Many elders who keep deep observation on the ebbs and flows of society tell that the households residing near the general pedestrians’ way are smart in intellect, and get more exposure. As an instance, earlier the people walked on foot on the way from Kargil to Suru valley. The household on the bank of their way would frequently get more pedestrians as guests. The children in the house get more exposure, knowledge about various other villages, their social norms, and traditions in them.

From this, we can easily get to the conclusion that interacting with more people gives more exposure and knowledge. On the other side, it also aware of the various social, economic, and societal issues that are prevailing in the society. This awareness infuses the sense of social responsibility as well which is a significant requirement for cementing social belongingness and bonding. Imagine! What would happen, if we limit our social interactions and prefer isolation.

This very issue of social life came to my mind when I found that my niece was looking for a private school van instead of travelling into public buses. Most of the people including the parents and authorities consider providing a school van as a facility. Obviously, it provides ease, but it has a major social drawback. In my school times, I used to travel by bus for around 7-8 km. From these travels, I interacted with people on the bus, learned manners from them, observed social issues from their gossips. It is truly said by elders that people learn in journeys.

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In society, all people have a perception of others. Everyone builds a perception for ingroup, outgroup, friends, and foes. But perceptions that are not based on proper observation and uninterrupted communication becomes stereotypes and misperceptions. Interaction means communication; communication without barriers results in the removal of misperceptions and stereotypes.

With the provision of a school van, we are thwarting our wards from getting proper observation and making the true perceptions of societal issues beyond their school van. In other hours of their daily life, they are isolated from society by many other things. Another major floor to get in touch with a social life is faith congregations which are abandoned by a significant part of our society. In houses, the mobile phone has isolated the family from one another. In such a condition the only information to construct our perception is the WhatsApp university and Facebook lies.

The obsession with individual liberty, embrace of isolation, and thwarting of social life cause disturbance to both the individual and social life. Otherwise, humans are expected to maintain a balance between individual and social life for the smooth functioning of human society.

Anyhow, we have to maximise our social interactions and social gatherings. This is one of the key ideas behind faith congregations. The joint prayers in local mosques three or five times every day and once a week at the apex, Jama Masjid provides an untold platform to raise and deliberate on social issues. During the high time of the covid pandemic, one had rightly said that, don’t maintain a social distance but maintain physical distance.

Here, I am not advocating to remove school vans. This is necessary to ease the children in reaching school. However, in parallel, we have to involve our wards more in social gatherings and congregations. It is necessary to expose them to the world beyond the walls of school vans, schools, and houses. This will help you in making the coming generations responsible social citizens.