A PREFACE - THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY- PART 2

 

THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY- PART 2

PREFACE

Calamities have a way of throwing up questions that we have evaded all along and opening wounds that we have long since buried and forgotten lest they hurt us again. That is why, perhaps calamities or disasters happen, to reassess our role in this world. My last book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’ ar0se out of the disaster that occurred during the floods in Kedarnath. Caught in the midst of this calamity Mrityunjay is forced to re-evaluate his life and move forward towards a resolution of the angst which had all the while enveloped him. He returns after his sojourn, a changed individual who learns to cherish what it is to live and what it is to love, having gathered all the wisdom from the cloister of monks who reside content in the knowledge that life is not only gathering knowledge of the self but that there is a deeper purpose which embraces humanity and giving back in the form of service, compassion, and empathy. I recollect a passage from Will Durant’s book ‘Fallen Leaves’ - “I know that life is in its basis a mystery; a river flowing from an unseen source and in its development an infinite subtlety; a ‘dome of many-colored glass’, too complex for thought, much less for utterance.” 

The Covid pandemic of 2020 was perhaps the greatest calamity to have happened to humankind in the last hundred years. What started as a localized infection spread its tentacles all across the globe threatening to decimate the population. Slowly did we wake up to the truth of our vulnerability to an enemy created by our own misadventures. Leave alone the number of people who succumbed, it left behind a trail of fear and uncertainty in the minds of those who survived. It left people without homes and drove them across the length and breadth of the country in search of sustenance. The migrant became the symbol of human frailty. As they trudged towards their homes, hundreds of miles away, clinging on to whatever transport came their way, the less fortunate pushed themselves on foot in a desperate bid to be with their dear ones. On the road, hundreds perished. For those who remained in the comfort of their homes, it was confinement and incarceration. The virus did not spare the rich and poor alike; no distinctions between the mighty and the weak. It was impartial. But the never say die human spirit once again shook off the shackles and slowly but surely moved towards resolution in containing this threat. As 2020 drew to a close a light flickered in the distance. The vaccine, a result of human endeavor, brought with it the hope that the enemy can be contained. This flicker slowly grew in size and towards the end of 2021, the virus could be contained though not wholly eradicated. It still lurks in the background, but we have learned to live with it and in the process brought about a change in our lifestyles to adapt to the new life order. This has led to our questioning the basic premises on which we had built up our lives. 

I did not escape the clutches of the virus either, though it was mild, the circumstances and the surrounding environment did affect me to the extent that I found my mental faculties blocked and a sort of depression set in. I was not able to express myself in the only way I knew- writing.  Though in the initial period of the shutdown, I found that the isolation imposed gave me the space to do some writing and that’s when my book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’ was completed. From the end of the year 2020 for a year thereafter it was a shutdown for me personally. The year 2021 was a washout. 2022 started slowly and on a more positive note. 

I knew I had a promise to keep- Mrityunjay had given a glimpse of a sequel at the end of the book and this is where I restarted, to maintain the continuity and make it easier for the reader to connect. Mrityunjay once again finds himself in the midst of another crisis and the awakening that had occurred during his two-year sojourn following the Kedarnath disaster being reawakened.