Witerati | Hides of March

“Old habits die hard

“Old habits die hard.” This adage may have been coined in times when certain “Ms” did not consume our vocabulary. Masks. Microbes. Millennials.

Much of whining India was quick to abandon and discard masks the moment the third wave died a natural death. (Representative Image/HT File)

Much of whining India was quick to abandon and discard masks the moment the third wave died a natural death. In breaking news bulletins. As it was overtaken by the sound and fury of war clouds, be they of the ballot or bullet. In Punjab, the war clouds eclipsing the wave had to do with the poll, in the Russian region, they were more about polarisation.

Of Masks & Mamus

This has spelt the death-knell of New Normal’s sartorial emblem - the mask.

Alas, old habits can be like old books, overused books. Just as in the case of done-to-death books, one may try hard to shove old habits to the back shelves of our being. Ah, but they keep popping back like a musty cover toppling out of the closet and landing bang onto your skull.

The other day, when a couple of us friends were driving down for an outing, the traffic lights looming ahead had us all exercising out carpal tendons into a reflex action.

Though the government orders had been relaxed and masks were no longer mandatory while driving in the national Capital, all of us rummaged about in our handbags for this must-have.

Pronto, we clamped our mouths with retrieved masks, out of fear of being caught on cameras and being challaned by “Mamus”, aka traffic cops, even when the challan had been annulled. Thanks to this compulsive habit of the coronascape.

The curious case of Mask-less in Mehrauli.

Of Waves & #WFH

Another old habit, just as old as the pandemic, that looks hard to shake off is the addiction to #WFH.

Work From Home has become not only a way of life in the coronascape, but has got programmed into our system as that niggling hard-to-shake off habit.

So much like the television remote that is the mainstay for many a Couch Potato. ”Who the heck will go through the bother of pottering up to the idiot box when one can do all the small-screen surfing with the snap of the “remote”!

Ditto for #WFH. Who the heck would like to trudge to office when we’ve gotten into that bad habit of the office trudging home to us!

When an institute recently proffered one the option of continuing to conduct guest lectures from home or to come to the campus, the two-year old habit reasserted itself. One look at the cushy contours of the chaise lounge, and the fate of the #WFH habit was sealed.

The chaise lounge won the battle over the campus.

Now that the requiem of masked living has been scripted, the million-dollar question is: What to do with the household’s museum of masks?

Mousy-looking masks. Overused masks. Overwashed masks. Overaged masks. Masks manifesting a mid-life crisis. Simply because they were bought in the middle of the Third Wave, and now belong neither here nor there.

To hide them or to dump them, till Dearth (of Waves) Do Us Part.

The Curious Case of Hides of March.

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