Benefits of Masking

 I am sure you are fed up with the mask business-wearing them all the time you are out, unless you happen to be in Biden-land.

But there are several plus points ( I am not calling them positives, for obvious reasons)-

1. You don't have to see faces that you don't like.

2. You can't understand what anyone is saying. earlier, this was limited to your teachers, but now almost everyone is included. (If indoor masking was made compulsory, husbands would be at peace, and kids too, from their wives' and mothers' orders respectively.) 

3. You can ignore what bosses told you at work, claiming you mis-heard them. 

4. Emails may become the way forward, due to masked Zoom meetings of your Teams.

5. Last but not the least, You give terrorists a complex, by taking away their U.S.P. 

Maskhari

 The word is legit, and used in Hindi, and Marathi without the h, to mean clowning around- as a verb. The context here is a bit more specific though. I am concentrating on the mask part- the prolonged use of it, in times of the pandemic, and some possible consequences. Imaginary or real!

Imagine a newborn who has seen the parents masked all along, for the first two years of his life. When they take the mask off, does he scream and try to run away from his 'kid'nappers? Possible, if he has learnt to run.

Say, a lovey-dovey couple fell in love while wearing masks. After the masks come off, will they still love each other like they used to, or "face up" to the fact that they don't like what they see? 

Another couple, living with masks, discover that they exchanged partners while walking out of a grocery store, inadvertently, and lived together for a year. What do they do now, after the pandemic ends?

The boss may not recognise his employees, and vice-versa. Imagine Marketing chaps reporting to the H.R. head, or worse, finance heads in organisations! (I am biased, yes). Or, a boss reporting to his subordinate? A dream come true, I might add, for many.

You may get the wrong guy/gal sitting in the Chief Minister's chair, and discover the mistake after two years! 

On the positive side, you don't have to look at faces that you don't like. On the negative side, you can't look at the ones you liked, either. This is a balanced view, just in case you didn't notice.

Clouds and More

I like shooting the clouds from the window of a plane. Living in the cloud is not the prerogative of data alone. We can temporarily enjoy The Cloud too. On a recent flight, these are from the Eastern parts of India-

 and these masks are displays at Kolkata airport..above and below.

 This is the view from the escalator (below) while transiting.