THE NOXIOUS WEED

By Rabia Ahmed   
Printed Pakistan Today 
09 April 2012

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/?p=176736

                                                                                  
Cell phones ring everywhere they mustn’t     


Well it’s finally happened. A teenager has sold, not his mother, but a bit of himself which comes to the same thing, to buy an iPhone and iPad. Master Wong of China, now suffering from kidney failure was all of seventeen when he underwent a resection of one of his perfectly healthy kidneys. For this working organ he was paid the equivalent of $3,500 in Yuan.

The middle man who recruited him off an online chat room on behalf of illegal organ traders was paid ten times as much for his services. Such, sadly, is the disproportionate importance of this electronic device.

They have their undoubted advantages – I certainly couldn’t be without mine – but cell phones, like weeds, can be as unwelcome and noxious as their botanical counterparts.

For someone who has been away since shortly after Alexander Graham Bell’s death, it is one of the major changes in this country that every man in Pakistan now possesses a cellular phone. It is common for a rairi-wallah’s dhoti to burst into sudden and fervent praise of the Almighty, a signal for him to pull out his cell phone and indulge in loud and raucous conversation with whomever at the other end. Cyclists use phones to while away the ride, teenagers to reinforce their nonchalance, yuppies and their fathers to establish their financial worth, and a woman to keep track of every ant that crosses her path.

The cellular phone’s intrusive range extends from the sublime to the ridiculous because of its ability to reach people anywhere, from a place of worship to a bathroom.

At theatre productions in spite of repeated requests by management, Qari Waheed Zafar’s bell-like tones interrupt the punch line or the Sabri brothers cause performers to veer off note with their vociferous rendition of “Tajdar e Haram.” Cell phones ring in the midst of dinners and school lectures and everywhere else they mustn’t.

To give credit to young girls and boys, their phones are generally accessible and easily switched off, for the simple reasons that they use them so much, and know how to use them.

But of older women (the most common offenders), few know or bother to turn their phone off even when they must. A woman’s phone generally rings from the depths of a voluminous bag, the local dress code for some reason barring women from possessing pockets. It takes a couple of rings for the fact to register with the owner, who then tries to ignore it.

No ma’am, the phone will not stop ringing by itself, at least not for a while, and yes we know it’s yours, since the bag making that racket is resting on your knee. So a couple of rings later, she dives into the bag and throws out its contents: some lipsticks, several keys, a diary, a wallet, a tissue or two and a packet of something expired. The phone, retrieved, promptly falls silent.

If, however, the owner manages to reach the phone in time she rarely leaves the room before speaking in a voice that registers anywhere on the scale between Waheed Zafar to Sabri: in a stage whisper (‘tell him to take the Merc, not the BMW’), a sibilant hiss in the midst of a quiet room, or in booming tones in the middle of a funeral.

There are some things which ought to be taught at a mother’s knee, or at least in a class room: that Jinnah was not a Muslim saint is one and that you never enter a house from the ‘backside’ is another. Yet another is cell phone etiquette, a crucial aspect of decent manners.

Cell phones were not around at the time, but had they been, there may have been a section nine of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi’s ‘Bahishti Zewar’,all about cell phones and how and when to use them: instructions for pious women and their offspring. As it is, in her article on the subject of cell phone etiquette in the Huffington Post, Bianca Bosker lists some important rules:

Speak softly in public and avoid private remarks. Keep at least ten feet between yourself and the nearest person when speaking in public. Avoid speaking or texting on the phone in the middle of a face to face conversation, or obtain your companion’s permission. Turn your phone to silent or vibrate in theatres and restaurants, and do not display a lighted phone screen in a dark space such as a cinema hall. To phone while driving is not a good idea and to text at the wheel potentially lethal.

Maulana Thanvi would approve.