The odd curveball

A forward like this one, “Flatten the curve, not fatten your curves” surely takes the cake, writes Mallika Krishnaswami

I know this is no joke but I can’t help being tickled by it. A forward like this one, “Flatten the curve, not fatten your curves,” surely takes the cake! But isn’t that exactly what’s happening? I mean at least among the more fortunate who have access to all the essentials. Or the one that talks about the guided tour at home with the routine ‘eat, watch TV, sleep’ over and over again, quite like the French say ‘metro, boulot, dodo’ (metro, work, sleep), referring to the routine of those who commute from the suburbs to the cities for work, one of the hardest-hit though, is hairdressing.

So accustomed to the grooming at beauty salons, people find themselves in a fix. Just the other day, the younger son, unable to bear the bristle on the nape, dared to entrust his head to his father. Lo and behold! What emerged at the end of an hour was a badly furrowed piece of land! That he had to risk going in for a complete tonsuring the next day is another story altogether. The elder son, quite into music, has always been in awe of Yanni, the Greek-born American composer and keyboardist, including his beautiful mane.

Absolutely a no-no in normal times here was the chance offered on a silver platter! And what about the greys on the scalp, including yours’ truly, or the salt and pepper beard that sticks out like a sore thumb? Reminds me of Reginald R J Johnston saying to the young emperor Puyi, the Last Emperor, “Your secret is showing, your Majesty,” when his pet mouse chooses to peep out of his pocket.

And to see bewildered penguins waddling into offices, kangaroos hopping across lanes, herds of elephants trudging their way through villages, leopards scaling walls, crocodiles scuttling across streets, makes me wonder if, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here,” as we peer through
barred windows.

And while the flowering trees carpet the pathways when they can hold no more, we can only sigh that: “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

But the worst in my view are those tiny creepy crawly creatures that normally venture out in the dark, swarming the kitchen in broad daylight, cocking a snook at you. While the bigger ones seem to have vanished, the little ones are everywhere and all efforts to rid them with pesticides and the like are in vain.