The Mask

I simply love my city. Mumbai. The day my city too made it to the news for Swine Flu, changed our lives. While the rest of the world is looking for masks ranging from the official N95 to the locally made or the Made in China version us Mumbaikars wasted no time. Like any regular native my day begins in a local train here. I witnessed the change. At our railway stations we are now armored and ready. Like a shield made in pure iron ore we are wearing our handkerchiefs. As we are known to be the busiest city, we don’t get time for such mundane tasks. Our handkerchiefs look pale shade of yellow as we wear them on our nose. Some of these poor pieces of cloths were maybe kept safely in our trunks somewhere deep down for this day to arrive. Like the riffle kept deep down somewhere, to be found and used only in case of need; these scarves/ handkerchiefs are taken out now.

Women in Mumbai have come up with an even better option. This included me too on one of these days. Why carry 2 pieces of cloths? Duppatta is a multipurpose device. One uses it to dry wet hands, bandage wounds ( as shown in bollywood) and now to warp it around one’s nose. But personally, if I was to confess, I would say I have since the day I was introduced to this Duppatta have always believed that washing it as frequently as the dress is really not necessary or impossible in some cases. Some of these multicolored things need to be dry cleaned the first time. So one uses the dupatta atleast 4-5 times before washing it.

In the light of Swine flue we have become like the old monkey tale our Mothers told us when we were kids. One monkey throws the cap all follow the lead. In the ladies compartment one wears her mask all follow the lead. Some by holding the handkerchief to their nose, some by wrapping their all clean fingers around the nose and mouth and some by using their duppattas.

I am reminded of Jim Carrey and his mask. Imagine one mask with a whirlwind speed makes us super powerful against the flu named Swine Flu!