Tuesday, 16 June 2020

Dilemma and determination during Internment


  Lockdown period can be productive if one has the flair for reading and writing. Of course there are times when even this gets tiresome and we seek desperately other sources of diversion to fill the long summer days imprisoned within  the four walls. I have also experienced a similar degree of ennui and weariness with books and computers – the main tools we all have- to stay in touch with the world beyond our mental borders. It was a serendipitous discovery as I flipped the 24x7 Corona news channels to Star plus to find a repeat telecast of the Mahabharata of the 2013 production. I had seen it earlier and therefore I had decided to skip viewing it a second time. But since  the news channels ceaselessly churn out the daily depressing dose of  CV news about its spike, the lack of hospital beds , the increase in positive cases and mortality rates, besides the fearsome predictions of a gargantuan peak in the next few weeks, I had no option but  to vacuously indulge in channel surfing when I stumbled on the Mahabharata serial and saw the  episode  featuring Bhishma’s surrender to Krishna which  is a part of Bhishma parva that narrates the first ten days of war.
Bhishma, stung to the quick by Duryodhana’s accusations of not keeping his vow to be loyal to the throne of Hastinapur which was then with the Kauravas, pledges to annihilate the Pandavas. He enters the battle field the next morning and is at his ferocious best slaughtering all who dared to confront him. Finding Arjuna hesitant to raise his bow against the family patriarch, Krishna gets  angry and descends from  his chariot to confront and kill  Bhishma contrary to his vow not to wield arms during the war. Bhishma is taken aback to see an angry Krishna.  Bhishma who had prided himself of having lived a blemishless life of self denial and rectitude, strictly adhering to his twin vows of celibacy and loyalty to whosoever who sat on the throne of Hastinapur, asks Krishna as to where he had erred to incur Krishna’s wrath.
Krishna accuses Bhishma for his failure to be on the side of Dharma because for Bhishma, adherence to his vows was as his sole dharma. Bhishma had failed to intervene in the injustices done to the Pandavas and more so to Draupadi when the Kauravas attempted to disrobe her. He was a mute spectator to all the evil games played by the Kauravas, but because of his vow of loyalty to the Kauravas, he had remained silent. In keeping with his vow, he had entered the fight on the side of the Kauravas even when he knew that Pandavas stood for Dharma.
Bhishma privileged his own dharma above Universal Dharma which essentially signifies right conduct in keeping with Rta or the cosmic Law that benefits society and mankind. Krishna reveals to Bhishma that all his actions to serve the Kauravas were unethical and had resulted in the establishment of adharma personified in Duryodana and his band of Kauravas.
This episode involving Bhishma and Krishna is illustrative of the perennial conflict between individual dharma and the Universal Dharma where the pride and ego  of adherence to one’s personal conscience often conflicts with moral conscience that upholds the larger interest of humanity. The conflict between id, ego and Superego is inherent in all human beings. Id functioning on pleasure principle caters to our base ideas and urges, while Superego operates as our moral conscience and seeks to direct our activities to a higher spiritual ideal what we refer to as Dharma. Our behaviour and conduct have to be in keeping with Dharma which follows Ṛta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and that includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living". Ego is the one that mediates between id and Superego. Bhishma’s privileging his personal vow (dharma) however noble it was over universal Dharma is egoistic and unethical. As Krishna unfolds the unethicality of Bhishma’s actions- which he justifies as keeping to his personal vow,- Bhishma realizes the futility and ineffectiveness of his vows and seeks forgiveness from Lord Krishna. Since  Bhishma had been given the boon of immortality unless he wills his death,  he expresses his desire to atone for his wrongs  at the hands of Shikandini. On his deathbed he bestows his blessings on the Pandavas for their victory as they were the upholders of Dharma
Coincidentally on the day  I watched this episode of Krishna and Bhishma, I was engaged in writing an analysis of  Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses  written  nearly two centuries ago(1833). This has been my favourite poem of Tennyson as it represented the Victorian conflict between an artist’s love of art for art’s sake and his duty to use art in the service of humanity. Ulysses, the great hero of the Iliad, next only to Achilles, returns home to ascend the throne as the King of Ithaca. But soon after he becomes restless as his thirst for new voyages, new discoveries and new knowledge overpowers him and he decides to abdicate his throne in favour of his son Telemachus and s out on his quest saying
