Humour in times of distress!
laugh and drive away the virus…
After four weeks of mad rush on a few different things, I am back at Medium — our start-up, main 9x5 job, some personal stuff, and supporting my younger one on her 11+ exams. Though there were a lot of topics to write about, finding a quiet time to share my thoughts was a challenge. I am not complaining, but it has been a welcome break.
Usually, Mid-November to early December is a challenging period for me, as I spend at least a month mourning the loss of my mother. There are certain things I stay away from and go through this phase. It is a period of mood swings ranging from gratitude to sheer anger. However, oddly, I spent a bit of time indulging in some of my mother’s humorous anecdotes. She would often talk about this couplet.
Smile, with patient, hopeful heart, in troublous hour;
Meet and so vanquish grief; nothing hath equal power
When
had invited the MWC challenge based on four tags: Work, Re-entry, Death & Space, I had initially written about my mother connecting all the four tags, but later I got clarification that the blog should be based on one tag, not all four. However, I will certainly publish this one day!I had taken two days off to finish the mourning period this Wednesday, and on Thursday decided to get my month-long beard shaved off professionally.
I am gifted to not spend much money in terms of grooming my hair! Due to this gift, I rarely visit the barber’s salon, but inexplicably, I look forward to those rare visits for two reasons. One is because current and hot topics are usually debated in this grand parlour and one of the best places to know the country’s pulse.
The other reason is that these visits take me out of my comfort zone. Simply because I don’t have much hair, and despite that, the barber would nicely ask me about the number and other various needs but would go on just trimming the remaining grass tufts. This time it was different as I stepped in with a full beard.
With a beat in my step and mask on my face, I entered the parlour that was immersed in laughter. Though it was a week-day, a few young and old had gathered chitchatting current affairs. It was about OMICRON.
One gentleman suggested that everyone across the country donate £1 every month to the Prime Minister and that they’re let alone to get on with their lives. Another quipped that most of us would anyway die due to obesity and inaction. One older man suggested by the time we have our twelfth booster, the virus would be so confused that it might go back to the original version. Finally, I heard the best one from a young lad who thought that OMICRON was a new hybrid car from Hyundai but couldn’t be named Xi.
Even though we all like to ‘believe’ in science, the system played out the OMICRON variant very poorly this time. Across the comments section amongst popular paid news websites to Twitter feeds, I sense an overarching atmosphere that even the vaccinated lot aren’t buying it, which could be a deadly consequence. It reminded me of the boy who cried wolf!
This might be the first time these many jokes and memes have played out in the history of pandemics.
