and long hair that descends to his neck; he has got broad shoulders, and slightly blue cunning eyes that seem to pierce the interiors of any person he looks at, and to cast intelligent and unfailing scrutiny. His thick moustache depicts a stern character. Generally speaking, and owing to his simplicity of character, his facial countenance is liable to translate itself into visible symptoms of being sad, merry, or furious, depending on his existing temperament.
He is a Sudanese who has descended from the Jaaleen Tribe dwelling in Shendi, north of Sudan. However, he is from the late generation who do not have three vertical scars on the cheeks- as it was an ancient tradition of this tribe. He belongs to a prosperous family whose members possess abundant wealth gathered from farming, exporting sheep herds and having a transport company of at least 25 buses travelling to various regions of the country.
His cleverness, tolerant temperament, and his endurance to tough work environment have made him responsible for personnel office in his father’s transport company. All people in this company love him very much, and they unanimously objected to his being transferred to another post when it was once suggested by his father.
It might be this wealth, together with his views about marriage, that made him get married to three wives. He always argues with his fiends insisting on his opinion that polygamy is better than monogamy. Paradoxically, in spite of having three wives, he has got only two sons and one daughter from his first wife. The other two wife are, unfortunately, sterile; and consequently, they haven’t given birth to any baby.
He is humorous and open-minded, and he loves his kids very much. It might be to these nice parental characteristics that we can ascribe his kind treatment to his sons and daughter. When you see them together, you think that four colleagues- not a father and his three children- are playing friendly. His hobby is reading poetry; and he could inculcate in his kids the same hobby. It is very amusing to see them all engage in a hot competition in which each of them works hard to compose a poetic verse that begins with the letter of the previous rhythmic end.
Moreover, he is a very pious Muslim who is keen on performing the specified daily religious rituals such as saying prayers. Nonetheless, he is not that fanatic whose beliefs are too rigid to accept opposing views. He believes that there is a wide religious scope and diverse exegesis to Islamic Jurisprudence as to embrace different mutually controversial opinions that can peacefully co-exist in Islamic thought.
As a businessman aspiring to get prestige in business, he exerts every effort to enhance his commercial status through his being, honest, competent and enduring hard labour.
Further and foremost, in respect of politics, he does not hold any specific views, and he is not affiliated to any political party. His motto is that everyone has to be sincerely committed to the social, economic, cultural or political field one is proficient in, and to leave other fields and specialties for their experts.
Unfortunately, my friend Saleh Daf has got a serious demerit. Every now and then he has got fits and starts of melancholy attitude towards life. He is sometimes so pessimistic that he feels that all life is going wrong, and that people love him just because they aspire to get some financial utilities from him. It might be a mere symptom of psychological depression resulting from his obsession of being haunted by hypocrisy shown by some people around him in the company. Nevertheless, he sometimes dismisses these pessimistic views, and tries to regain balance of character.
It is this realistic human trait of strength and weakness that makes me admire him.