Lisa Ray Instagram – Update: Singapore is mandating a one month lockdown to apply a ‘circuit breaker’ to a rash of new cases. I write this piece for Mint a few days ago, and these sentiments resonate even more strongly for me today: . ‘I believe we need to make an effort to tell different stories about difficult times, about the indirect, positive consequences of disaster on the human spirit lest we forget the “reasonableness of hope”. Now that all our houses are burning, what do you carry when you flee to safer ground? “Ultimately it is upon your vulnerability that you depend,” the poet Rilke writes. “For the time that we are here, we are dependent on the web of life.” There is no chance for evasions any more. We need each other, we need to look after each other, we must infect each other with fortifying emotions. At the time of writing this, India is enforcing an unprecedented, countrywide, 21-day stay-at-home order and Singapore is introducing more precautionary measures, like shutting down entertainment venues. Living with the decisive manner in which Singapore has responded during this time of “surreal disrepair” has fortified my faith in what thinking about the greater good can accomplish for the individual in times of both uncertainty and fragile tranquillity.