The Neo Normal
Adaptability has always been the pivot of existence for the planet earth and the human beings as well. Time and again we have adjusted with the newfound situations and learned either to evade that, or the technique to make things roll in a new way. And these paradigm shifts have not only been in the field of bigger events like rural to urban or from pastoral to industrial but also in the discourse of the habits and mannerisms of human beings as well. We graduated from the nakedness to the habit of apparel, from books to e-books or from 1 gb per month to 4 gb per day. It, as if, is to change is to be human. But most of these changes took place in the form of evolution, seldom giving us the impact of the transition. But the change we are now confronting is quite rapid and has made us encounter the inevitable facets of situations which we are compelled to imbibe as our new habits, as our NEO-NORMAL activities. And quite understandably, the agent of change is Covid-19, the pandemic that has already asked a question that we have not been still able to answer. That we have lived more than half of a year with the pandemic, we have already had a vague idea about the habits and behaviours that are going to stay or change for a while or change forever.
In this photo blog, I’ll try to map the activities that have already become normal in our lives or something, which will fast replace the age-old tradition in a jolt. All photos are taken by yours truly, except two which I borrowed from two of my friends.
A man passes by the window of a mall with
some mannequin veiled under masks.
Henceforth, masks were the prerogatives of the doctors and nurses in general. Now they have really become the bread and butter of the lives of people. Window shopping is a modern-day device of creating hyper-reality and determining the desires in people in a subtle way. Booking a seat there certainly promotes the habit of using the mask on a psychological plane.
Masks, hung with the other daily essentials
like keys on a key holder
Not only in the realm of marketing economics, on the domestic plains as well, masks are aggressively taking places as regular household items. The picture truly delineates how indispensable masks have become as they are being hung with the key rings lest they are not forgotten while going outside. Perhaps the deep psychological dread of being affected by an enemy who is not visible has made us buckle ourselves up in the best possible ways. But as far as imbibing of a habit is concerned, whether it is helmet or mask, for Indians the outcome is not at all what we think about. Hence masks are in the count of Neo-Normal, but I’m afraid, it’s use is not. In market, or in the places of public congregation, people are there, well, not without the mask, but with the mask, pulled down to their chins. Masks are now not only a necessity, but a fashion statement as well. Since men cannot flaunt their finely chiseled stubble or women cannot put on their favourite brand of lipstick, what came out as the new trivia is mask. The ethnic garment stores advertise with masks and the top garment brands are resurfacing with the ads of these face covers as well.
Two faces of mask
A typical view of a balcony in an apartment. With other regular items like towels, under-garments etc. masks are new on the list.
The next thing gaining normalcy since the outbreak of Covid-19 is the phrase “Social Distancing”. We were familiar with the term ‘socialization’ henceforth, and as human nature that is our instinct as well. But this microscopic organism compelled us to practise the contrary. This article is being written when we are passing through the Unlock-1 phase, declared by the Government of India. Things are much eased off now. But when the lockdown began, the predicament was very different. The less we knew about the virus and its infecting power, the more we were intrigued. Now we are a lot less worried about the surface contamination and stepping out of our houses. But ‘Social-distancing’ survived as that has been proved to play the pivotal role in fighting against the Corona Virus.
Purchasing stuffs from the confines of the house and thus keeping social distancing
There are thousands of articles on the internet on this new normal which showcases how rapidly behaviours of men are changing across the world. But most of them depict scenarios from metropolis that comprise even less than one third of the world habitat. Metros are more susceptible to change as the major population is literate and adaptable to the changing situations as they are provided with more alternatives. But for the suburb places like the one I hail from it is quite difficult to adapt to the new situations as alternatives to the previous habits are scanty and people are more reluctant to obey the rules because they are quite unaware of the impending doom which awaits all. The following picture is a classic example where intention is disposed by the unavailability of the service leading to the breach of ‘social distancing’.
A truck full of people, slapping hard on
the norms like “Social Distancing”
Apart from its direct impact on social (unsocial?) life, the pandemic ushered in some paradigmatic changes in different sectors. Work from home was never a new concept for the corporate sector employees, but who would have assumed that the little children would also have to adapt to this situation as well? Work from home for them has been metamorphosed into study from home. Mothers are happy because they do not have to fuss around the tiffin boxes and the water bottles or tucking the shirt into the pant. Only the upper part of the uniform suffices because the camera cannot record below the belt!