 I cannot rest from travel: I will drink/ Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd /Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those/ That loved me, and alone,”...  and proceeds “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”. He abandons his duty by his people as he seeks fresh knowledge and fresh discoveries.
This sums up the perennial dilemma within all of us- should we live to satisfy our personal desires or live to serve fellow beings. To seek knowledge and to satisfy the personal urge to expand ones knowledge horizon  is not wrong, but can that alone be the meaning of one’s existence? Isn’t it a kind of indulgence on the part of the artist in satisfying his love for self expression?  Can he use his art to rejuvenate mankind? Can we find meaning by making our life useful to our fellow humanity! Overarching these questions is the larger question as to how to reconcile the two as both are required and both need each other.
These Lockdown days seem endless as there is no specific action to be done at any specific time( the exception being those who  are mandated  to WFH(work from home) and complete the task assigned to them before they call it a day).  For others the lockdown days stretch beyond sunset and sometimes well into the early hours of night. Days and hours seem long and provide golden opportunity to reflect on life- a luxury of timelessness that CV has gifted us.
Even as the reader looks askance at my placing Bhishma on par with Ulysses, I brought them on the same platform as I found them sharing the conflict of personal satisfaction as against dedicating their talents to serve ‘ others’. This dilemma between I and the ‘other’is a perennial one –a  dilemma everyone of us  shares with every other person- how to live an ethical life with a focus on self alongside a life of altruism , a life dedicated to the service of fellow beings. It is easy to accept, though difficult to put in practice what our Hindu scriptures say- to lead our individual life worthy of the gift bestowed on each one of us by our Creator with a focussed goal to attain personal salvation through total surrender to the Lord. The merger of the self with the Self has to be the final goal.
But somewhere this concept of personal salvation as the ultimate goal intrigues me as its focus is on me and my individual self.  It does not accommodate the ‘others’ who have been a part of my life from my birth. Everyone knows  the one and the only certainty that I am born, I exist, and one day I shall cease to exist, This life is the one and only life that we  know as we have no knowledge of  what went before and what shall come hereafter. What we pack into life gives the meaning of our existence. Hence for everyone, the meaning we pack between birth and death is of our own volition, a conscious choice we make. And what we do will have to factor in, its effect on others around. To questions who am I, why was I born, what is the purpose of my life and where do I go- to the five ‘W’s of who, what, why, when and where, no one has answer. To find a meaning for life then becomes our vocation. 
The Lockdown period has given me ample time to dwell on questions that had been put on the backburner in the hurly burly days of mundane activities. The daily chase to be one up on the ‘others’ had been the driving impetus all through these years. My life, my achievement, my success, my happiness have been the overarching compulsions  to give meaning to my existence. In this selfish pursuit of happiness, there is no place for the other. We share the animal instincts similar to the force behind all animal movements. In our personal life, it is as though we were following the Keynesian economic theory that encouraged animal spirits in Man, unleashing our basic instincts, proclivities and emotions to influence and guide our human behaviour. We have been living like animals in pursuit of mindless happiness and self satisfaction. We had almost forgotten what is happiness because we were constantly chasing happiness.  The Corona Virus has flattened the social and  economic curves  and has shown how we all share the  vulnerability of life
Watching the Mahabharata  and listening to Krishna’s message to Draupadi settled the conflict within me. Krishna foresees the tragedy that awaited Draupadi as all her children would be the victims of this war. She had earlier vowed to avenge the attempted destruction of her honour but as she apprehended the ensuing tragedy where she would  be called upon to sacrifice her children,  she tells Krishna that she would rather withdraw her vow than face a colossal tragedy. Krishna’s advice to Draupadi not to rescind her fight for justice even at the cost of personal sacrifice helped me to reconcile the dilemma of  I and the other. My passion, my commitment, my choice of ethical action for the upholding of justice and fairness is a blending of I and the other.  In the bargain, if it demands personal sacrifice, I should have the courage to face it.

