The art to Socialize during Social Distancing

A representation of socializing during social distancing

I grew up with the understanding that 'Man is a social animal', so personally I had taken all my friends and family for granted. Walking into a friend's house or a cousin's house any time of the day without informing, was never considered an offense. Catching up for a drink at our favourite pub or any casual joint was always looked forward to. It was during these times that we used to unwind and let down all our stress and be high on laughter and spirit. God has been merciful to me as I always enjoyed the company of a great group of friends. Friends and cousins that I grew up with, and friends that crossed my path as my journey of life continues.

Reminiscence of Socializing in the Past

I believe life is a journey where experiences are the fruits we should enjoy. Like a fruit, our experiences can be sweet, sour, or bitter but we should always learn from them and keep walking. Like most of you, even my memory of my first group of friends was from my school days. I connected with some of them from Grade 3. They are the people whom I grew up with, who taught me the value of friendship, and also had a strong influence on my life. Along with us our friendship also grew leaps and bounds, going to school was never boring and during every new academic year we used to scan the notice board to see if we still shared the same class. As most of us used to stay around the school, the walk back from school was fun to remember. The memory of all of us halting at every friend's house on the way back, fighting over a single lime-juice, our famous egg-puff from our favourite Royal bakery is still afresh. Sometimes we were true gentlemen, who used to escort our girl-friends to their houses before heading back to our haven. Like all good things that come to an end, we left all these behind for our professional courses. In college, I forged another set of friends those with similar interests, passion, and attitude. It was during college that most of us had the experience of working with computers, software, and the internet. Chatting became one of the most popular activities during those days. It even helped some of us to connect with our old friends. That said chatting had its share of fun too, I know few personalities amongst us who had fallen head over heals to fake handles with an attractive profile picture. I did not know back then that the exposure to chatting was going to be a life skill learned for a later time in life.

During our lives, we have seen and overcome many outbreaks like bird flu, swine flu, H1N1, Nipah virus, and so on but it took a coronavirus to lock us down. We were all busy in our own lives that we did not make time to connect with many of our friends. When offices shifted home and going out was restricted by the government, we saw many people moving online to connect back with what they had lost. All of us started connecting with family and friends over online apps. I have personally been part of many Zoom calls, hangout calls, and WhatsApp calls. These calls helped me understand one thing about life, even when it takes us far from each other, there are some special bonds that withstand the tests of time. I can happily say that, I have a few friends and family who still stay connected, rooted, and in touch with each other. 

Hidden Talents during Social Lockdown

This lockdown made me realize that many things that I took for granted were a blessing. The first to be taken away was my freedom of movement and space. Imagine my plight of having a shadow in the form of a wife, moving along with me around the boundary of our four walls wherever I go, reminds me of the Hutch ad "wherever you go I follow". Having found her new interest in exploring TikTok and making videos, my free time at home was spent supporting her new addiction. With restriction in movement, I could no longer meet my cousins nor my friends. Our weekend gatherings were all things of the past. So to elevate our spirits we started to discuss ideas on how to socialize and keep ourselves occupied during the current norm of social distancing. The lockdown brought out the bloggers, artists, and storytellers in many of us.  Women juggled with office work and domestic chores but never hesitated to utilize this lockdown to try out recipes of exotic dishes and few men decided to show the world that, yes! Men can cook, thus food porn cluttered our phones resulting in insufficient storage pop-up messages. 

 As our group of friends were all interested in making visual content, we too like many decided to make and share videos that made us feel ecstatic. With this newfound interest we decided to create a video to promote the importance of having an egg every day in our lives, reminiscing the age-old jingle, 'Sunday ho ya Monday roz khayein Ande'. Below is the video we put together:

Life takes many twists and turns and the ride may not be always smooth. The lesson I learned during this lockdown is that however strong life's current may be, never forget to take a moment to cherish the finer details of life. I will always remember that it took only a virus to bring the world to a grinding halt. So I hope that the compassion developed during the lockdown in all of us may continue to grow and help us socialize even more once the lockdown is lifted. Pray all remain safe and healthy...