My daughter, rapt
in the morning prayer in her online class
We are talking about the ‘neo-normal’ and as far as adaptability is concerned none can beat children, so fast learners they are. Quickly enough, they have replaced the hand raising in the class with the same virtual practice. Although garnering of the effect of this online education is a matter of great debate since not all students, especially in India, can even have access to this, it has certainly changed the way we used to look at this particular domain. The teachers too, are getting habituated with terms like screen sharing, presenting, virtual background etc. And I won’t deny that this new system, though lacks the physical warmth, is very intuitive, catering to the needs of the classroom and the curriculum.
A selfie of me taking the online class at the convenience of my living room
I, much like the other teachers, was not at all habituated with all these online classes or stuffs. But the experience, thanks to all the tech-inventors, is so immersive that I must say it is quickly taking place of the traditional classroom experience. Though, as I mentioned before that it is still a long way for this to emerge as the neo-normal in our country for its incapability of being ubiquitous, but as a behavioural approach, the phase of transition is on the wake, if not in school education, but of course in the higher terrains like the universities where education is not free and elementary.
Empty classroom, normal now (Photo: Prithvi Sinha, Hyderabad)
Moving on, different sectors of profession are going to be badly hit by the pandemic and some are going to have a new kickstart. This world has witnessed several economic crises. It has passed through the Great American Depression of 1930s to the Recession of 2007. Millions of people had lost their jobs across the globe but neither of those could alter the regular discourse of the job market in general. This disease has already jeopardized some professions many of which could not have been believed to be at stake for a lifetime. One such is the print media. The higher exacerbated the graph of online news, more bleak turned out to be future of the newspapers. With a virus posing a threat of surface contamination, the first thing people put an embargo on is the reception of newspaper in their houses. Some good souls stuck to the black and white words though, most of the newspaper vendors became instantly jobless. And not only the small-time workers like them, even the sub-editors of the reputed media houses and the reporters and freelancers were handed over the pink slip.
The sales of newspapers,
drastically down
Next on the hit list was the movie theatres. Social distancing cannot be maintained inside a hall. With the AC air being circulated there the spread of the infection would be even quicker. As a result, the movie theatres, along with the schools are still under lock and key even in this Unlock-1 phase with no certainty of opening in near future.
The bleak and deserted
promenade of a multiplex which once used to be a crowd-puller
But it is not its closure but the alternative that problematizes the whole entertainment affair. The OTT platforms never had a stronger reason to be resurfaced as it completely replaced the silver-screen. Movie theatre sauntering into the drawing room before this lockdown was just the tip of an iceberg. The lockdown transformed the iceberg into a submerged mountain. Not only the web series, but the big budget movies are also being released on the OTT platforms, thus pushing the future of the single or multi screens to the fringes of the normal.
Watching new release is
really a household affair nowadays
Some other jobs proliferated, some even emerged. The business of mask was never more a lucrative business. Many newspaper vendors got transformed into mask vendors. And some other small-time shopkeepers thrived on masks as that has emerged to be the yielding field of business.
This small-time tailor of the town has put the mask on the front line: an endeavour to compete with the corporate giants.
On the other hand, the neo-normal became the online money transaction. What even the Demonetization of the Modi Government could not do, was done by this pandemic. People are using net-banking and digital wallets more than ever lest they do not have to touch the currency which may appear to be biggest carrier of the virus. So, what decree could not do, was done by the dread.
As we are talking Neo Normal, something imposed by the authority cannot be called normal until and unless that goes too deep into the mass to be installed by them. Towards the beginning, panic loomed large and people practised things like not getting out of the houses or avoiding loitering in the streets which they were not accustomed to. But in course of time, the dry statistics of infection-spike or the rate of demise cease to scare us anymore. People, mostly out of their monetary and emotional needs, do get out of their houses grinning at the glare of contamination. But something they have adopted as safety measures which can be said to have entered the etymology of the Neo-Normal. Wearing mask has been mentioned in the very beginning. The use of sanitizer is certainly the next big thing we have adopted merrily. The guideline of WHO says that soap is better equipped than an alcohol-based sanitizer in killing virus. Still sanitizers outpaced soap in selling since it has its own charm in it which soap doesn’t. Sanitizer, for the first place sounds smarter. Secondly, it is smarter to use as it comes into cute little containers which can be tucked into hip-pockets. They also have a very good aroma. – everything that is needed for something to be a deconstructive desire in a post-structural hyper-realistic world. Hence, we see people, everywhere spurting out a little dab of sanitizer onto their palms in every ten or twenty minutes, even in situations when they are not at all in the need of sanitization. So, sanitizers turned out to be a daily object like a mobile phone or a packet of cigarette because it has gone into the psyche of men, thus slowly becoming the Neo-Normal.
