SOCIAL DISTANCING AND THE ADOLESCENT MIND: WHAT THE SPANISH FLU TAUGHT US

Abstract

Pandemics are undeniably wondrous periods of historical analysis. From their emergence on the horizon to the choking gasp of their final prey, pandemics are practically tailor-made as mass events, with their unpredictability and their dreadfulness leavened by skepticism, cowardice, bravery, and a number of other expressions of the human spirit. Social archivists have stated that the 1918-19 ‘Spanish Flu’ left hardly any remnants in mass memory as it was eclipsed by the First World War, hence its historico-geographical depiction as the ‘forgotten’ pandemic. This paper aims at portraying how this forgotten pandemic affected Indian experiences. India, being colonized and war stricken, saw the death of over 12 million people but interestingly enough; the “Great Influenza” had always been a less compelling story to the mass memory. The dread and vulnerability can only be seen in Indian and world literature when authors look back on 1918 from a different perspective. In this paper we aim to travel beyond the notion of forgetting the “The Great Influenza” by investigating the ways in which popular responses draw on the narratives of sociopolitical, psychological and substantial discourses that create a common space of people’s experiences due to social alienation, from the age of the Spanish flu, to the current Covid-19 pandemic. The terrifying and profound fear of contamination which resulted in social distancing is a process that can mutilate our body and metamorphose our soul into something no longer recognizable, no longer human. This assumption challenges the Indian-ness of social integrity and is worsened by the realization that such affliction is passed onto us by our fellow humans. Such realizations poison and untangle the individual and social fabric of Indian experiences and create a gargantuan impact on adolescence. This paper aims at understanding this notion of alienation
and its effects on young Indian students as it has altered the idea of school and socio-educational spaces, and has transformed it into an alienating and distanced experience. By studying the historical effects of a pandemic on the literature of the time, we aim to understand the psychological consequences of social distancing and the digital divide in the current educational scenario.