Sunday Story: The Compassion Of Nelson Mandela

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Compassion is one of the defining qualities of our humanity and along with love, it is essential for our survival.

The story is about Nelson Mandela. Not sure if it is a repeat, but taking the benefit of doubt to make it the weekend story only because the story is so compelling. The lesson learnt from it is eternal and the need of the hour.

Mandela's one quality that stood out was his infinite capacity to forgive and we get a glimpse of it in the video below. We realise the only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

In one famous incident, when he was taken to the Robben Island prison, knowing his background and popularity, the Afrikaner prison officials singled him out for punishment and humiliation. Other prisoners would later describe how, a few years into his incarceration, prison guards ordered him to dig and then climb into a grave-shaped trench in the prison yard. Mandela must have wondered whether this was the end. Then, as he lay in the dirt, they unzipped their trousers and urinated on him.

Years later when he became President of South Africa, at his inaugural dinner, the sole name on which Mandela is said to have insisted for the dinner was that of a former jailer.

His capacity to forgive, and to turn that forgiveness into a visible reconciliation is a quality he is chiefly remembered for. He had a phenomenal, almost unbelievable ability to rise above bitterness and rancour, and clearly had made a conscious decision that this was the best route for the liberation of black Africans.

With such a remarkable quality of forgiveness, it showed his inner strength, and this is not possible until compassion is born in the heart.

I am reminded of a prayer, 'Itni Shakti Hamein Dena Data'.  Kavi Abhilash has written soul stirring poetry with this song. It has been a source for righteous living for an entire generation of people when it was routinely sung in schools. It is an ode to humanity, appealing to the inherent goodness in human nature to prevail over evil.

It was from the film Ankush (1986). For those interested, it was the first notable film of Nana Patekar. It was also the directorial debut for N. Chandra (Chandrashekhar Narvekar). The song is sung by Pushpa Pagdhare and Sushma Shreshtha. Kavi Abhilash, a resident of Goregaon, Mumbai, died in 2020 when he was 74. This verse lingers on in memory: 

दूर अज्ञान के हो अन्धेरे 
तू हमें ज्ञान की रौशनी दे 
हर बुराई से बचके रहें हम 
जितनी भी दे, भली ज़िन्दगी दे 

...and the following verses echo the sentiment of Compassion so beautifully:

हम न सोचें हमें क्या मिला है
हम ये सोचें किया क्या है अर्पण
फूल खुशियों के बाटें सभी को
सबका जीवन ही बन जाये मधुबन

अपनी करुणा को जब तू बहा दे 
करदे पावन हर इक मन का कोना... 
हम चले...

बैर हो ना किसीका किसीसे 
भावना मन में बदले की हो ना
हम चलें नेक रास्ते पे हमसे 
भूलकर भी कोई भूल हो ना...

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