Dear Agony Akka,
I am a nice and polite person who is also quite popular. But the pandemic might be ruining my image. When I run into friends and acquaintances at the local supermarket or corner shop, they invariably want to hug me or shake hands. Or when I walk my dog, a gorgeous Lab, my neighbours want to pet Scruffy. But I really, really don’t want them to do this because we cannot bathe Scruffy with sanitiser after each walk. How do I avoid these friendly overtures and still keep my status message as Ms. Popular.
— Scared About Popularity
Dear SAP,
Welcome to the post-pandemic world. The first thing you must learn is that popularity itself is being redefined. I believe that hostesses now check how many dinners you have not attended in the last four weeks before inviting you over. They also ask about your vaccination status. And I don’t know if you have noticed this, but many people are gifting masks these days, embroidered, hand-spun, woven and what-not, which are not really gifts but polite reminders to ask you to be masked when you visit or stay far away. In fact, I am told that the old tamboolam tray that used to greet visitors has been entirely recast — it has a small sanitiser bottle that the hostess uses to sprinkle you with, then she offers a fresh surgical mask, and finally tops it off by extending a pretty bowl piled high with Vit C pills like orange muttai .
So, these friends and acquaintances who want to hug you and shake your hands are definitely relics of an older age — I suspect they will soon wither away and become useless, like dinosaurs and appendixes. But until that happens, how to tackle members of these endangered species?
Well, let me share a trick or two that I have been secretly practising. As you must know, I too am very popular in our housing society, and always the men and children are crowding around me for advice and general chit-chat and GK-type information.
So, from the very beginning I have developed some manoeuvres. First of all, I have invested in kurtas and tops with pockets so that I can keep my hands firmly in pocket and ignore anything that is stretched out towards me. This handless version of my torso also makes it tough for anyone to try and hug me.
But sometimes I like to enjoy wearing my beautiful saris, which everyone admires and goes ooh-aah about my looks. But then what to do about pockets? So, I have developed a separate manoeuvre. As soon as I spy one of these dinosaur-type creatures approaching me showing clear indications of desiring physical contact, I do a little jump with grace and alacrity — I clear the spot by about 3” above sea level and 6” backwards. Then I cry out in a sweet, frightened voice, ‘Oh what was that?! Did you see that insect?’ The approaching party gets very distracted and starts looking around, soon forgetting their initial urge to hug and kiss and what-not kandravi they had in mind.
During these times, I have found that it also helps to suddenly become sanskari -type Bharatiya nari . Just keep doing namaskaram to everyone and keep smiling till they put their damn hands away. This can sometimes lead to a crick in the neck and your cheek muscles also start to cramp but these are small sacrifices for the sake of a corona-free life.
And let me tell you SAP, I have been doing all this and I am still very much in demand during housing society events and important meetings and all. It is really quite easy. As for Scruffy, sorry but I cannot offer advice for dogs and all. This is too much.
— AA
agony.akka@gmail.com
