The coronavirus pandemic has thrown open a volley ofquestions, including a rather important one - will it change the way we interact and socialise, for the foreseeable future? Will we, forever see another person with a suspicion of carrying a contagion?Will we ever be ¡®social animals¡¯ as theorized by Aristotle? All of these arelooming questions that the lockdown lifestyle has posed for us all.
The world over, healthcareprofessionals are putting their lives in the line to save those suffering fromthe terrifying disease. How long will they, and others like them who deal in essentials, have to be on high alert and do their jobs while considering the possibility of their life being in danger?
In the strange new world of the COVID-19 crisis, everythingis unbelievable and overwhelming - almost like a dream or an apocalyptic movie. Lifehas come to screeching halt in literally every corner of the world. From thesummer Olympics in Tokyo, major trade conventions, to big-budget film shootings, you name it andeverything has been put to a complete stop. While it¡¯s still too early to assess the impact it will have on the global economy in the long run, one thing isfor sure - it will gravely alter the way in which we consume,? learn, work, and how we socialize andcommunicate.
Here are some of the major points to consider when we thinkabout life after the coronavirus lockdown in India:
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The first casualty in the war against the spread of the virus was the handshake, the convention both in the east and thewest. But there¡¯s one thing that stood the out, the Indian Namaste, the time-honoured ancient convention of greeting, which is being considered the best way to greetsomeone amid the pandemic.? Since thehandshake posed such a grave threat to one¡¯s life, there is a huge possibilityfor this socially-accepted habit fades into oblivion. To be honest, evenafter the lockdown ends and the number ofcases (hopefully) plunge, the paranoia attached to the virus is going to lingeron for a while.
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In a matter of weeks, coronavirus (COVID-19) changed howstudents were being educated around the world. Online classes on apps like Zoom became a go-to for many. Educators around the world have taken swift and decisiveactions to mitigate the problem of schooling. In India too, many schools are using the same approach; however, things are slightly different in terms ofaccess to broadband connections and laptops. In our country the onlineschooling culture has brought about a sense of social equity, wherein childrenin urban areas are already catching up with their daily lessons, while those who arelesser privileged are lagging behind. Perhaps, necessity will push administration and leaders to take steps to alleviate this gap so that education is equally accessible to all students, even in difficult times like this.
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There¡¯s a possibility that thecoronavirus fear could forever end the spitting festival in India. For yearsnow, we¡¯ve seen government buildings, railway stations, public toilets androads without pan stains and the like. It¡¯s something Indians just didn¡¯t seemto care. Take for instance South Korea and Singapore, they successfully mitigatedthe spitting problem by imposing a hefty fine and banned it by law. But none ofit seemed to work in India - time and again, fines have been imposed postershave been put up to no avail. Perhaps the mask-wearing habit might stop the¡®babus¡¯ from spitting, and the general sense of hygiene sparked by the pandemicmight finally kill this age-old gross habit.
This is another lesson that thepandemic has taught us all - it has laid extreme importance on personal hygiene.Never, in our wildest dreams would we have imagined that in 2020, the theme ofsome of the most viral songs or favourite PSAs would besomething as simple as the right way to wash hands. Heck! People were evendrawing inspiration from an orangutan¡¯s hand wash technique. This emphasis onpersonal hygiene is going to stick on for a long time to come.
A pandemic has always had a tendencyto inflame xenophobia and racial scapegoating. During the 1853 yellow-feverepidemic in the United States, European immigrants, were the primary targets ofstigmatization. When the Ebola outbreak emerged in 2014, Africans weretargeted. During the SARS outbreak, which originated in China, much like thecurrent Coronavirus outbreak, Asians have been at the receiving end ofxenophobia and hate crime. In India, people from the Northeast are increasinglyfacing racism and discrimination in the rest of the country since the outbreakof the coronavirus. According to the Deccan Herald report, a research paper named ?'Coronavirus Pandemic: India¡¯s MongoloidLooking People Face Upsurge Of Racism' cited at least 22 cases of racialdiscrimination or hate crimes. The incidents had taken place across the lengthand breadth of the country in places such as Gujarat, Delhi, Tamil Nadu,Punjab, West Bengal and Maharashtra, showing that prejudice, acts of racism andracial discrimination are not confined to particular places.?
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As humans retreated into their homes as more and morecountries go under coronavirus lockdown, wild animals are slipping cover toexplore the empty streets, and pollution levels hit a new low in years, in manycities. From Malabar civets to Indian bison, videos of a lot of animals roamingaround, have gone viral. This just shows the amount of disruption we as aspecies have caused in nature. Life beforelockdown gave offered nospace for nature to breath and this is something that will put a whole lot ofthings into perspective for human beings across the world.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown whatit means to be unprepared for such a large scale disaster. Movies and video games might have given us anexaggerated sense of a post-apocalyptic world, but none of them made us thinkthat this could be a real-world situation, a scenario in which the dynamics areentirely different. The coronavirus pandemic is one such instance of not taking things seriously; measures were so inadequate in the initial stages of theoutbreak that it led on to becoming one of the worst pandemics humanity hasever faced. Perhaps, these will serve as a lesson to our futuregenerations - to be prepared and more importantly appreciative of the presentand compassionate towards one another.?