Coronavirus Scare: East Or West ‘Namaste’ Is Best

‘Namaste’, the Indian way of greeting people has gone international in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Royalty Prince Charles, all of them are folding their hands now instead of doing a handshake, reports IANS.

Namaste is the safest way of greeting since it does not require touching another and only involves joining one’s own two palms together.

Coronavirus, as per the experts is highly contagious and is spread by physical contact, one of which is the handshake.

Perhaps this was what prompted US President Donald Trump to say after he met the Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in the Oval office at the White House on Thursday, “We didn’t shake hands today and we looked at each other and said what are we going to do? Sort of a weird feeling. We did this (joined hands). I just got back from India and I didn’t shake any hands there. It was easy.”

While Trump’s trip to Ahmedabad (India) on February 24, 2020, where he attended a rally named Namaste Trump put ‘Namaste’ on the world spotlight, he himself is being seen to be making a case for Namaste in these days of coronavirus spread, and even hailed the Indian way of greeting as: “They (India and Japan) were ahead of the curve.”

Last week Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu too advocated the Namaste way of greeting. He asked his fellow countrymen to greet each other by folding hands and saying Namaste as opposed to shaking hands as fears over the coronavirus outbreak grow.

During a press conference, he said that small steps such as adopting the Indian Namaste could help in controlling the spread of the virus, among others steps.

“President Macron also has decided to greet all his counterparts with a Namaste, a graceful gesture that he has retained from his India visit in 2018,” a tweet from the official Twitter account of the Ambassador of France to India Emmanuel Lenain said on March 11.

A video of Prince Charles greeting with Namaste went viral on the Internet. He was seen greeting people with a Namaste at the annual Prince’s Trust Awards on March 11 at the London Palladium.

Namaste is originally a Sanskrit phrase formed from ‘Namah’, meaning ‘bow, obeisance, adoration,’ and the enclitic pronoun “te”, meaning ‘to you”. It differs from the Namaskar in the sense that Namaskar means bow to the energy in you and Namaste is bowing to you.