The New Normal

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Personal space is such an important thing amongst people these days. Parents are bending backwards to provide space to their kids, physical and emotional. No one wants to be disturbed. No one wants to be questioned. No one wants to be responsible or answerable for anything. It is all about 'letting them be' and 'let me be'. Family closeness is reducing in the name of 'providing space'. One is not to talk about troubled relationships to anyone and one cannot ask family or friends about their relationships. Friends' spouses having extra marital affairs but all pretending that it is hunky-dory.  No one asks anyone any personal question, lest you step into their private space. Growing up in a joint family and living in a hostel, this concept of personal space was weird. Post marriage, I saw how new people in my life, were so secretive. Husband said, it is their personal space. I was like " Huh, what is that?" I grew up in a family, where even a little 'Shikanj on your face, was noticed. We were talked to and no one sulked. We shared and found a solution or got over it as sharing took away all the burden. The family was with you, rock solid, all the time. All outings were planned together and discussed in the family and by the family, even if it was a local place, a few hundred metres away. We knew where the eleven members of the family were. No one went anywhere without telling each other. Same in the hostel, even if you went to buy a Sev Puri, you invited friends to come along with you. For us, accompanying a friend to the Dhobi to collect her ironed clothes, was a joy. If one was shampooing her hair in the hostel, it meant she had a date. If one was going to her Local Guardian's house, you could see the excitement on her face. We knew all about each other's families and extended families. We all worried about all our families together. Even now, barely have I said Hello to my Mom on the phone and she knows exactly how I am like she did in my hostel days. 

When you get married, it is like the 'New Normal' which we are all dealing with in this pandemic. First of all, it feels abnormal. I was always shocked that how come we do not know where the family members are or how come they went on a vacation or an outstation trip without telling us. Rules of the New Normal are very different. Or should I go one step ahead and say that the Game is only totally different. Long years it has taken me to accept the New Normal as the normal now. I mean, I have seen relationships breaking down in the family and no one is bothered as one must give them space to deal with it. I grew up in the family where we fought, cried and bonded together . We did not stay apart and mutter meaningless nothings to each other. We may have been and still are harsh at times but with the best of the others in our hearts. It is not of keeping your distance and pretending that all is fine. Today, so many people believe that as far as you are not fighting, your relationship is good. Is that really it? Why are we so scared of getting close and intruding one's private space? What will happen if we do that? Who doesn't like bonding? Why can't we be straight forward to not just our children but also with extended family members? Why is being direct considered being rude or aggressive? Why do I want to hide things from my family or my children? What is there that I think it is better hidden? How much effort it takes to be secretive and hide information? Had 'Social Distancing' started much before Corona? 

Now people are distancing themselves from not just their families, but also from their mother tongue, language and traditions. In their urge to be hip or cool, people are throwing caution to the winds and along with it, their culture too.  There is a general disdain about life and zero appreciation of all things good. Acknowledgement does not exist in thoughts but only in flowery words. In their facade to be a global citizen, people are discrediting their own Nation. They do not miss any opportunity to humiliate their own. The arrogance is supported by the Liberalism. I do not know if my GrandMother knew about Socialism or not but she used to always say 'People who do not have anything, have arrogance.' 


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