During our visit before the last week’s to the plantation, visitors wore masks when they came in — only, they’d pulled them down the nose, covering only the mouth. After a while, once they’d settled, they’d ask to take them off. Some of them asserted that the surgical masks on our faces were useless. Many visitors had imitations of the N94 on, which are hard on the wearers because, besides limiting the breathing, they punish the back of the head, and around the ears, and roundabout the nose. They are polite people there in Sakleshpur, so we went ahead and mingled with them, not protesting, pinning our hopes on our own masks before barefaced men.

We cannot blame these netizens of hilly Malnad, overdosed as they are on oxygen. They cannot survive with air supply stopped by a face covering. As regards us, the Bangaloreans, the face cover — which, we’d not realized until now — is a good...