Sanitizer, becoming a daily object along with, say, a packet of cigarette
When Polio was a curse, its vaccine was advertised as “Do boond Zindagi Ki” (Two drops of life) Now we have a new virus to fight with and though scientists have still not been able to come up with a vaccine, we are taking that two dabs of sanitizers to be our lifeline.
We used to frown at our mothers or grandmothers for being obnoxiously sceptical and prejudiced with washing hands. They did it even to the extent of being patients of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). But since WHO has declared washing hands to be one of the biggest safeguards against Corona Virus, 80% of the population has been turned into Lady Macbeths, continuously washing their hands.
“Out damned spot” nay, the damned virus – handwashing at every now and then
It has been stated previously that in small towns in India new normal is not quite different from the old normal as far as life in populated places is concerned like offices, transports, malls or restaurants etc. Owing to the lack of public awareness and the difficulty of implementation the places remain thickly crowded and without proper safeguards turned on. But a few among them choose to stand out as different and set an example of being the Neo-Norm.
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A restaurant employee taking order on mobile app (no-touch service) wearing face-shield and gloves  |
Thickening crowd in the
Rathayatra in the previous year. People dare not imagine this as normal.
Marriages in India used to be the Big Fat Indian Marriage, oozing opulence and spilling crowd with friends, relatives and neighbours as invitees. The government has restricted the gathering up to not more than 50 people which beggars description even in the marriage of the most impoverished one. That though saves cost of the families of the bride and groom in a sarcastic way, is hard to swallow as a normal social practice throwing away the age-old tradition.
Ceremonies like marriage are also affected. Bride-groom tying knot wearing masks (P.C Dr. Shaunak Das)
Certain things which were the habits of the olden days and the habits which were once the identity of the ethnic culture and which, in course of time became extinct with the demanding, devouring speed of the world, have been resurfaced as the neo-normal. Kite flying is one of them. This used to be a lost art, almost like letter writing. In the period of lockdown, people, having no other means to spend the afternoon, resumed the old hobby of kite flying. The dusky sky, tinged in the colour of setting sun got also embedded with kites of different colours – a sight that not only gave people reason to rejuvenate but also to be nostalgic.
A sky full of kites, a sight to feast on
When the world was different, not invaded by the predating mega-soaps on the TV or WhatsApp or Facebook, rooftop used to be a loitering place of the people. Rooftop romance with the next-door neighbour or the exchanges of home-made pickles by the elderly women of the house used to be common affairs. In course of time, the break-neck speed of the world made people oblivious of the most romantic place of the house, a place to look at the open firmament and detoxify the daily drudgery. The lockdown, however, brought back that old taste to the new buds. The leaning necks on the screen of the mobiles are getting straight or upwards – looking at the kite cut-loose, or asking the whereabouts of the never-asked-before neighbour. Children, not having to go to their swimming or karate class, are enjoying the afternoon with their grandpa or granny on the roof, identifying the saplings or watering them – thus forming a closer connection with the roots and the nature. Not all changes are demoralizing.
Planting saplings on rooftop with grandpa |
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Loneliness and
the rooftop |
Hair-trimming in a saloon proved to be a dangerous ballgame. So, calling the known barber and doing it in the old-school way on the rooftop by wrapping newspaper on the bare body
Neo-normalcy setting in on every sphere of life, it is very important for us to be adaptive. More often than not men are panting in order to run the new race of life which emerges to be very fatiguing and futile. The news of the morbid statistics worldwide and that of the death of the near and dear ones are unleashing an inertia of alienation. Depression, stress and loneliness were at large before this pandemic but somehow, they became more pronounced in this frustratingly abusive period of lockdown. Especially in a country like India, where superstition rules roost, social distancing is actually propelling stigmatisation resulting in ostracization of the Covid attacked people.
A representative image of
solitude going deep down under the psyche
