One of the earliest accounts of a quarantined life is the story related to King Parikshit. He was cursed to die of a snakebite in seven days. He quarantined himself for the period to try and escape from his imminent death. The king runs to Sage Shuka for help. Shuka laughs and says that the king is lucky — while others could die any moment, at least the king had the assurance that he would live for seven days.
We learn valuable lessons on how the king spent his quarantined time. He focused all his attention on only two fronts: to seclude himself in a palace built atop a tower so that there would be only a single point of entry and exit, and to position sentries at this point to police access to him and to limit contact with the world to the extent possible. In this elaborate way, the king tried to safeguard himself.
Next, he used the entire quarantined period to surrender to Sage Shuka and learn from the sage the eternal truth of life. If such a truth existed, what else could matter except its pursuit? And if such a truth did not exist, what do our lives anyway matter. Such was his single-pointed goal.
On the seventh day, a snake converted itself into a tiny worm and entered a fruit. The sentries did not suspect the fruit. The king ate the fruit, the snake bit him and he died. Thus goes the story.
Superficially reading the story, we feel his quarantined life was in vain. We miss the point. In those seven days, King Parikshit gained the highest wisdom that his essence is more than his body and though the body may die, he exists as the Truth and suffers no death. No one used a quarantined life more effectively than King Parikshit.
Today, faced with a call to quarantine ourselves, we get vexed and know not what to do. Maybe, we lack King Parikshit’s maturity to pursue such a lofty goal. But we can definitely do better.
As the author of the Panchatantra says, the wise spend their time revelling in the beauty of literary works and enriching their scientific knowledge. Our shelves are filled with books we intended to read some day, but never got the time for it. Now is a golden opportunity to curl up the entire afternoon with one such favourite book.
In the rut of everyday life, many of our hobbies have gathered rust. Now is the time to pick up that paint-brush, that knitting needle and that guitar languishing in the garage. Now is the time to pick up the phone and make those phone calls we planned to, but never did to a long lost friend and to that distant aunt and hear their forgotten voices once more.
If not anything, we can simply look out of the window. “A poor life this if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare,” the poet says. We simply watch the day going past ... the redness of the early morning, the blazing afternoon sun, the tranquillity of the twilight hour, the gathering darkness and the twinkle of the multitudinous stars. The crow caws, the pigeon flits across, the butterfly flirts among the bushes and a monkey stealthily climbs the water-pipe. Our eyes miss the obvious.
We often complained that life is too stereotypical, a movie which meanders senselessly. Someone heard
our call and changed the movie plot after the intermission. It looked like a comic film, but now, suddenly, has the tell-tale signs of a horror film! We learn to enjoy this too, sitting at the edge of the seat and biting our nails in feverish excitement.
In these exacting times, we appreciate the eternal mystery of life, that makes the gurgle of laughter possible on one day, and on another day, makes us wail in helplessness.
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