by
Obododimma Oha
One thing that is noteworthy in the highlife music of great ones like Osita Osadebe and Oliver de Coque is the couching of messages in proverbs. As such, the music provokes deep reflection and could be highly memorable. One of such proverbs popularized by the highlife music of Oliver de Coque is "Oke soro ngwere maa mmiri, ọ kọọ ngwere, ọ ga-akọkwa oke?" (If the rat follows the lizard to move around in the rain, if the body of the lizard dries later, would that of the rat dry too?). Couched as a rhetorical question, the proverb addresses mindless imitation and condemns it. Is it not ideal for counseling and especially on the human tendency to compare self with the other?
The rat wishes it were like the lizard with scales and able to dance in the rain. But it does not know that it is not that easy to be a lizard. It is, for instance, not easy to jump down from a high tree. It is not easy to kill a bellyache by lying face down all the time. It is not easy to be covered with scales as if one is prehistoric and even a monster. It is just not easy to be a lizard.
Who knows what the other might be facing and does not voice out? It could be terrible. Who knows how terrible this terrible situation really is? And so the rat should just think first and be content with rathood that it has got.
OK, look at this: last time, the ration of the lizards was in short supply because the ants were not streaming out of a hive, because it had not rained for a long while. The lizards had to eat hot pepper. Hot pepper! And drank no water afterwards. Which rat would be ready to do that? Please, my friend, it is not easy to be a lizard.
Dancing in the rain and getting waterproof dry might just be the beginning. There could be other terrible experiences waiting. Even the process of getting dry could be full of thorns and thirstles. So, the rat should just think and be satisfied with rathood.
And I hear that is how the Maker wants it. That is His preferrred aesthetics! No one has any choice in the matter. This not your distorted politics. Damp rathood or lizardry!
When you begin to think that lizardry is better when a rat, you are beginning to upset things and looking for trouble. Every condition of being is good, though experimental. Hairy and damp rathood is good. Scaly lizardry is good, too. But thinking one is better is trouble-making. My hand no dey!
Indeed, lizards in the rain are not really dancing. They are taking a risk, or rather, taking advantage of the rainstorm to look for food, hoping predators would not be abroad, too. Risk taking for food. Now, can any rat be willing to take that kind of risk?
But if one is on a rathood project,it is better for one to finish that project. Then, go over to lizardry and be ready for it, really ready. But, as warned before, lizardry itself is not easy. It is full of scales!
Lizardy is nakedness. No clothes. No shoes. No slippers. They just stay out, exposed there. Waiting for the sun to bake their backs. When the snakes are coming, they just have to run fast!
Now, you still want to be a lizard? Get ready! Prepare to receive scales and scare of slithering demons. Get ready.
Now you are talking about the headache of traps for rats. As if lizards are not sometimes trapped. Long tails and burdens you have to drag along and walk like Nebuchadnezzar forever! Long tails that they grab and you are lucky if you can drop yours and run for your dear life.
Have we forgottten the rainstorm and the shivering cold. Even the sneezing and the cough that make you look like a COVID-19 patient! Where my sanitizer? Anyway, it is always better for a rat to avoid the rain, what more joining the risk-bearer, Mr. Lizard, to dance in the rain. It is very risky.
You want to join the lizards in dancing in the rain? Do you know that some lizards are carnivorous and can even eat other lizards? I have seen it! Risky, very. That means that dancing in the rain with the lizard could be a dance of death. One could get some sharp bite! And the bite could be fatal.
O yes. That warns us about the need to apppreciate limits. For every creation, there are limits and there are limitations. It could be fatal to be a rat and want also to play the lizard. We are only prepared for what we are prepared.
The rat needs to see and appreciate that idea of having a rug over its flesh, a rug of rich hair. Oh, the lizard goes water-proof in the rain, but it is naked and exposed, stark naked. It is one thing to be able to dance in the rain and another thing to be covered. The rat has its own joy; the lizard, too.
Whenever I listen to that highlife tune that asks why the rat wants to dance in the rain along with the lizard, I know that tune is talking to me. It is not musicians boasting or indirectly gossipping. I know that I am being asked to appreciate what is given to me (as "suffering") and not have my eyes on other people, always. That thing is great, too, just great. Moreover, I have to use it and use it well.
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