Achoo! Excuse me

And are you excused? No, sir, in these H1N1 ridden days, you are not excused at all if you perform the sneezing act in full public view. So punishing is the accusing glare you get in return of a sneeze that you are tempted to learn sneezing inwards.

Two Hindi idioms are vying with each other in my mind today, each claiming to be a better describer of the situation these days. I had first decided to choose one of them, but on second thoughts, here come both, each presenting a different standpoint.

One goes – ‘doodh ka jala chhachh bhi phook phook ke peeta hai’ (someone whose got burnt by drinking hot milk will carefully sip buttermilk as well). The other one is – ‘gehu ke saath ghun bhi pis jata hai’ (along with the wheat grain, the chaff may also get powdered in the hand mill).

The first one describes how we – the virus-phobics can get easily scared by an innocent allergic sneeze as well. The second one is from the point of view of the non-H1N1 microbes – since people are on a sanitizer drive, so many innocent microbes have to say goodbye to the earth as well.

So this is the situation in a nutshell – after the heroes –the plague and the small pox, it is time for the underdog influenza to rear its ugly head. I am reminded of Hrishikesh Mukherji’s ‘Anand’ yet again. Remember Anand’s dialogue – “These doctors give long names to simple diseases. If I tell you I have a common cold you are not likely to be impressed, but if I name a long-winding title like say, ‘lympho-sarcoma of the nose’, it will appear to you as being something grand.” It is essentially the name of the fictitious disease that is striking me. It is indeed lympho-sarcoma of the nose and the upper respiratory track – this swine of a disease.

The better half of the world – Mr. America – might have come up with a vaccine against the viral monster, but who knows the tiny tot will not mutate under our noses before the first batch of the vaccine is dispatched?

Then what is the answer to it? A total shut down? Public information boards like ‘No sneezing or coughing’ or ‘Sneezing in public is injurious to health’ on cross-roads? Ayurveda and Homeopathy? Baba Ramdev’s yog-sadhna? The N-95 masks and the 70% Iso-propyl alcohol based sanitizers? A hope that the virus mutates itself into oblivion?

Try your might, Homo sapiens, the H1N1 is here to stay. Just hope for a globally warmed winter this year.