Mind the Gap - Distant Socializing

The one who are separated by distance but dine together - A perfect couple

From setting up lawn chairs in driveways for socially-distant neighborhood parties to conversing with one another from apartment building balconies people have been finding innovative ways to continue socializing with friends and neighbors. Amongst all of these, dining has always been such a companion that has brought people together.

Whether it is a lunch party or meeting over drinks with your old buddies the essence of socializing has always been face to face in its utmost physical form. Take for instance, our very own City of Joy, Calcutta which is famous for its chit chats of many sorts. From having addas on something that has an edge of adventure followed with cups of teas and coffees or sitting at the coffee houses and discussing literature, cinema and culture had its own essence and magnanimity.  But now the world has taken a different route altogether where this art of entertainment is going to undergo a slow death. Does that mean we will be cutting of all means of socializing in the post COvid world is a thought that might have crossed most of our minds.

In fact, we are in the mode of entering a new world altogether. One where large gatherings and social events will soon become private and exclusive. Hopping to a bar to meet your friends will convert to smaller house parties. Lounges in clubs will take the shape of living rooms in your houses. Most ironically, greetings will be verbal than physical. Well, you can forget giving the pecks or hugging, instead it’s going to be a folded hand gesture or a “Hi” from a distance.

Tea parties will take place via Skype and Zoom. While you are at home you call over your friends on these apps and basically enjoy a ‘Virtual Tea Party’. Sounds crazy? Well it’s going to get crazier than this with time! We will now be having virtual birthday parties and is that fine, come to think of it, if we can’t have the cake, the least we could do is dress up and sing ‘Happy Birthday!’ via video conferencing apps.

We have been discussing of how the world is going to work in this ‘new normal’ environment. So, are people going to be visiting restaurants? Or for that matter will they at all be dining for say the next 4-6 months? An industry which accounts for the largest employer of the workforce have already started to think on the lines of operating with a short team. Does that mean we are looking at a ‘contactless’ dining space? 

The other day my friend was suggesting me with a tone of sarcasm, that its not too far where he would find drones flying over his table or robots coming and taking down orders! For a moment his suggestion quickly took me to the sets of Spielberg or Josh Lucas!

I told him that I hope that it’s not going to be that bad, while his reaction was is it? But if such a thing really is on the cards then we are soon going to lose on having a physical interaction. 

The essence of celebrating a Valentine’s Day or an anniversary at a restaurant would mean asking the couple to sit at a length’s distance.  By the end of your evening, the maximum they could do is just send messages via What’s App! I might be exaggerating my suspension of belief but what if this is actually the reality we are about to face.

We are surely heading into a world where it is certain that for the next few years socializing and camaraderie in public places would become a distant thing. The essence of finding the time to have a face to face meeting will get replicated with a FaceTime. Our focus to zoom in the minute feelings of goofing off will be made out of focus by Zoom. The vitality in feeling a connection will mostly happen over a Skype and all the kibitz, dawdle and giving high fives by saying, “hey buddy was sup” will have to be limited to just a “What’s App” call.

In the end of all this there is still a ray of hope that while dining out will come with its prohibitions, the fun and frolic will continue in house parties and potlucks. There will be music and the world will continue to be a better place to live in but with a change in how we think. So, while you enjoy all the moments of your life do not socially distant yourselves but ‘distant socially’ because we are heading into an era where at every step the world will be announcing, “MIND THE GAP!”

When Nature says, ‘I need back my space’…

India is a country where one will find a mix of nuclear and joint families. A nuclear family would be a family comprising of 3-4 members while a joint family would comprise over six members. But the common thread that binds these families is contact. In today’s generation both husband and wife are working five days a week in some cases six days. So, weekends are meant to let go of yourself which usually resort to a potluck with friends, or being at the movies and finally ending it with a dinner at a decent restaurant.

But, imagine those moments when your parents or your near ones had requested to give them a bit of your time. You would retort back and say, “Mom, it’s the weekend and its my time… Give me some space”. While you would rush out of the house your parents would return to their own world of thoughts and melancholy. And then arrived an invisible ghost in the form of a guest. Well at first, we couldn’t recognize this person until it showed its true colors. 

