Our Freedoms: Essays and Stories from India's Best Writers

by Nilanjana Roy

Then with tears in my eyes, I wrote an email to a writer friend who has followed my work over the years. I repeated what I had told my mother. If I die due to a gender crime or any other crime, then please inform the courts that I would want forgiveness for my killers. Because as Oscar Schindler has said, the one who saves one life saves the entire world. I have burned myself for a decade on and off field to make myself think beyond my own immediate existence. Because I have learned that the moment you become willing to save another person’s life at the cost of your own, you internalize forgiveness which not only elevates and forgives the other person, but also liberates you in unimaginable ways. Because forgiveness is the only way through which we can reclaim our own humanity and compassion, which is otherwise decaying at an exponential rate in this cruel, brutal world. Because forgiveness is the only answer through which we can protect, define and reclaim the meaning of being a human. As my beloved author Caesar Pavese wrote in his last letter before leaving the world forever, ‘I forgive everyone and ask for everyone’s forgiveness. OK? Don’t gossip too much . . .’