 Well my reflections helped me to get rid of a binary approach to ‘I and the other’ as both are the two given fixed determinates  and they exist only because of their interdependence. ‘I’ cannot remain in isolation. ‘I ‘ cannot be happy if all around ‘I’, others are unhappy. It is true vice versa. A community or a society is made up of many ‘’I’s and its happiness depends on the wellbeing of all its ‘I’s. What is important is the need to focus upon ethical conduct that is conducive for the well being of all the ‘I’s that constitute a community

Lockdown has its own gifts to bestow. It has given us time- time to retrospect, time to introspect, time for hindsight, time for foresight, time to look back, time to look forward, time for I and time for the other. I recalled Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the old Mariner lay cooped inside his ship that had got stranded. He had inadvertently killed the albatross in a sudden moment of violence and despair.                     
                                                                                               Beyond the shadow of the ship,                                                            
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
 And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.


My dilemma that hung like the albatross fell the moment I accepted the others as myself. Like the Ancient Mariner, I blessed the Corona Virus unaware.


















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































                                                                                                                                                                                                                       



























































































  Lockdown period can be productive if one has the flair for reading and writing. Of course there are times when even this gets tiresome and we seek desperately other sources of diversion to fill the long summer days imprisoned within  the four walls. I have also experienced a similar degree of ennui and weariness with books and computers – the main tools we all have- to stay in touch with the world beyond our mental borders. It was a serendipitous discovery as I flipped the 24x7 Corona news channels to Star plus to find a repeat telecast of the Mahabharata of the 2013 production. I had seen it earlier and therefore I had decided to skip viewing it a second time. But since  the news channels ceaselessly churn out the daily depressing dose of  CV news about its spike, the lack of hospital beds , the increase in positive cases and mortality rates, besides the fearsome predictions of a gargantuan peak in the next few weeks, I had no option but  to vacuously indulge in channel surfing when I stumbled on the Mahabharata serial and saw the  episode  featuring Bhishma’s surrender to Krishna which  is a part of Bhishma parva that narrates the first ten days of war.
Bhishma, stung to the quick by Duryodhana’s accusations of not keeping his vow to be loyal to the throne of Hastinapur which was then with the Kauravas, pledges to annihilate the Pandavas. He enters the battle field the next morning and is at his ferocious best slaughtering all who dared to confront him. Finding Arjuna hesitant to raise his bow against the family patriarch, Krishna gets  angry and descends from  his chariot to confront and kill  Bhishma contrary to his vow not to wield arms during the war. Bhishma is taken aback to see an angry Krishna.  Bhishma who had prided himself of having lived a blemishless life of self denial and rectitude, strictly adhering to his twin vows of celibacy and loyalty to whosoever who sat on the throne of Hastinapur, asks Krishna as to where he had erred to incur Krishna’s wrath.
Krishna accuses Bhishma for his failure to be on the side of Dharma because for Bhishma, adherence to his vows was as his sole dharma. Bhishma had failed to intervene in the injustices done to the Pandavas and more so to Draupadi when the Kauravas attempted to disrobe her. He was a mute spectator to all the evil games played by the Kauravas, but because of his vow of loyalty to the Kauravas, he had remained silent. In keeping with his vow, he had entered the fight on the side of the Kauravas even when he knew that Pandavas stood for Dharma.
Bhishma privileged his own dharma above Universal Dharma which essentially signifies right conduct in keeping with Rta or the cosmic Law that benefits society and mankind. Krishna reveals to Bhishma that all his actions to serve the Kauravas were unethical and had resulted in the establishment of adharma personified in Duryodana and his band of Kauravas.
This episode involving Bhishma and Krishna is illustrative of the perennial conflict between individual dharma and the Universal Dharma where the pride and ego  of adherence to one’s personal conscience often conflicts with moral conscience that upholds the larger interest of humanity. The conflict between id, ego and Superego is inherent in all human beings. Id functioning on pleasure principle caters to our base ideas and urges, while Superego operates as our moral conscience and seeks to direct our activities to a higher spiritual ideal what we refer to as Dharma. Our behaviour and conduct have to be in keeping with Dharma which follows Ṛta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and that includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living". Ego is the one that mediates between id and Superego. Bhishma’s privileging his personal vow (dharma) however noble it was over universal Dharma is egoistic and unethical. As Krishna unfolds the unethicality of Bhishma’s actions- which he justifies as keeping to his personal vow,- Bhishma realizes the futility and ineffectiveness of his vows and seeks forgiveness from Lord Krishna. Since  Bhishma had been given the boon of immortality unless he wills his death,  he expresses his desire to atone for his wrongs  at the hands of Shikandini. On his deathbed he bestows his blessings on the Pandavas for their victory as they were the upholders of Dharma
