By
Obododimma Oha
My father, who died more than twenty years ago, did not own a phone, what more a mobile type. If we were to bring him up from the spiritworld for him to see my mobile phone, he would surely be surprised and may ask me: "From where did you get this powerful charm? Imagine, I can see and talk with someone in Lagos!" Are you surprised that my late father is surprised?
This powerful charm is admirable. Instead of sending a town crier to beat the gong and walk from one end of the village to the other, one activates the charm!
The powerful charm could become a classroom! Wonders shall never end. That means everywhere the charm is found is turned to a classroom! That is good. A classroom could even be a palm wine seller's grove. Does it matter? Wonders shall really never end.
So, the teacher could even teach from a toilet! Wonderful!
Indeed, the future is greater. The moment can be great but should not wrestle with tomorrow for greatness. There may be disappointments and lapses in" now, " but that is even why we should fight to protect tomorrow. It must not be pulled backwards. It must remain wiser than its teachers.
" Echi dị ime," says an Igbo proverb. Tomorrow is pregnant. And nobody knows what it would give birth to. Maybe a mobile phone. A powerful charm! Maybe something even more surprising.
My late father should be familiar with what is called "ịkụ waya" (sending a telegram, but literally "planting a wire") in Igbo. Mobile phone may be "ịkụ waya" of a different sort. But there is no wire, or maybe it is hidden. This powerful charm is complicated!
That powerful charm is really very powerful. Imagine how it arrests that person and the fellow is talking loud and gesticulating, as if crazy, as if the other person in communication is right there.
Young people no longer hold or read books. No, they hold the powerful charm. They are sleeping, charm. They are walking on the road, charm. They are in church, charm. They are anywhere and nowhere, charm!
COVID-19 has provided an excuse. Virtual class. Not more physical class. So, you want the teacher to cough? The class would suddenly end!
Do not mind them, father. It is still a powerful charm. And many have been touched and are now different people. Can't you see that wife who says she is cooking? She will dish out missed calls and ring tones. Can't you see that driver driving and texting? He will soon kill his passengers. And even that doctor on a patient. Is he patient with her or waiting for a call? No wonder his nurse injects overdose to hurry back and continue a chat. A patient is treating a patient. The powerful charm is really very powerful!
Father did not live to see the mobile phone. That also means not being formatted for the strange kind of life that goes with mobile phone technology.
But there is something very funny in the use of the powerful charm. Some people may be in France and lie that they are in Australia. Somebody in a bush may claim that he has just left a shopping mall. Lying like fish!
Computer criminals and con artists have found accommodation here. The criminals call you and, believing that they are in hiding, lie that they are relatives calling from London. That is the way of a new world!
But, come to think of it. It is good to be somewhere that is nowhere. It is good to be somewhere that is another place else. It is new life in a new world. Mobile phone is nowhere. That is the future that is now.
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