Healing Dialogue for Digital Detox
- Madhukar Dama
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
Characters:
Madhukar – The wise hermit-healer, ex-tech consultant turned attention minimalist.
Riya – Brand strategist, addicted to Instagram validation.
Tanmay – Meme creator, sleeps with phone under pillow.
Azeem – Corporate guy, secretly tweets under three burner accounts.
Lavanya – Lifestyle blogger who no longer knows her real face without filters.
Karan – Software engineer, says he hates social media but checks LinkedIn every 6 minutes.
Scene: Madhukar’s nature retreat. A quiet space surrounded by bamboo, birds, and zero Wi-Fi.
[They walk in nervously. Riya’s phone pings.]
Madhukar (smiling):
Before you sit, may I take your phones?
Like one would surrender weapons before peace talks.
Karan (sarcastic):
What if I need Google Maps to find my way back to sanity?
Madhukar:
You won't need Maps.
What you need is a compass… inside.
Tanmay (muttering):
I think I just lost three followers while standing here.
Azeem (panicked):
I scheduled a tweet.
What if no one likes it?
Madhukar:
And what if no one likes you without it?
[They all fall silent. Madhukar sits down cross-legged. The others reluctantly follow.]
Act I: The Scroll Spiral
Lavanya:
I just want balance.
I post once in the morning, once in the evening, only on stories… and three reels a week.
Madhukar:
That sounds like a corporate job with worse pay and no weekends.
Riya:
But it’s how we stay relevant!
How we connect!
Madhukar:
Do you feel connected?
Riya (after a pause):
I feel tired.
Tired of caring, comparing, curating.
Tanmay:
I haven’t laughed at a meme in months.
I just forward them.
Like I’m working in a meme delivery company.
Azeem:
Every time I delete Twitter, I reinstall it in an hour.
It’s like I’m afraid the world will move on without me.
Madhukar:
The world should move on without you.
Only then will you move with yourself.
Act II: The Great Detox Challenge
Madhukar (playfully):
Let’s play a game. 48 hours.
No apps.
No selfies.
No filters.
No hashtags.
Karan:
Can I write code?
Madhukar:
Only if it’s to reprogram your own mind.
Lavanya:
I don’t even know what to do when I’m not holding a screen.
I walk around the house like a ghost in search of Wi-Fi.
Madhukar:
That’s because your attention has been kidnapped.
Let’s rescue it.
Act III: Cravings and Clarity
[Hours pass. They sit by a river, feed birds, walk barefoot. Withdrawal kicks in.]
Riya (rocking side to side):
I keep hearing phantom vibrations.
Azeem:
I think I misspelled a tweet.
It’s haunting me.
Tanmay:
I almost made eye contact with a butterfly.
It felt illegal.
Madhukar (chuckling):
You are detoxing from dopamine debt.
Soon, you’ll remember how to be bored.
And then, how to be present.
Karan (serious for once):
I slept last night without dreams of screens.
Just stars. Real ones.
Act IV: Two Weeks Later
[They return to the city, each changed in small but soulful ways.]
Lavanya deletes her Instagram for 30 days.
Riya starts painting again.
Tanmay writes memes on paper just to laugh for himself.
Karan uses phone only from 10am–4pm.
Azeem tweets only once a week—something kind.
They send Madhukar a handwritten note:
“We have unfollowed the world to follow our breath.”
-----
📜 The Wi-Fi Was Weak But the Silence Was Strong
they came
like dying moths to a dim porchlight,
phones in trembling hands,
battery at 4%,
souls at 2.
they said —
madhukar, help us,
we can’t stop scrolling strangers who make us feel worthless.
he looked at them,
like they were pigeons asking for seed
after pooping on every statue in the city.
he said nothing,
just poured them some warm herbal something
in cups that had never heard of Instagram filters.
one guy tried to tweet the moment.
no signal.
he cried.
another asked if nature had an app.
a butterfly landed on his shoulder.
he screamed.
they twitched, they sulked,
they hallucinated reels.
someone claimed
they saw Elon Musk in the clouds.
madhukar scratched his beard and said —
“you all want likes,
but you don’t like yourselves.
you want followers,
but you're following madness.”
a woman finally deleted her account.
the wind picked up.
a tree clapped.
or maybe that was just her heart
starting again.
by day three,
they laughed without emojis.
slept without blue lights.
cried like humans.
not memes.
and when they left,
the silence sighed,
finally
unfriended.