Coincidentally on the day  I watched this episode of Krishna and Bhishma, I was engaged in writing an analysis of  Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses  written  nearly two centuries ago(1833). This has been my favourite poem of Tennyson as it represented the Victorian conflict between an artist’s love of art for art’s sake and his duty to use art in the service of humanity. Ulysses, the great hero of the Iliad, next only to Achilles, returns home to ascend the throne as the King of Ithaca. But soon after he becomes restless as his thirst for new voyages, new discoveries and new knowledge overpowers him and he decides to abdicate his throne in favour of his son Telemachus and s out on his quest saying
 I cannot rest from travel: I will drink/ Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd /Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those/ That loved me, and alone,”...  and proceeds “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”. He abandons his duty by his people as he seeks fresh knowledge and fresh discoveries.
This sums up the perennial dilemma within all of us- should we live to satisfy our personal desires or live to serve fellow beings. To seek knowledge and to satisfy the personal urge to expand ones knowledge horizon  is not wrong, but can that alone be the meaning of one’s existence? Isn’t it a kind of indulgence on the part of the artist in satisfying his love for self expression?  Can he use his art to rejuvenate mankind? Can we find meaning by making our life useful to our fellow humanity! Overarching these questions is the larger question as to how to reconcile the two as both are required and both need each other.
These Lockdown days seem endless as there is no specific action to be done at any specific time( the exception being those who  are mandated  to WFH(work from home) and complete the task assigned to them before they call it a day).  For others the lockdown days stretch beyond sunset and sometimes well into the early hours of night. Days and hours seem long and provide golden opportunity to reflect on life- a luxury of timelessness that CV has gifted us.
Even as the reader looks askance at my placing Bhishma on par with Ulysses, I brought them on the same platform as I found them sharing the conflict of personal satisfaction as against dedicating their talents to serve ‘ others’. This dilemma between I and the ‘other’is a perennial one –a  dilemma everyone of us  shares with every other person- how to live an ethical life with a focus on self alongside a life of altruism , a life dedicated to the service of fellow beings. It is easy to accept, though difficult to put in practice what our Hindu scriptures say- to lead our individual life worthy of the gift bestowed on each one of us by our Creator with a focussed goal to attain personal salvation through total surrender to the Lord. The merger of the self with the Self has to be the final goal.
But somewhere this concept of personal salvation as the ultimate goal intrigues me as its focus is on me and my individual self.  It does not accommodate the ‘others’ who have been a part of my life from my birth. Everyone knows  the one and the only certainty that I am born, I exist, and one day I shall cease to exist, This life is the one and only life that we  know as we have no knowledge of  what went before and what shall come hereafter. What we pack into life gives the meaning of our existence. Hence for everyone, the meaning we pack between birth and death is of our own volition, a conscious choice we make. And what we do will have to factor in, its effect on others around. To questions who am I, why was I born, what is the purpose of my life and where do I go- to the five ‘W’s of who, what, why, when and where, no one has answer. To find a meaning for life then becomes our vocation. 
The Lockdown period has given me ample time to dwell on questions that had been put on the backburner in the hurly burly days of mundane activities. The daily chase to be one up on the ‘others’ had been the driving impetus all through these years. My life, my achievement, my success, my happiness have been the overarching compulsions  to give meaning to my existence. In this selfish pursuit of happiness, there is no place for the other. We share the animal instincts similar to the force behind all animal movements. In our personal life, it is as though we were following the Keynesian economic theory that encouraged animal spirits in Man, unleashing our basic instincts, proclivities and emotions to influence and guide our human behaviour. We have been living like animals in pursuit of mindless happiness and self satisfaction. We had almost forgotten what is happiness because we were constantly chasing happiness.  The Corona Virus has flattened the social and  economic curves  and has shown how we all share the  vulnerability of life
Watching the Mahabharata  and listening to Krishna’s message to Draupadi settled the conflict within me. Krishna foresees the tragedy that awaited Draupadi as all her children would be the victims of this war. She had earlier vowed to avenge the attempted destruction of her honour but as she apprehended the ensuing tragedy where she would  be called upon to sacrifice her children,  she tells Krishna that she would rather withdraw her vow than face a colossal tragedy. Krishna’s advice to Draupadi not to rescind her fight for justice even at the cost of personal sacrifice helped me to reconcile the dilemma of  I and the other. My passion, my commitment, my choice of ethical action for the upholding of justice and fairness is a blending of I and the other.  In the bargain, if it demands personal sacrifice, I should have the courage to face it.

