This debut episode of Dots of Thoughts takes as a prompt an essay I wrote in reference to the notion of social distancing and its many undertones especially in the context of Berlin, Europe where I am currently observing the lockdown. Invited to join the conversation, through a phone call, is Mathangi Krishnamurthy, a colleague and a dear friend based in Chennai, South of India. We ruminated on the nature of social distancing in a densely populated city such as Chennai;  a city where tactile communal interaction is not only important but central to existence. How are people making sense of the viability of social distancing? What does it mean beyond the “one-line mantra for the entire world” as she calls it? How is social distancing understood across lines of class and privilege?

What do we do with our time now that we have been forced, albeit for a few weeks, to live in it in ways contrary to our habitual routine?

Furthermore, will the world grasp the most needful lesson this crisis presents to us?

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To read the essay from which this conversation sprang, see here

Emeka Okereke

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