As Ram Lalla takes centrestage in Ayodhya, India goes into ‘Vanvas’

Neeta Shetty, Mar 25, 2020, 4:42 PM IST

India has gone into a vanvas after PM Modi, in his address on March 24 , asked people to draw a Lakshman Rekha in front of their houses to forbid the unknown enemy (implying coronavirus here) from entering their houses.

Yes, the need of the hour is definitely to exile oneself if not completely at least by maintaining a safe distance from others to break the chain of coronavirus.

The success of India’s combat against the pandemic depends upon the social responsibility that we as citizen’s must necessarily follow by adopting the precautionary measures suggested by medical experts for self hygiene.

The difficult task that the government faces today is that people – literate and illiterate – don’t want to remain confined in their houses unlike Lord Rama who dutifully went into exile for 14 years.

Yes it is not easy to remain within the Lakshman Rekha in front of our house, but remember the fate that Sita met for stepping out of one.

As Ravana could not step into the line drawn by Lakshman, he took on the guise of a monk and lured Sita into stepping out before forcibly carrying her away.

A similar fate might await us if we do not heed to the advise of the government albeit there will be no Ravana here. But we would not be aware of who is a COVID-19 carrier and thus expose ourselves to a health risk.

Lastly, though 21-days may seem like an eternity today, we need to remind ourselves that our entire life awaits us and this phase will be a thing of the past.

As our PM said, “Our actions today will determine our future.”

Notably in today’s technologically advanced time we can perhaps make use of the free time on our hands to explore the world not literally but virtually. Yes with no lockdown on the internet that is possible while our safety too is assured.

Meanwhile, today in Ayodhya the idol of Ram Lalla was shifted to the new makeshift temple at Manas Bhawan to enable construction of the grand Ram temple at the site.