 Well my reflections helped me to get rid of a binary approach to ‘I and the other’ as both are the two given fixed determinates  and they exist only because of their interdependence. ‘I’ cannot remain in isolation. ‘I ‘ cannot be happy if all around ‘I’, others are unhappy. It is true vice versa. A community or a society is made up of many ‘’I’s and its happiness depends on the wellbeing of all its ‘I’s. What is important is the need to focus upon ethical conduct that is conducive for the well being of all the ‘I’s that constitute a community

Lockdown has its own gifts to bestow. It has given us time- time to retrospect, time to introspect, time for hindsight, time for foresight, time to look back, time to look forward, time for I and time for the other. I recalled Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the old Mariner lay cooped inside his ship that had got stranded. He had inadvertently killed the albatross in a sudden moment of violence and despair.                     
                                                                                               Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
 And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.


My dilemma that hung like the albatross fell the moment I accepted the others as myself. Like the Ancient Mariner, I blessed the Corona Virus unaware.


















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































                                                                                                                                                                                                                       






















































































Lockdown period can be productive if one has the flair for reading and writing. Of course there are times when even this gets tiresome and we seek desperately other sources of diversion to fill the long summer days imprisoned within  four walls. I have also experienced a similar degree of ennui and weariness with books and computers – the main tools we all have- to stay in touch with the world beyond our mental borders. It was a serendipitous discovery as I flipped the 24x7 Corona news channels to Star plus to find a repeat telecast of the Mahabharata of the 2013 production. I had seen it earlier and therefore I had decided to skip viewing it a second time. But since  the news channels ceaselessly churn out the daily depressing dose of  CV news about its spike, the lack of hospital beds , the increase in positive cases and mortality rates, besides the fearsome predictions of a gargantuan peak in the next few weeks, I had no option but  to vacuously indulge in channel surfing when I stumbled on the Mahabharata serial and saw the  episode  featuring Bhishma’s surrender to Krishna which  is a part of Bhishma parva that narrates the first ten days of war.
Bhishma, stung to the quick by Duryodhana’s accusations of not keeping his vow to be loyal to the throne of Hastinapur which was then with the Kauravas, pledges to annihilate the Pandavas. He enters the battle field the next morning and is at his ferocious best slaughtering all who dared to confront him. Finding Arjuna hesitant to raise his bow against the family patriarch, Krishna gets  angry and descends from  his chariot to confront and kill  Bhishma contrary to his vow not to wield arms during the war. Bhishma is taken aback to see an angry Krishna.  Bhishma who had prided himself of having lived a blemishless life of self denial and rectitude, strictly adhering to his twin vows of celibacy and loyalty to whosoever who sat on the throne of Hastinapur, asks Krishna as to where he had erred to incur Krishna’s wrath.
Krishna accuses Bhishma for his failure to be on the side of Dharma because for Bhishma, adherence to his vows was as his sole dharma. Bhishma had failed to intervene in the injustices done to the Pandavas and more so to Draupadi when the Kauravas attempted to disrobe her. He was a mute spectator to all the evil games played by the Kauravas, but because of his vow of loyalty to the Kauravas, he had remained silent. In keeping with his vow, he had entered the fight on the side of the Kauravas even when he knew that he had pledged his loyalty to the adharmic forces.
Bhishma privileged his own dharma above Universal Dharma which essentially signifies right conduct in keeping with Rta or the cosmic Law that benefits society and mankind. Krishna reveals to Bhishma that all his actions to serve the Kauravas were unethical and had resulted in the establishment of adharma personified in Duryodana and his band of Kauravas.
