Life Lessons from Swine-Flu

1) Panic is more contagious than flu virus: In a nation of a billion, and an increasingly violent one, 20 deaths shouldn't worry anyone. But it does and we are suddenly a nation of mask wearers.

2) Everyone and Baba Ramdev has an opinion: Baba Ramdev, in his usual inane way, declared Swine-Flu could be cured by yoga. Even that brash up-start Sri Ravi Shankar (of Art of Living fame) declared it could be cured by Ayurveda.

3) News channels can be critical and silly at the same time: Swine-Flu panic was created by News channels, period. But they can also hold a debate of whether 'we' are over-reacting. In reality it is 'they' who over-react, create a panic and then try to be critical.

Urban legends : The Swine-Flu Chapter

There's a reason why UFO sightings and alien landing happen only in the U.S. For the same reason my neighbours' Ganesh statues started consuming milk a few months after the advent of Cable TV. It is also the same reason those characters in Delhi-6 claimed to see Kaala Bunder ("We saw him. He's invisible."). Swine-flu too finds victims only in metros, not in remote villages or sleepy small towns. This urban legend, like its predecessors, is a news broadcaster's wet dream.

Ofcourse we are all worried of Swine-Flu. But we also fail to ask if those construction workers building plush up-market apartments wear the same masks, if the servant maid living in a city slum uses hand-cleansing lotion. Sorry, in our middle-class world of "Daddy-knows-best" and arranged marriages, the only thing that can disturb our lives is a damn flu virus.

Symptoms of Swine-Flu Paranoia:

1) You wear a mask.
2) You wash your hands obsessively every few minutes.
3) Walk away from anyone who sneezes or coughs.
4) Apply weird lotions with vodka-like odour.
5) You feel a little feverish, with body pains (Or you are just bored with work.)
6) You read too much Times of India and watch Indian news channels.