Pune man wears gold mask, internet wonders about his common sense

Pune: A resident of Pimpri-Chinchwad of Pune district, Shankar Kurade, has got himself a mask made of gold worth Rs 3 lakh amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s a thin mask with minute holes so that there is no difficulty in breathing. I am not sure whether this mask will be effective,” Kurade told news agency ANI.

Kurade loves wearing gold ornaments, and his hands and neck are loaded with jewellery.

This unique idea struck him soon after he saw a man wearing a silver mask on social media.

“I saw a video on social media of a man in Kolhapur wearing a silver mask and then an idea struck me to have a mask of gold. I talked to a goldsmith and he gave me this five and a half pound gold mask in a week,” said Kurade.

“All my family members love gold, if they too demand it, then I will get it designed for them too. I do not know if I will be infected with coronavirus wearing a gold mask or not, but following all the rules of the government can prevent the spread of virus,” he said.

Since childhood, Shankar Kurade has been fond of gold ornaments and that is the reason he wears gold rings in all the fingers, gold bracelets on his wrist and huge gold chains around his neck.

But while many seemed awed at the mask and the fact that it is made of gold, others said that using a mask worth 2.89 lakhs would probably make more sense if it could protect him from coronavirus. 

“For that worth, he could have donated so many cotton washable layered masks,” wrote on Twiter user Ashwin.

“It would have been very effective if there was no holes,” quipped another Twitter user.

He isn’t the first one to make masks out of precious metals. A few days ago, a jeweller based in Karnataka announced that he had a “silver lining” for couples forced to scale down their weddings due to coronavirus. Quite literally.

Sandeep Sagaonkar, who runs a jewellery enterprise in Belgaum district on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, had added silver masks to his wedding collection and business has been booming ever since he hit upon the unique sales pitch.