This episode involving Bhishma and Krishna is illustrative of the perennial conflict between individual dharma and the Universal Dharma where the pride and ego  of adherence to one’s personal conscience often conflicts with moral conscience that upholds the larger interest of humanity. The conflict between id, ego and Superego is inherent in all human beings. Id functioning on pleasure principle caters to our base ideas and urges, while Superego operates as our moral conscience and seeks to direct our activities to a higher spiritual ideal what we refer to as Dharma. Our behaviour and conduct have to be in keeping with Dharma which follows Ṛta, the order that makes life and universe possible, and that includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living". Ego is the one that mediates between id and Superego. Bhishma’s privileging his personal vow (dharma) however noble it was over universal Dharma is egoistic and unethical. As Krishna unfolds the unethicality of Bhishma’s actions- which he justifies as keeping to his personal vow,- Bhishma realizes the folly and  egocentricity of his vows and seeks forgiveness from Lord Krishna. Since Bhishma had been given the boon of immortality unless he wills his death,  he expresses his desire to atone for his wrongs  by willing his death at the hands of Shikandini. On his deathbed he bestows his blessings on the Pandavas for their victory as they were the upholders of Dharma
Coincidentally on the day  I watched this episode of Krishna and Bhishma, I was engaged in writing an analysis of  Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses  written  nearly two centuries ago(1833). This has been my favourite poem of Tennyson as it represented the Victorian conflict between an artist’s love of art for art’s sake and his duty to use art in the service of humanity. Ulysses, the great hero of the Iliad, next only to Achilles, returns home to ascend the throne as the King of Ithaca. But soon after he becomes restless as his thirst for new voyages, new discoveries and new knowledge overpowers him and he decides to abdicate his throne in favour of his son Telemachus and s out on his quest saying
 I cannot rest from travel: I will drink/ Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd /Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those/ That loved me, and alone,”...  and proceeds “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”. He abandons his duty by his people as he seeks fresh knowledge and fresh discoveries.
This sums up the perennial dilemma within all of us- should we live to satisfy our personal desires or live to serve fellow beings. To seek knowledge and to satisfy the personal urge to expand ones knowledge horizon  is not wrong, but can that alone be the meaning of one’s existence? Isn’t it a kind of indulgence on the part of the artist in satisfying his love for self expression?  Can he use his art to rejuvenate mankind? Can we find meaning by making our life useful to our fellow humanity! Overarching these questions is the larger question as to how to reconcile the two as both are required and both need each other.
These Lockdown days seem endless as there is no specific action to be done at any specific time( the exception being those who  are mandated  to WFH(work from home) and complete the task assigned to them before they call it a day).  For others the lockdown days stretch beyond sunset and sometimes well into the early hours of night. Days and hours seem long and provide golden opportunity to reflect on life- a luxury of timelessness that CV has gifted us.
Even as the reader looks askance at my placing Bhishma on par with Ulysses, I brought them on the same platform as I found them sharing the conflict of personal satisfaction as against dedicating their talents to serve ‘ others’. This dilemma between I and the ‘other’is a perennial one –a  dilemma everyone of us  shares with every other person- how to live an ethical life with a focus on self alongside a life of altruism , a life dedicated to the service of fellow beings. It is easy to accept, though difficult to put in practice what our Hindu scriptures say- to lead our individual life worthy of the gift bestowed on each one of us by our Creator with a focussed goal to attain personal salvation through total surrender to the Lord. The merger of the self with the Self has to be the final goal.
