Today while availing Urban Company service for getting my Haircut done, I felt a bit odd to get the feel of hand wrapped in rubber on my chin. It didn’t feel that odd, I got when I met the dentist to check on my teeth, dentist adorned in PPE kit met us in the cabin. Indians are brought up in touchy feely culture where lot of communication happens through non-verbal communication like facial expressions, laugh, pats, handshakes etc., Post Covid era, masked faces covering most of the facial expressions and gloved hands reducing the human touch became the norm all over the world.
If someone is thinking this is going to be a temporary
phenomenon, are definitely underestimating the long term lifestyle impacts
covid would permanently leave a mark, when it leaves. We would get used to
social distancing coming into cultures that thrive on personal intimacy in closely knit relationships. We might
as well get used to masks to some extent when meeting strangers or visiting
populous places. We might forget handshakes and pats completely or meet gloved
hands when we do in near term.
Like mentioned above, human touch is one aspect that we are
missing in the middle of the pandemic especially when we need it most. Take for example, a covid patient would long
for support, someone to lean on, someone to give reassuring pat, or someone to wipe
tears. But given the contagious nature
of the disease, you are going to get them the least. Without the human touch,
the reassurances family and friends give might sound shallow but that’s all
they can afford to give unfortunately.
Human touch also means empathy and touch of humanity. In the
current situation, we all need to pay explicit attention to fellow humans both
within family, friends or work colleagues. We need to strive as much as
possible to understand the challenges they go through and be kind to each other.
We may not be able to give commercial benefit to all but kind words are not
expensive, so use them generously.
