Shakespeare has said it but it has been said about Shakespeare,’ not for an age but for all ages’— the same is true of what he has said in this dictum.
Really this world is a stage and we who get born in this world come with a certain set part to play during the course of our lives. The child, on being born, is a child, the sinecure of the eye of its parents and the family; he or she grows into boyhood or girlhood and plays around with the group of his or her age; goes to school, becomes the part of the class and is taught by the teacher in the class.
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At home the parents look after him or her. They feel delighted with his or her pranks and he or she feels so cozy in their lap. The boy or the girl grows into youth, into adulthood, takes up some job — whatever it be — works for it and in it, gets married, gets children, grows old, becomes a grandparent and then passes out from the stage.
While in life — in the youthful period aspires for this or that, gets what he or she wants or does not get it; feels a satisfaction or a frustration — the journey of ‘life goes on, many are met as fellow travelers, some stay together for sometime, some come and go. The journey goes on.
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So how many parts has one played and the success or failure of that part gets judged sometimes within one’s life or it gets judged after the stage has been vacated to bring others, on it.
The scenes keep changing and one has to act as per the requirement of the scene. The part is played as has been assigned and so the show goes on. It has been going on since ages and shall go on for ages after ages. You or I may not be there to play the part; there will be others to play theirs. The dramas are unending, the stage is never empty — there has never been a void and there shall never be a void.
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Life has been given by God to be lived and if lived well, it would be remembered by posterity, if not lived well, it would stand discredited and denounced — so it is unto the one who lives, how he lives and what assessment he wants of himself. The same actor changes his roles, has to change them time and again and whatever part he has been assigned to play for the time being, he plays it.
The same one plays the child’s role, plays the boy’s role, the youth’s role, the parent’s role, the grandparent’s role and then at last to play the role of a dead man. The same man drives his own car or the same man rendered a pauper is disowned by his own people — his car, his bungalow and his retinue of servants all gone; he is a destitute and suffers deprivation and death.
The great stockiest finds his stocks filled with spurious material and today he is in his posh room, while tomorrow he is in the dingy cell of a prison.’ What is this life — he may ask himself. The vicissitudes have battered him, bruised him. Or the one fallen on evil days rallies round and is able to regain what he had lost and is again a glorified man.
Adversity has taught him many lessons and he has taught them the hard way to set an example for others to emulate. He has played both the parts with dignity — his head though bloody remained unbowed and he proved the truth — ‘Say not the struggle not availed’.
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The parts allotted to him are well played, prosperity had won him friends, and adversity tested and tried them. For himself he passed both the tests successfully — the test of prosperity as well as of adversity.
The man is a dacoit today, meets a great saint by chance and changes into a saint himself— how and why this change of heart and the change of scene — it is all in the Great Director’s hand who sits somewhere above and pulls all the strings of all lives and we like, puppets act as desired. So all this is life’s drama played on the world’s stage.
The last lesson learnt from this game of life is that we should play our part well, do the best to love others so that you are loved in return.
Serve well so that people may remember you as the ‘hero’ of the show — even when you are off the stage, the audience wants you or you’re like to be back on the scene again and again. That is how life has to be lived.
‘Lives of great men all remind us let’s make our life sublime and departing leave behind us Food prints on the sand of time.’