Has the new been better than the old?

Asks Doreen Allotey


FROM the songs of old, we get the idea of what things used to be. The song, Serwaa Akoto, paints the picture of a lady with remarkable beauty who would not raise her voice in public, how much more wash her dirty linen there. She is a symbol of what society expected the ideal woman to be at that time. The call for affirmative action, gender equality and mainstreaming were obviously not so dominant at that time.
From A. B. Crentsil’s song, Juliana, we get the idea of how men used to woo ladies. The approach was not so direct. They could call the lady they wanted, and try to strike acquaintance by mistaking their semblance for that of their sister and then go on to admire their beauty all the same. What the response to that formula used to be was: “I will think about it”. Now it is more direct. “I love you.” Just like that, in the face. No beating about the bush and gradually women are getting bolder and assertive enough to see men and go after them.
Before this phenomenon, we even had arranged marriages where a family decided for a girl, who her husband was to be, did an introduction and then married them off. Sometimes the marriage was aimed at creating a stronger bond between both families for historical reasons, other times it was for the economic reason of keeping the family wealth within the family. In this case, we could have cousins getting married etc. etc. This is not common anymore.
The classic movie, I told you so is a great one. This film is normally shown on Independence Day. Apart from making meaning of the saying: All that glitters is not gold, we get the opportunity to see the fashion of those times, different kinds of wigs, kerb and slit , ear rings etc. Interestingly, some of them are very much in vogue today. Fashion just revolves and comes back with little variations. Still it will be very surprising if the hair style “Shark “ and “Bushy” or “Afro”, make a strong come back even though we spot them among the very common low haircuts or “Sweat” which have dominated the scene for quite a long time now.
The movies of old show how man’s greatest companion today— the telephone — without which life would be nightmarish for many, has evolved. From 1876 when it was invented in Boston by Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone has gone through several transformations with the aim of making it more portable and stylish with a clearer sound quality. At a point in its evolution, people had to wind the phones like is done to the corn mill machine, all that effort to make a call at a stipulated time, and the ringing tone was deafening. Now there are all kinds of ringing tones especially for cell phones with some sounding like a whole orchestra while others mimic the sounds of animals, wow, meow and moo. Interestingly, these sounds now seem so irritating to some matured ears that they prefer to keep the cell phone permanently on silent with only the vibration on to alert them or a beep. Others have gone back from the different high tech sounds of night club music to the grriiiiiiing griiiiiiiing reminiscent of Charlie Chaplain days.
The refrigerator also arrived to gradually displace the cooler which was made of clay. Mechanical refrigeration became widespread during the 1920s but obviously much later in Ghana. Water from the cooler was a delicacy; it was so nice because of the smoky flavour effected by placing the cooler over burning palm fruit husks before being filled with water.
There have also been changes in the way music is played. The first practical gramophone was invented in 1877 by the great American inventor, Thomas A. Edison. However, earlier that year, a Frenchman, Charles Cros, had drawn up a plan for a similar machine. Cros’s gramophone never advanced beyond the planning stage any way.
In modern times the Compact Disc (CD) has been the in thing; Sleek and portable than the record which was quite big and heavy too. For a while, CDs made records look very unwanted. Now there are homes with a thousand and one CDs which cannot be played because they are full of scratches and they just freeze during play. During the days of records, we could change the speed from 33 to 45 and 75 . We could lift the pin and move it to the song we wanted to play. And we could still pile up the records and watch them drop one after the other for continuous play. The audio cassette which is becoming extinct enabled us to turn front and back, side A and side B. We could rewind front and back on the cassette player or even twirl on our finger or a pen to forward or rewind. If there was some damage to a part, we could cut the damaged part and mend it with cellotape and then back to play.
Watching us go front and back through many transformations prompts the question: Has the new necessarily been better than the old?