LAUGH IN FORGIVENESS

The first Sunday of May every year, is celebrated as World Laughter Day and it was Dr. Madan Kataria from India, (also addressed as the ‘Guru of Giggling’ by London Times) who founded this Yoga movement for self healing. The world today appears to be filled with hate ideologies, loneliness syndrome and an epidemic of sadness, and if there needs to be a change to be brought into this scenario, laughter is definitely a positive and powerful emotion which has all that an individual needs for self transformation; internal as well as external. What is most amazing in this treatment is that it is the most peaceful and positive way to bring about a modification. Research has proved that a person’s facial expressions have an effect on his emotions and therefore even if one is deeply destroyed from within, an artificially laughing face is likely to gradually bring about a change. No harm therefore in trying out this most inexpensive method to move towards global consciousness of brotherhood and harmony.

All experiences in life come with a package of lessons to be learnt from. It’s a pleasure when we come across gentle and loving people who make life like a holiday sailing on smooth waters; but if we come across storms of strange happenings or tsunamis of relationships then we feel hurt, betrayed and broken but then the sail of forgiveness helps us cross the ocean to safer lands.

 An eye for an eye will make the world blind; however not everyone can abide by this generous philosophy of forgiveness. But what if we do encounter someone who wishes to follow this principle of peace? Do we have any right to barge into their private world of emotions and stop their personal course of healing?

Forgiveness doesn’t come easy especially if someone has wronged you in an unimaginable way. And yet life gives us numerous examples of people who use this devise to overcome the most awful situations which have damaged them irreparably. Their stories seem unbelievable and make us wonder if they are supernatural beings to have forgiven the most horrendous things which had happened to them. Further probing gets us to the core of the reason of such behaviour. Hate, anger and revenge had gone so deep into their gut that they were going through constipation of emotions which needed a laxative to let go.

A very recent case creating uproar in the news is Sabrina Lall’s letter to the Tihar Jail, mentioning no objection from her side for the release of her sister’s murderer. Many people have since then begun pouncing on her, objecting to her decision as if law and order would alter its judgement on her emotional base.

It was way back in 1999 at midnight that Manu Sharma, the son of a powerful congress politician from Haryana walked into a bar and shot a girl for refusing him a drink. This had happened in the presence of all the other elegant and refined crowd present there at the time. It was a sudden and shocking death of a beautiful life. Obviously now being a VVIP case, it was not going to be an easy battle in the midst of a horrible system of legality which presumably supported the rich, the famous and the influential.

This was one of the rarest of rare cases which brought out crowds of citizens on the streets; angry at the audaciousness of the act. There were candlelight vigils and protest rallies; people everywhere wanted justice against a system that supported the powerful. Jessica, overnight became a symbol of the common man’s fight against power. The effect of such gross injustice of mankind and fate had its deep effect on her parents too, whose life soon got shattered and immobilised with grief.

Jessica’s sister Sabrina was no more her only relative fighting the legal battle against Sharma. The nation became her relatives and the case began its long tryst until 2006 when the culprit was put behind bars in the Tihar Jail and sentenced to life imprisonment as found guilty of murder. It was at last a successful journey of anger, hate, revenge and justice.

Now after almost two decades since her sister’s murder, one would think that Sabrina would be feeling victorious; till suddenly she wakes up one day and writes a letter of forgiveness to the Tihar Jail regarding Sharma. Fifteen years have passed by with Sharma behind bars and ............. ‘What the hell is she doing? It had not been her lone fight. Such criminals must never be forgiven. Life imprisonment is the only option for Sharma. Forgiveness for him should be a dream’, scream the people of the nation. No one realises today, that while they had fought for humanity, Sabrina had fought for her blood sister. With justice handed over, they had gone home victorious but Sabrina had returned to a house without her sibling and which soon even got vacant of her parents. No one seems to understand that forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness. It only means to let go of the anger and release of oneself from the clutches of odium to grab peace. Sabrina probably felt the need to heal her body and soothe her mind in spite of the worst that had happened to her. She probably reached a summit from where she realised that sorrows of the past could be undone. Probably she heard whispers from future, calling her to move on.

Mahatma Gandhi had said that, ‘The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong’, and I wonder if all those people who today are angry with regards to her letter to the Tihar Jail, have even the slightest understanding of her emotional drain since so many years. Of course she knows for sure that Sharma's brutish actions deserve no mercy, but she also is smart enough to want her share of calm. If she once had the strength to have fought tooth and nail for justice, today, we as a nation must respect the intensity of her need for peace. Her letter is not telling the government or law and order to move on; it is only communicating that she as a family member desires to progress in freedom from strife. Forgiveness today for Sabrina may be like a pair of scissors with which she wants to cut all soul bondage with her culprit Sharma and set free her Spirit in independence from slavery to hate and instead enjoy its original state of happiness and laugh out loud after decades of pain and tears in spite of being jubilant in law.

Sabrina must have cried over and over again for years and has now decided to use her power of today to laugh in forgiveness. Of course, everybody knows that forgiveness heals; but Sabrina knows that doing is better than knowing. I support Sabrina in her free will to exercise her preference of emotion. What about you?

Image credits: Google