AS I drove to the airport to drop my daughter, her husband, and twins, I felt a sadness, not entirely because they were leaving for distant shores, but because I saw numerous people on the roads, and even outside the airport, either without masks, or hanging them down round their necks like mangalsutras!
No dear sirs, they are not necklaces of freedom, when you hang them on your neck and not placed on your nose and mouth, but nooses of death! And for those who don’t wear them, a stint in jail till the vaccine is out should be made law! Making a mask mandatory is not infringing on your right to life, or freedom to do as you please, but the same as making murder a grave offence. When you don’t wear a mask, you either infect someone else, or you pick up the virus and gift it on a platter to some vulnerable family member, or others in the circle you mix in!
And those of you who wear a mask around your neck, what’s it for? Is it the same as keeping your helmet on your handlebar as you ride a motorbike and putting it on when you see a cop? Those are the same fools, who police vans pick up from roads, and know there’s no hurry to go to the hospital, delaying the journey to go straight to the morgue!
And then there are those who mechanically lower and raise their masks, like lowering or raising the tricolor on Independence Day. This, they say, is to make themselves audible or articulate, but dear sir or madam, this is as good as converting those mask free words into lethal bullets! This column I know is read by the educated, and it’s to you I say, that when you use such shortcuts, the rest of our uneducated citizens follow you! So, it’s not just a ‘murderer’ you are but a ‘serial killer’ by the numbers you have influenced to follow your murderous actions!
When the Prime minister talks about washing our hands, wearing a mask, and maintaining a social distance in public spaces, there are many who wonder why he doesn’t have more to offer. But the fact is, that till the vaccine comes these simple methods are 95% effective, and the miracle vaccine is also effective only 88% to 93% so when we already have a competent, capable and convincing system, why don’t we follow it?
It’s not just us: Even as I said goodbye to my family at the airport, and watched my little twins wearing their tiny masks, I knew they were flying to a country, the US where such foolish callous behaviour also exists, and I silently cried out above the roaring plane engines, “Stop murdering others you fools..!”
