Monologue 1: Things Fall Apart

Yes. I was waiting for you. Come. If you stand to listen to me, stand for a little while. We will talk a bit; and then go ahead on our ways.

Stand not very close to my body. A viral sense of hygiene prevents that but the art of distance surely whispers the very many ways to connect the soul of your ear to the soul of my voice. So let’s keep talking.

The fact that an epidemic became a pandemic and is here to stay has captured so much of the human occupation and attention is not very difficult to understand. The fact that such spread of a disease can bring a twist to life and living on earth is not difficult to understand. The fact that a pandemic can cause a whole civilisation to malfunction is proved and recorded proper in history.

The fact that you have to stand up and walk again, despite whatever loss and pain you have encountered, is unquestioned. You are shaky now. Your financial condition has dwindled surely. You are clinically sick. You are psychologically injured. You are hurt and sad. Now, don’t rush. Take time. At ease.

Now what I want to tell you is actually something I want to remind you – take your time; go slow; take time to grow – at the end of the day you have to get up. You have to live – that’s the truth. So why not live it good, why not live well; with passion and with meaning and with beauty. That’s actually the way of nature.

Remember one more thing as well. Honestly, there isn’t one specific way to a good life. Leading a solitary monkish life on the mountains may not be the only way to a good life. Having a loving family with ample property might not be the only way to a good life. Possession of power and authority and command may not be the only way to a good life. Even sacrificing your life for the cause of society or for the nation or for the motherland may not be the only way to a good life. A sense of satisfaction of a scientific discovery or a technological invention might not be the only way to a good life. An attainment of extreme joy over an artistic creation or a literary creation and the acknowledgement and appreciation of the achievement might not be the only way to a good life.

Good life might not come from karma alone. It might not come from prarabdha alone. It might not come from fate alone. Good life might not come from probabilities and uncertainties of the game. It might not come from random chance and luck either.

Then what’s good life? How will it come?

As is famously said, everything else is child’s play, let’s first answer the basic question.

(This is the first part of a series titled Monologue)