She is beautiful

And therefore to be woo’d,

She is woman,

Therefore to be won.

— Shakespeare, 1 Henry, VI,V,3

AND that is the mantra of the gyalis, ergo the girls’ man, the ladies’ man, the cocksman, the village ram, Mr Lover Lover. He goes by many names, but his modus operandi is the same, with some minor variations. His goal in life is to wine, dine, and then w’ine as many women as he can, and he will stop at nothing in his pursuit of happiness.

So many women, so little time, and like the Pied Piper he will have a wide assortment trailing behind as they dance to his beat. Tall ones, short ones, slim ones, fat ones, pretty ones, rich ones, poor ones… they all follow him. He is loved by women, but feared, yet admired in a grudging way by most men who wish that they could share even a bit of his good fortune.

The gyalis has no moral fibre, no sense of honour, no loyalty, no obligation, and no remorse when it comes to dealing with women. Neither does he have any guilt, for he comes, he sees, and he conquers. He then moves on to the next conquest with consummate ease, with not even a thought of the last one’s feelings.

He’s a gyalis, and he has various ways of winning women that mortals can only dream of. Oh yes, his qualities may seem to rival those of the Greek gods of love, and he goes where angels fear to tread.

Who is the gyalis? We’ll find out right after these responses to ‘Chrissmus already’.

Hi Tony,

I can’t say that I enjoy Christmas today as much as I did in my youth. Commercialisation has taken over the season, and today’s young people expect the latest electronic gifts such as iPads, iPhones, XBox and computers. As a very young boy, I looked forward to getting a cowboy set on Christmas morning from under a real Christmas tree that was colourful with pepper light bulbs and decorations. We would set off fireworks and firecrackers after breakfast. Those simple but wonderful days are long gone, but not forgotten. Call me nostalgic.

Wickham

Hey Teerob,

I enjoyed your Christmas theme and I agree that Christmas seems to have lost a lot of its true meaning, except by a few, especially the older folks among us. Most youngsters just see the season as a time of wanton spending and getting gifts that they’ll discard in a short time for a newer model.

How many of them attend church, how many of them know the story of the nativity, how many of them have even opened a Bible? It’s all about what they get, and who gives it to them. Yes, Christmas has come and gone, but so have the values that made it special in years gone by.

Hyacinth

It’s every man’s dream to have many women, either all at one time or over a period of time. Right, say it isn’t so. Men who have squired many women in their lifetime, either having a string of beauties at their beck and call, or perhaps having them consecutively, as in sequential monogamy when they have a different one every four months, are respected, revered, admired and romanticised. Even women hold such men in awe and respect, even though they would never admit it publicly. Those men are the stuff that legends are made of…. and songs, too. ‘Young man yu too girly girly,’ by Sophia George, springs to mind, ‘You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you,’ by Carly Simon, and Smooth Operator, by Sade. I cannot recall hearing a song about a man who had no women.

Kings, sultans, emperors are measured by the size of their harems, and the potentate with the most women will go down in history as a great gyalis. The irony is, men who have many women, or have had many women, will always get other women. No woman wants a man who no other woman wants.

“That damn man is a womaniser, yu nuh, I’ll have nothing to do with him…. How come he hasn’t looked my way or called me?” That’s the irony, even as women berate the gyalis publicly, they are often miffed if he doesn’t give them the time of day. That’s because hell hath no fury like a woman spurned, even if she’s spurned by a gyalis.

He has an appeal that attracts women to him like a moth to a flame. Just check out how many women are drawn to their best friend’s men, even though that best friend complains how wild the man is.

But the gyalis has to know how to play the game, for the crude, overt womaniser, the boorish, clumsy clod, the loudmouth guy who treats women like chattel and boasts about his conquests will have little success with women. The gyalis has to be smooth, discrete, stealthy like a submarine, so that the woman doesn’t know that she’s being stalked, pursued, hunted, snared and captured. That’s the skill of the gyalis.

The gyalis makes every woman feel as if she’s special. As long as he’s in her company she is a queen, and nothing else in the world matters. “Baby, I only have eyes for you, you mean the world to me.” As corny as that may sound, the gyalis knows how to manoeuvre his words to suit each conquest. He caters to all the different types and plays his cards to suit different games. He is all things to all women.

He has to exude confidence and power, for faint heart ne’r win fair maiden, and power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Women are drawn to men of power. There are far more gyalis in politics, the corporate world, as CEOs, top-flight deejays and singers than there are in low-level paying jobs.

Even the clergy is not exempt, as up to a few weeks ago I saw this headline about a gyalis pastor who was having too much fun with his flock. There have been numerous stories of gyalis preachers. The mind is willing and the flesh is strong.

The gyalis has to be able to bend the truth and have a good memory to stick to the various tales that he weaves to different women. He also has to be smooth with his stories, for if he interjects with too many ahms, ooohs, ahems and ohs, he’ll appear to be lying. But the bottom line is, a gyalis has to be a liar. “It wasn’t me, baby, it wasn’t me.”

A gyalis has to have strength of cash, for when it comes to women, it takes cash to care. I have never heard of a bruk-pocket, walk-foot gyalis. Let the gyalis hide his SUV and approach a woman and see her reaction: “I beg your pardon, you certainly couldn’t be addressing me… yu must be pass yu place.” But let him meet that same woman at a social event where he just finished giving the keynote address and see her response.

Yes, the gyalis comes in all shapes and forms, but the greatest trick that he has is to let people believe that he’s not a gyalis.

A gyalis has no conscience and no guilt, and all women are fair game, so lock up your daughters and your wives. It matters not that she’s single, his good friend’s girl, his neighbour’s daughter or even his best friend’s wife, the gyalis will have no qualms about it. Back to the ‘You’re so Vain’ song, where the line says, “You’re with the wife of a close friend, wife of a best friend.” The gyalis, immortalised in song.

Nobody respects or remembers a man who has not had his fair share of women. No mother wants to know that her son is 19 and does not have a girlfriend. No woman wants to know that her husband never sowed his wild oats and she’s the first and last woman in his life. Still, there’s the hypocrisy that says, be celibate, sow no wild oats, take time with women, yet glorifies the exploits of the gyalis.

Yet the gyalis has to stop at some point, hang up his boots, tether his steed. But at least he can live on his memories. More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: Playwright Basil Dawkins has done it again. Every time I think that our rich Jamaican theatre can’t get better, I am proven wrong. My God Don’t Wear Pajamas is the title, but don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the name. What it means, essentially, is that God nah sleep, as we often say in Jamaica, and He often rights the wrongs and evil that we humans do. The play is brilliant and delves into the old adage that blood is thicker than water and how people can squabble over ‘dead leff’ things.

I won’t give the plot away, but I will say that the script, directing and acting are stunning. We are so fortunate to be blessed with such a rich culture of the arts and theatre, and I do wish that more Jamaicans would support this aspect of our lives. There is such a wide variety to choose from and I try to see them all.

I must say though, that My God Don’t Wear Pajamas was spellbinding and once again shows how gifted our Jamaican writers, actors and directors are. Where would our world be without the arts?