Life, or something close to it.

It started in the heat of Mexico, took a while in its globe spanning course and relatively slowly it may be, but it has surely reached the humble borders of Bangladesh. Yes, unfortunately Swine Flu has arrived. The evidence? Well, there are the boring statistics that will show me the increasing rate of prevalence of this ailment or I could just look out my window and see faces covered with masks, with eyes that stare at any being that even thinks about sneezing without a cover around their infectious noses. Suddenly everyone is health conscious. It’s not a bad thing to be careful, as the adage goes prevention is better than cure and it does stand true, unless of course if you are in the health business. But a sneeze, doesn’t mean you have the flu, leave alone swine flu. It’s good putting on a mask; it’s no good crowding the hospitals just because you have a running nose in the morning. Just like everything other disease, the aura, the fear of the disease has spread faster than the disease itself. What has happened is that, suddenly cold is become one of the most noticed disease. You could’ve sneezed your way through a class, or coughed through a meeting with a minimum of fuss from your colleagues. But those days sadly are gone. If you are in a sneezing phase now, you better be at home resting, where you and your disease belong. Somehow we are forgetting this is also the season of another disease which has symptoms of running nose and headache. It’s called the common cold, and as the name suggests it’s pretty common.
Although, there is a thin line between stoicism and foolishness. You could be bravely trying to fight off the virus of the common cold when in fact you are getting more and more infected by the H1N1 virus or it could be exact opposite where you are just taking up the doctor’s time in an already crowded hospital. But there is a solution. I could search for the symptoms of swine flu in the internet(http://pediatrics.about.com/od/swineflu/a/409_symptoms.htm), correlate with the symptoms I have, and then prudently decide what my next step should be. But the best thing I can do right now, when I don’t have any of the symptoms, is head out and get myself one of those cheap masks, be a responsible citizen and look down on those who are not.