Vocal Regulations!
They are safe at home—he, his wife and their two boys. So far,
that is to say. Their house is in a red zone—declared by the government due to
the spread of the novel Coronavirus or COVID-19. For nearly two months now they
have continued to stay at home, at times working from home and he has been very
strict lately, not allowing his young sons to go out at any cost. He has heard
that young people, even if infected, can get on well without even showing
symptoms and recover quite easily, but the problem is the possibility of their
infecting elderly persons who are prone to having serious complications if
infected. Naturally so then, he thinks, why grandsons are separated physically
from grandparents. Their rations come mostly from online orders. At times, he
has to go out to the fruit or vegetable vendors for the odd and fresh
requirement.
Things amuse him; although he had never seen such
unprecedented times or heard about in his lifetime, and that humankind is going
through a critical time. Wearing a mask is compulsory while venturing out; rightly
so, he supports, because the goddamned virus thrives on human droplets. It all
boils down to the plain fact that human beings can no longer open their mouths
freely and unchecked. He talks to a stakeholder through a mask and the other
one interacts back through his/her mask thus preventing scattering of the
droplets while sound waves do reach them both, though a bit muffled. However,
that is still not enough, there has to be at least one and half meters of
social distancing between them so that the droplets somehow escaping the masks
fail to reach the targets.
He remembers his language teacher very clearly now; the
teacher was notorious for his split-wide mouth spitting out the words, and he
being a front-bencher was exposed to the droplets sometime landing right on his
cheeks. In those innocent times the mouth-openings or floating spit particles
hardly bothered anyone. Now, the droplet syndrome has landed on humankind like
a bombshell. No wonder, he muses on, the schools and colleges are closed
indefinitely: just imagine the free-flow of droplets, invisible or not, oozing
out from the spirited teacher and all those of the students in equally spirited
response. This is serious man, don’t make fun, he cautions himself; but his
musings cannot be checked—even in the times of rigorous checks and controls.
The crux of the problem is opening of the mouth, he thinks
more seriously now. Why, this is going to affect every field of human activity
in future: even in small allowed gatherings of the business or homely or the
religious kind the main speaker will not be able to indulge freely in opening
or demonstrating his/her mouth cavities; in entertainment shows the actors will
have to restrain themselves from mouthing or lip-centric exercises, confounded
because in their scenes before the camera they cannot possibly wear masks; in restaurants/bars, even after strictly
following social distancing norms, there will be precarious moments when
customers let go of the masks for the pleasure of eating/drinking and allowing
words regurgitate through the holy mess of saliva, food and drinks; debates or
petty quarrels in any form of public transport will have to be guarded strictly
against and even in one-to-one encounters caution must be exercised as to how
much of mouth-opening is being adhered to.
A profound question comes to his mind now: why humankind has
been singled out for this? Have the human beings been talking too much? Well,
he reasons, more than being talkative the human beings perhaps have been
indulging in too much of needless and harmful talking—leading to all kinds of
unrest most of the times. He recoils back in wonder: wow! look at the animal
world—all animals, birds, insects are totally spared from this regulation; the
animals are really freaking out everywhere, in all sites mostly infected by
human invaders, and are opening their mouths in ecstatic boundless joy, in
their word-less natural sound waves; even the mosquitoes at his home now finding
exquisite pleasure in searching and hunting out their victims. Well, at his reasoning best, perhaps humankind
has imposed untold torture and misery on the unsuspecting animal world over the
centuries, and so now is paying for it.
He turns his attention to the television screen for the
latest updates. He looks fondly at his wife sitting quietly by his side and at
his two sons busy with their smart-phones. He smiles in satisfaction: he can
still open his mouth freely here. So far, that is to say.
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