The Secret behind the Silver Locket

By Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana

Like the Transit of Venus eclipse, a rare Indy-Afro love relationship bearing all the hallmarks of the famed William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet story was witnessed in a small town somewhere in Africa.
Kumar, an Indian expatriate's son, and Binta, a local African blacksmith's daughter, fell into a serious love relationship.
While the wider society was in awe of that relationship, Kumar and Binta's fathers didn't approve of it, citing irreconcilable religious differences.
To avoid the constant scrutiny of their love by their fathers, the lovebirds spontaneously decided to elope to an unplanned and unknown destination. It turned out to be a very nightmarish decision they took because every minute into that elopement was hell.
They returned home a feuding couple, but still had the spring in their eyes and autumn in their hearts for each other.
Frustrated that they could not douse that blazing love flame between the two lovers, Binta's father disowned her and sent her packing out of his house. Kumar's father too threatened to send him back to India for good.
In his disenchantment to see his sweetheart, Kumar indulged himself in an unthinkable act. Binta later suffered a long protracted illness because of that.
Narrated by a rookie author, Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana has perfectly chronicled the events of the love between Kumar and Binta, as he knew them and their families.
Even the Silver Locket, the epitome of the story was something he constantly saw around the neck of Binta, but could never guess the secret behind it until several years later.
The story of Kumar and Binta is not the first and certainly will not be the last of its kind, but it can serve as a reminder to young couples in a similar relationship to remain circumspect when dealing with their love in taboo-breaking circumstances.
They should be cautious, and not naively reckless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana
• Release date: Nov 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005053000

Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana

Shemouna Sulemana was born in 1958 at Tamale, in Ghana. He is the sixth child in a family of 39 children.Growing up in such a large family was a very tough challenge, so he combined his school duties with hawking candies after school hours to support his mother financially.By the age of 24, he graduated with a BSc in Administration (Accounting) from the University of Ghana, Legon.He has worked extensively as an Accountant in Europe and the United Arab Emirates, officially retiring in 2019.Not intending to let his brains retire alongside his body, he decided to start writing, which is a hidden talent in him. The positive comments he received after he started blogging for a sports website pushed him further to start writing a book, the first being The Secret behind the Silver Locket.He has written two other books which are yet to be published.He enjoys reading, playing scrabble with friends on weekends, travelling, and helping raise funds for a Non-Governmental Organisation dealing with widows and orphans.He is married with children.

Book preview

THE SECRET BEHIND

THE SILVER LOCKET

by

Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana

Copyright © 2021 First Edition

THE SECRET BEHIND THE SILVER LOCKET

ISBN 978-9988-3-2367-7

By

Shemouna Goldhill Sulemana

All Rights Reserved

This book must not be reproduced in part or whole in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author

Cover Design :

Zag Designs

Editor : -

Sheikh Dr Seebaway Zakaria

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology

(KNUST)

Author's Contact Address

P. O. Box CT 4255 Cantonments

Accra - Ghana

Tel : [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

This book is dedicated

to my daughter,

Suad 'Sweetie’ Shemouna.

She is such a bundle of inspiration.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

In the house of Mba Tampuli

Bungalow Number 4

Early Romance

The fading Light

Double Trouble

The ill-fated trip

In the wild

The silhouette

Disaster Strikes

Binta at Crossroads

Haunted by Ghosts

The Silver Locket

Was it really Kumar?

About the Author

FOREWORD

When the author of this book sent me a message asking me to edit, and also write a foreword to a book he had written, I initially thought he had sent it to the wrong person.

My main reason for thinking like that was because, knowing him to be a retired Accountant, I thought the book had something to do with Accountancy, a subject I studied earlier in high school but was not enthused about.

It was only after he sent me the full script to be read did I acknowledge the seriousness of his message.

My first impression of it was how well-titled it was. Flipping through it and reading the chapter headings too further aroused my inquisitiveness.

I have known the author for close to four decades. We happened to be roommates at the University of Ghana, Legon. While he pursued a degree in Accounting, I pursued mine in the Humanities.

It is interesting to note that, during our time at the University, I remember, back then, that he was addicted to reading novels, spending much of his weekly food stamp allowances to buy novels from the university bookshop. But he never showed any sign of his writing prowess.

I was an amateur poet then. I used to read aloud the poems that I wrote, and together, we discussed them. He gave me a lot of encouragement and suggestions to improve upon it.

Years later, I am now a Senior Lecturer at a major university and the author of several Children's books.

After graduation, we never lost touch, even living close to each other at a point in time. We were now more than former roommates. We were a family.

Our closeness never ceased when he left the country for several years. We maintained regular contact through snail mail, keeping track of each other's progress.

Coming from someone that I knew to be practising Accounting all his life, the surprise I got from reading the book was massive. There was not much to edit because he had virtually done it himself.

From the very first sentence to the end of the first paragraph, I already found myself on a roller coaster ride down a rabbit hole. By the end of the chapter, I was in love with the story.

The whole plot, its atmosphere, the conflict, the dilemma and the suspense oozed simply left me bewitched. Once I started, I never wanted to stop until I finished reading it.

While reading the story, I felt I was reading Romeo and Juliet by the celebrated William Shakespeare albeit being ably adapted and recast with an Indian Romeo and an African Juliet.

Without a doubt, the main characters, Kumar and Binta's love relationship was genuine. Their decision to elope shows how far they were willing