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“Don’t touch it. It is DIRTY” shouted the grandmother, almost toppling over to grab the quick-paced kid who was about to push the gate of the park.
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A few days back, I bumped into an old schoolmate while strolling in the same park. Before I could realize handshakes are not preferred anymore, my hand instinctively stretched out only to hang in the air.
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A fruit vendor in a posh colony had written instructions to not touch the fruits. Is it really possible to buy such things without handpicking them yourself?
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The sort of untouchability I am witnessing or experiencing in the times of corona often makes me chuckle. I ask myself, “Can we really be that careful all the time? The answer I get is a resounding “no.”
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Last time while negotiating a flight of stairs in my office, one of my colleagues cautioned me to not touch the handrail. Well, I might not get infected by corona, but I could die from falling down the stairs. Unfortunately, safety measures don’t always tend to overlap.
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It is not that I don’t practice hygiene, but unlike many, I cannot be freaky about it. To be honest, even after the corona outbreak, my hygiene standards have not changed at all. I am as clean and as dirty as I ever was.
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I, too, believe that prevention is better than cure. But the prevention that is going over the top actually needs a cure itself. What was introduced as social distancing has deformed into social discrimination nowadays.
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Social distancing has Zoom-ed in our lives. While others are untouchables for us, we tend to be Mimosa plants for them.
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One of my friends told me that when he went home on Deepawali, his cousin stopped picking up his calls, dreading he might turn up at his home.
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When I argued in a chat group how come celebrities like Amitabh Bacchan, who must be living in super hygienic conditions, as well got infected with corona, the blatant reply I got promptly was, ” It must be his SERVANTS.”
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We were unaware of the recent deaths in our surroundings. After knowing as well, people would not prefer to visit the bereaved family these days.
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No offense to homeless-friendly people, but I would like to confess that the only social distancing that pleased me was towards the beggars. Beggary is a big problem in India, but since the corona outbreak, people have started shooing beggars away. They disappeared like (Hindi) proverbial “horns of the donkey.”
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There are a few things I can’t help wondering. What if corona stays forever? Maybe we shall have to unlearn touching. The political correctness brigade might recommend forbidding the use of socially harmful phrases like “keep in touch.”
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Jokes apart, how could the standards of hygiene be unanimous? Can a construction or sanitation worker practice as much hygiene as a healthcare worker does? Can we Indians, on average, match the hygiene standards of Europeans who always look down upon us when it comes to cleanliness.
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Luckily, the “dirty people” (aka poor people) who cannot afford to be convincingly clean are not the worst sufferers of the corona.
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We all are, however, potential victims of the corona. At most, people can establish a common ground of public hygiene and not keep expanding it now and then only to burden other people with their apprehensions.
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Caution is one thing, and phobia is another, but humanity is above all. Let us keep it in mind.