Today as I write this article, we are almost nearing a month of the lockdown in order to hide from this guest. In a world where we are all caged, there comes a new terminology in place, ‘Social Distancing’. So, now you suddenly find that in a two-bedroom apartment you have been asked to confine yourself to a room that looks like a cage to you - Well that is your bedroom! And to top it, you find a lot of new faces roaming around in your house with whom you have barely had the time to even say ‘Hello’ - well they are family! Further more people have resorted to taking psychological treatment as the absence of social interactions have been hurting their physical and mental well-being.

Now imagine if you were said to live out of that one bedroom of yours with another six members? Sounds shocking. Well in the gallows of Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum house, is home to over a million lives. 

Day in and day out they stand in a queue with the dream that they would be able to fill in their bucket of water to get at least a day’s bath. Contrarily, there will be a serpentine line at the ration shop with the dream that they would be able to arrange for a day’s meal. At the end of the day when the members return to that room it is ‘HOME’ to them! So, how would you explain them what social distancing means and how would they for that matter follow this norm?

But there is yet a great insight to this thought of Social Distancing. It’s the thought of giving one their

own space. Over the year’s mankind has made way for fulfilling its own plans and in this manner, it has not bothered to think whether it has by mistake encroached over someone’s space. Over time, it has even taken advantage of such spaces and have misused it by not maintaining it, instead littering it with dirt. Well, this space that we are talking of belonged to Nature.

Today, while lives are being lost there are even more lives which are being saved. And, mind you God isn’t saving them! But normal human beings just like you and me in the form of doctors, nurses, police personnel have forgotten what it seems to be at home with family. When they return in the dead of the night to their respective homes, after ensuring people are safe that the law is in order, they yearn to at least have someone to be near them or speak to them and greater need has now become for us. We feel to be with our parents and with our near and dear ones but now that space has been taken away from us by Nature’s order.

Ironically, the way to one’s survival is to keep one distanced from the rest immaterial of the relation you have. Further more while now Nature has shown its true colors, we are not even being able to enjoy the best of Nature. And, the reason is that over the years Nature has been shouting aloud requesting us for something and we have been ignoring it. Today we have journeyed back to the same situation, just that this time we are requesting Nature the same thing - Please give us back our space!

A ghost to mankind. A friend to Mother Nature.

"Mankind can only disappoint Mother Nature for so long." -Anthony Douglas Williams 

Most of us or rather the world at this point of time is in a war to fight out the Invisible Guest. And, while we all are in a state of dilemma thinking when this guest will leave the world, we have probably unnoticed the change that this guest has brought with itself in this process. It has got us closer to each other. It has made us retrospect the meaning of family time and ‘me time’. But most importantly, it has made one point loud and clear. 

With the entire world in a lock down state there is one world who is enjoying this time. And that this Mother Nature. So where on one side where the world’s lifeline is slowly diminishing, Mother Nature is progressing. It has after all now regained its freedom from human beings, pollution and other deadly viruses that it had been bearing itself with in silence over periods of time. So, does that bring us to a point of introspection? Where environmentalists have been shouting out loud to keep our Earth clean, have we really been paying attention to it? 

It is not this guest that is to be blamed for entering our house, but it is us who are to be blamed for creating this guest. We have always been so engrossed with ourselves in our life running against time in a materialistic race that we have let go the softer moments of our life. We have forgotten about ourselves, our loved ones and most closely Mother Nature. Today, we are on the other side of a world filled with panic, fear and emotions, while Mother Nature is freely regaining its position what it had forgone. 

This guest has also taught us another big lesson and that is about Social Distancing. Today we have been locked down by this guest and we are getting so restless and anxious to somehow leave our den and meet our loved ones even if it’s for a minute, but cannot do so. Welcome to the animal kingdom my friends. For ages we have caged animals, who are a part of mother nature and have dominated their space. But today they have too regained their space and we are staring in awe at the progress of this evolutionary change. In fact, I will term it a Revolutionary change in Evolution. 

It is high time that we realize the atrocities we have done on Mother Nature. Now, is a testing time for us to warn ourselves and preach others that the world does not just belong to we human beings. Mother Nature is also an important part of this family. 

If we do not learn to respect its existence it will show us the same reciprocation. This is just a beginning to the rise of a Ghost to Mankind…. But a friend to Mother Nature.