THIS ‘new’ pandemic is threatening to devastate our society today. New normals are in place, new definitions are being written. New thinking is declaring old thought-process as obsolete. Its dimensions can be disturbing, of course, on many counts. One of the new normals is that young people get up late in the morning. They also go to bed after the rest of the world has finished more than half its night. Because they go to bed late in the night, they feel they have earned a right to get up late in the morning. Another new normal is to take daily bath as an optional issue. In other words, many people take bath only occasionally.

 

An off shoot of this new normal is an increased expenditure on perfumes and deodorants -- which they use profusely for obvious reasons. Many other new normals are available these days, such as not wanting to eat at home, peering into the cellphone screens all the time, taking selfies and sending those to friends even though they are sitting just across the table from them... ! The loud-thinker gets terribly confused with all this -- and does not mind confessing that. For, in his orderly life, this new normal disorder just does not fit. But then, the loud-thinker is old-styled, passe, belonging to yesterday. This is the new definition. Many such new definitions are doing the rounds.

 

And greatest of all such definitions is: ‘I live life on my own terms’. Oh, wow ! That’s truly terrific. For, when somebody declares that he/she lives life on his/her own terms, others just have no place or space in that life. So, I get up at any time I wish. I go to bed at any time I wish. I smoke because I like to do that. I drink alcohol because all my friends ... ... wait, wait ! What did you say -- You drink alcohol because all your friends do?! Then, where are your so-called own terms, my friend? And you also smoke because your friends do. And you use drugs because your friends forced you to. And you see ‘blue films’ because everybody in the group does. Where are YOUR OWN TERMS, my dear?