But somewhere this concept of personal salvation as the ultimate goal intrigues me as its focus is on me and my individual self.  It does not accommodate the ‘others’ who have been a part of my life from my birth. Everyone knows  the one and the only certainty that I am born, I exist, and one day I shall cease to exist, This life is the one and only life that we  know as we have no knowledge of  what went before and what shall come hereafter. What we pack into life gives the meaning of our existence. Hence for everyone, the meaning we pack between birth and death is of our own volition, a conscious choice we make. And what we do will have to factor in, its effect on others around. To questions who am I, why was I born, what is the purpose of my life and where do I go- to the five ‘W’s of who, what, why, when and where, no one has answer. To find a meaning for life then becomes our vocation. 
The Lockdown period has given me ample time to dwell on questions that had been put on the backburner in the hurly burly days of mundane activities. The daily chase to be one up on the ‘others’ had been the driving impetus all through these years. My life, my achievement, my success, my happiness have been the overarching compulsions  to give meaning to my existence. In this selfish pursuit of happiness, there is no place for the other. We share the animal instincts similar to the force behind all animal movements. In our personal life, it is as though we were following the Keynesian economic theory that encouraged animal spirits in Man, unleashing our basic instincts, proclivities and emotions to influence and guide our human behaviour. We have been living like animals in pursuit of mindless happiness and self satisfaction. We had almost forgotten what is happiness because we were constantly chasing happiness.  The Corona Virus has flattened the social and  economic curves  and has shown how we all share the  vulnerability of life
Watching the Mahabharata  and listening to Krishna’s message to Draupadi settled the conflict within me. Krishna foresees the tragedy that awaited Draupadi as all her children would be the victims of this war. She had earlier vowed to avenge the attempted destruction of her honour but as she apprehended the ensuing tragedy where she would  be called upon to sacrifice her children,  she tells Krishna that she would rather withdraw her vow than face a colossal tragedy. Krishna’s advice to Draupadi not to rescind her fight for justice even at the cost of personal sacrifice helped me to reconcile the dilemma of  I and the other. My passion, my commitment, my choice of ethical action for the upholding of justice and fairness is a blending of I and the other.  In the bargain, if it demands personal sacrifice, I should have the courage to face it.

 Well my reflections helped me to get rid of a binary approach to ‘I and the other’ as both are the two given fixed determinates  and they exist only because of their interdependence. ‘I’ cannot remain in isolation. ‘I ‘ cannot be happy if all around ‘I’, others are unhappy. It is true vice versa. A community or a society is made up of many ‘’I’s and its happiness depends on the wellbeing of all its ‘I’s. What is important is the need to focus upon ethical conduct that is conducive for the well being of all the ‘I’s that constitute a community

Lockdown has its own gifts to bestow. It has given us time- time to retrospect, time to introspect, time for hindsight, time for foresight, time to look back, time to look forward, time for I and time for the other. I recalled Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the old Mariner lay cooped inside his ship that had got stranded. He had inadvertently killed the albatross in a sudden moment of violence and despair.                     
                                                                                               Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
 And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.


My dilemma that hung like the albatross fell the moment I accepted the others as myself. Like the Ancient Mariner, I blessed the Corona Virus unaware.


















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































                                                                                                                                                                                                                       































































































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