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“If there is a problem in your life, there is an answer to it nearby. Sometimes, you may not find it directly. Sometimes, it will just hit you when you’re not even looking for it. But, it will always be there.”

Just an easy-looking lesson that life has taught me the hard way…

I found The Good Place – the Netflix Series in one of the most vulnerable moments I have ever been.

December 31, 2020.

Sitting alone at home, binging a Netflix series about the afterlife is not the ideal way to celebrate the New Year, I know. Even for a dead introvert like me, it’s kinda sad! But, there was no option. Rather, no escape – physically or emotionally.

I was a home quarantined COVID-19 patient.

Just a day before, I shifted my mom-dad to the local COVID-19 Care Center. But, my dad was shifted to the ICU the same evening. So, we immediately moved him to a private hospital for better attention. That was tough. He came out of what the doctors call “very very critical night”. He was on the NIV. (Non-Invasive Ventilator. It’s just like the Ventilator, but the tube doesn’t go inside the body. I didn’t know anything about it, at that time. It was a super crappy feeling though – having your dad on the NIV and not being able to leave home to even see him.)

Meanwhile, we were supposed to shift to a new city on 2nd January. So, half of my home (my quarantine place) was in the boxes.

My elder brother had come to Mumbai to look after his distorted family. But, he couldn’t enter the home as we had infected it with the Coronavirus. So, he stayed at my cousin’s place.

That was the first time perhaps the notion of “uncertainty of life” was hitting me. I did lose my grandparents to cancer when I was a young girl and later, my best friend to an accident in the early 20s. But, somehow, I never had that “Life & Death” epiphany.

On any normal day, the thought of losing your dad is always repellent. But, when it actually happens – man, that is terrifying! When that “very very critical night” was over, I thought we dodged a bullet.

It was just the beginning.

The situation worsened. He was put on Ventilator – the invasive one, on 7th January around 7 AM. Finally, he took his last breath on 8th January at 6.21 AM.

The ordeal was yet to be over. Even though mom had come home, our quarantine period was still not finished, remember? No relatives could meet us for days!

On the 9th day after dad left, my brother came to live with us.

Now you get it right?

• Dad super serious in a hospital you’ve never even seen
• Mom in the COVID Center
• Brother living with the relatives, because your home is full of Coronavirus
• COVID Positive Grandmother (87 years old) and 2 uncles (58 and 62 years old, respectively, former one in the COVID Care center) – living in the same building, in the apartment below
• And, you – suffering from COVID-19 – a ton of medicine, no sense of smell & taste, extreme weakness, and a frozen brain – quarantined alone in a tiny little home filled with shifting boxes.

(The worst part – I’m getting married this year & he won’t be here to give me away.)

Anybody would prefer Netflix over reality! To be honest, I don’t even remember how many movies I have watched in those 10 days of quarantine.

In the whole chaos, there was this one thing that helped me survive the nightmare and keep my mind calm. That was a TV series – “The Good Place”.

I was looking for something new to watch so my mind could stay occupied in it. That’s how I found it.

The Good Place.

It definitely became the best place for me to be in those days.

I’m a Philosophy student myself. So, the character of Chidi Anagonye instantly became my favorite. It’s going to be difficult to write about it without giving you a spoiler. (But, not giving you one, don’t worry)

The way – such a good and fun way – the concept of death and what happens after death is handled is commendable. The series is fun & light throughout. Dialog writing is charming & crispy. Actors have did a wonderful job with their characters.

But, in the most unexpected way, the series plants a new perspective in your mind. Seriously – like – you don’t even know it.

Maybe for a not-so-philosophical person, the series can be a drag. But, it grows on you.

You unknowingly start concretizing the ideas of Morality, and Human Psychology. You start looking at what we – the humans – have become from a third perspective.

You might even start having faith in the darkest of demons around you – in a good, motivating way.

I wish I could tell you more about it. It’s profound.

The Good Place is a series of a kind!

You’ll be laughing on the outside but inside, your mind will have reached the thinking-depth beyond your imagination.

Thank you, The Good Place!

You stood by me when I had lost my sanity.

You made me stronger when I was all alone & scared to death.

You gave me faith that –

I lost my dad… whom I loved a lot.

But thanks to you, I know that he is in The Good Place and I’m gonna meet him again someday. 🙂