INTERSECTIONALITY

Is It Impossible to Forgive?

A lesson from genocide, meditation, and life at sea

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We believe our wounds are unique. Until one story dismantles our pride, our anger, and our certainty. Forgiveness, I learned, is not for saints — it is for survivors.

All of us are hurt — inevitably — at some point in life. By colleagues, friends, relatives, and bosses. Some hurts fade quietly with time. Others stay fresh, raw, like open wounds that refuse to heal. Sometimes forgiveness feels not just difficult, but impossible. Even when apologies are offered, we are unwilling. Our suffering feels enormous; those responsible for it seem utterly detestable.

I once believed that too.

A Story from Rwanda

When I was serving as a chief engineer on a ship that frequently visited South Africa, I spent my evenings watching television in my cabin. I usually avoided talk shows, preferring news, English films, or sports. One evening, while channel-surfing, I paused instinctively at a single word spoken on screen:

Rwanda.

That tiny, impoverished African nation had witnessed one of the most horrific genocides in modern history — comparable in scale to Bosnia and even the Holocaust. Because of its obscurity, the horror never fully penetrated the global conscience. Two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, descended into a frenzy of killing. Too poor for guns or grenades, they butchered each other with machetes, sickles, sticks, stones — whatever they could find.

The young woman being interviewed was a Rwandan survivor — the sole survivor of her family. She spoke slowly, with astonishing calm, describing how she hid in a bathroom while listening to the screams outside.

“Could you see anything?” the host asked gently.

“No,” she said. “I shut my eyes and struggled to stifle my cries.”

“Did you see the killers?”

“Yes. Before closing the door, I saw one man. His clothes and hair were drenched in blood. He held a hatchet.”

The show reconstructed the scene: the girl crouched behind a plastic drum; screams fading into silence.

The killers were about to leave when the man she had seen tried to check the bathroom. He was stopped.

A few seconds more — and she would have been dead.

“I see him every night in my dreams,” she said quietly. “I wake up screaming.”

The host hesitated before asking, “What would you do if you met him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You wouldn’t want him punished?”

“What purpose would it serve?” she replied. “If we start hanging people, we would have to kill a third of the population. It was madness. Even my own people killed.”

Then she added, “I would like to meet him. Only to see that he is an ordinary man , not a monster. Perhaps then the demons tormenting me will leave.”

At that moment, the host stood up.

“Please meet him,” she said. “He is in the studio.”

A tall man walked in. The woman screamed. The man collapsed into tears, begging forgiveness. They wept, embraced — and the screen faded to black.

No message. No moral. Just silence.

That silence haunted me for days.

Forgiveness Is Not a Lecture

I kept asking myself: What are our petty hurts worth? Our wounded egos? Our endless anger? Do we even have the right to nurse them when the world holds such suffering?

I have learned one thing with certainty: you cannot change anyone by lecturing them. Every human being has a built-in resistance to sermons. Change happens only when the mind allows it.

My father-in-law had a fierce temper. Yet he was curious, open to learning. I encouraged him to try Reiki and Sudarshan Kriya. Within months, he told me — almost bewildered — that he could no longer summon anger, even when he felt justified.

Later, during an advanced Art of Living course in Bangalore under Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, I heard something that stayed with me:

“When you forgive someone, you are not doing them a favor. You are freeing yourself.”

Forgiveness, he said, releases emotional baggage and restores health. Meditation exists to lift us to that state — not instantly, but inevitably.

A Lesson from a Six-Year-Old

That course remains unforgettable for another reason: my elder daughter accompanied me. She was six, stubborn, school-averse, and secretly delighted to bunk classes. I expected mild inconvenience. Instead, I witnessed grace.

The course was overbooked. Accommodation was chaotic. My daughter grew homesick. Silence was mandatory; speech forbidden. She wanted to leave.

Eventually, I was taken to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar himself. He listened calmly, lifted my daughter onto his lap, smiled — and told me to attend class.

What he said to her, I will never know.

She stayed.

On the final day, he searched the crowd and called her by name. That moment — her shy smile on stage — remains etched in me forever.

Forgiveness at Sea

Life at sea teaches its own lessons. We battle storms, pirates, and exhaustion. But the greatest enemy of a sailor is loneliness. Storms pass. Piracy zones end. Loneliness follows you everywhere.

When the mind starts spiraling into worry — about family, finances, health — it multiplies misery geometrically. The only escape is deliberate diversion.

I learned to interrupt despair. I read Asterix. I reread Three Men in a Boat. Later, I began writing. Writing forces the mind to retrieve memories, reorder thoughts, and, often, rediscover joy.

So — Is Forgiveness Impossible?

No.

But it is not easy. It is not instant. And it is never for the other person.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is choosing freedom over imprisonment.

I am no saint. But I have learned this much:

Holding on to anger hurts the hand that grips it far more than the one it is thrown at.

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Enjoyed this? Explore my other collections:

• 📜 **The Legend of Bhishma:** The full, chronological saga of the Kuru Elder.
• 🎭 **Wit & Wisdom:** Satire and humor in the spirit of Mullapudi and Wodehouse.
• ⚓ **Crossings:** Reflections on sea life, schooling, and life’s journeys.
• 🏺 **Ancient Echoes:** Reimagined tales from Indian Folklore and Epics.

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