A close friend of mine, Ankit Dangi, is a Jain, and each year, as part of the Jain tradition, he observes Kshamavani or ‘Forgiveness Day’, on the last day of the annual Paryushana festival. He must have attracted lots of questions from perplexed and puzzled people who didn’t know the religious significance of the message, when he posted messages seeking forgiveness, on social media, so he now includes information about the festival, in addition to the traditional message, asking for forgiveness for any hurt caused, either knowingly or unknowingly.

This year too, like years in the past, he’d posted the message, and it set me thinking about hurtful things I’ve done for which I too would like to seek forgiveness or at any rate, express regret for. Two incidents that occured in my childhood pop up.

Incident 1

I must have been five or six years of age, back when our entire family of four would travel on my dad’s scooter! The picture below is not of my family, but it shows how we managed!

We were returning home after a visit to a family friend’s, when I saw a girl who must have been in her teen years, with some very noticeable facial scarring. I burst out laughing, and the girl shrank away in shame. I realized a fraction of a second later how mean I’d been, and my parents severely admonished me too, for being mean. I was deeply ashamed, and wished I could somehow undo what I’d done, but knew it couldn’t be done. I remember praying for forgiveness.

Incident 2

I was perhaps twelve or thirteen years old. I spotted that a lizard was resting on the window frame, half in and half out. I thought to myself if I shut the window quickly enough, the lizard wouldn’t be able to escape. Now, I’d never killed lizards before, and my intention was probably more to see if could actually beat the lizard’s reflexes than to kill it, but I sneaked up upon it, and slammed the window shut, crushing the hapless lizard. The force of the blow probably killed it outright, and the twitches were in all probability merely reflex action motor twitches, but I was deeply mortified. When I watched the movie Kill Bill II, the dialog about Emilio the fish brought back memories of this incident. Here’s the Emilio dialog:

Bill: You know, sweetie, Mommy’s kinda mad at Daddy.
BB: Why, Daddy? Were you being a bad daddy?
Bill: I’m afraid I was. I was a real bad daddy. Our little girl learned about life and death the other day. (to B.B.) Wanna tell Mommy about what happened to Emilio?
BB: ….I…killed him.
Bill: Emilio was her goldfish.
BB: Emilio was my ‘goldfiss’.
Bill: She came running into my room holding the fish in her hand, crying, “Daddy daddy, Emilio’s dead.” And I said, “Really, that’s so sad. How did he die?” And what did you say?
BB: I stepped on him.
Bill: Actually, young lady, the words you so strategically used were, “I accidentally stepped on him.” To which I queried, “Just how did your foot accidentally find its way into Emilio’s fishbowl?” And she said, “No, no, no. Emilio was on the carpet when I stepped on him.” Mmm. The plot thickens. “And just how did Emilio get on the carpet?” And Mommy, you would’ve been so proud of her. Heh. She didn’t lie, she said she took Emilio out of his bowl and put him on the carpet. And what was Emilio doing on the carpet?
BB: Flapping.
Bill: And then you stomped on him.
BB: Uh-huh.
Bill: And when you lifted up your foot what was Emilio doing then?
BB: Nothing.
Bill: He stopped flapping, didn’t he? (BB nods) She told me later, that the second she lifted up her foot and saw Emilio not flapping, she knew what she had done. Is that not the perfect visual image of life and death? A fish flapping on the carpet and a fish not flapping on the carpet. So powerful that even a four-year-old with no concept of life or death knew what it meant.

Yes, I had the exact same experience, all those years ago. You do something bad, not entirely aware of how bad the results would be, and a tiny sliver of time later, the realization of just how bad we’d been, hits us. I truly wish I could take back that moment. Then again, I realize how many other ways I’ve hurt people around me, and realize the real worth of apologies, and the true significance of a day like ‘Forgiveness Day’. We don’t apologize just to be nice to those we’ve wronged, but we apologize to rid our souls of the feelings of guilt. Michchaami Dukkadam: Please forgive me for all the ways I’ve brought on hurt, knowingly or unknowingly.