To Mask, Or Not To Mask?

‘Face masks have been rendered real gold. Everyone wants one — from homemade to industrial.’

It’s day 7 of quarantine and Fight-468th with my co-confinees. You in India are about to find out how this endless, intimate living with loved ones brings to the surface decades old unresolved issues (which are, circumstantially, no longer relevant in the world we’re living in, but the irritable me is not in the mood to be rational). However, this piece is not about inner demons having a field day behind closed doors. There will be enough time and material for that, seeing that I am part of an (un-opted for) indefinite, global live experiment.

Instead, let’s discuss what Covid-19 has converted into gold. No, not toilet paper; regardless of the panic hoarding, the world is unlikely to run out of it anytime soon. Incredulous as it may sound to us Indians, professors and experts around the world have studied the psychological effect of seeing the big empty space on the supermarket shelf that drives people, in any disaster, to stockpile the preferred wipe of the western world. One such professor explains – toilet paper takes up so much room on a shelf that it’s much more noticeable than say 50 cans of baked beans, or Maggi disappearing.