Micchami Dukkadam
Micchami Dukkadam
What a 72-hour fast during Paryushan is teaching me before I have even begun
I can remember many of the people who have hurt me. Some moments remain surprisingly clear: the words that were used, the place where they were spoken, and sometimes even the expression on the other person's face.
Hurt has an impressive memory.
What is less clear is the effect I may have had on others. Not because those moments did not matter, but because we rarely experience ourselves as the person at fault in someone else's story. We live inside our own explanations, pressures and good intentions, and that makes it remarkably easy to misunderstand the harm we may have caused.
Starting tomorrow, I am attempting a 72-hour fast during Paryushan. Even before it has begun, it has forced me to confront an uncomfortable possibility: perhaps the things I most need to give up are not on my plate. Perhaps they are the stories I tell myself about who was right, who was wrong, and why my own behaviour should always be understood in context.
What a 72-hour fast during Paryushan is teaching me before I have even begun
I can remember many of the people who have hurt me. Some moments remain surprisingly clear: the words that were used, the place where they were spoken, and sometimes even the expression on the other person's face.
Hurt has an impressive memory.
What is less clear is the effect I may have had on others. Not because those moments did not matter, but because we rarely experience ourselves as the person at fault in someone else's story. We live inside our own explanations, pressures and good intentions, and that makes it remarkably easy to misunderstand the harm we may have caused.
Starting tomorrow, I am attempting a 72-hour fast during Paryushan. Even before it has begun, it has forced me to confront an uncomfortable possibility: perhaps the things I most need to give up are not on my plate. Perhaps they are the stories I tell myself about who was right, who was wrong, and why my own behaviour should always be understood in context.
The Fear Beneath the Hunger
I'll be honest about the part that doesn't usually make it into social media captions: I'm nervous.
Not because of the hunger. Hunger is straightforward. You feel it, recognise it and eventually it passes.
What unsettles me is a smaller and more embarrassing question: what if I quietly give up?
What if, somewhere during those 72 hours, "I can't do this" starts sounding more convincing than the promise I made to myself?
That thought sits heavier in my stomach than three days of emptiness ever could.
Perhaps that is part of the point. A fast removes some of the comforts and distractions that usually protect us from ourselves. Sometimes, when there is nothing left to consume, we finally notice what has been consuming us.
I'll be honest about the part that doesn't usually make it into social media captions: I'm nervous.
Not because of the hunger. Hunger is straightforward. You feel it, recognise it and eventually it passes.
What unsettles me is a smaller and more embarrassing question: what if I quietly give up?
What if, somewhere during those 72 hours, "I can't do this" starts sounding more convincing than the promise I made to myself?
That thought sits heavier in my stomach than three days of emptiness ever could.
Perhaps that is part of the point. A fast removes some of the comforts and distractions that usually protect us from ourselves. Sometimes, when there is nothing left to consume, we finally notice what has been consuming us.
An Outsider to Paryushan
I should say this clearly: I am a Vaishnav, and Shrinathji is who I grew up worshipping.
But the neighbourhood in which I grew up was largely Jain. Many of my closest friends were Jain, and I often found myself in the derasar more frequently than in the haveli simply because that was where the people I loved happened to be.
As children, we do not consciously choose all the values that shape us. We absorb them from the people around us. In many ways, the people with whom we grow up decide which values first find a home within us.
For years, I watched people fast during Paryushan. Some fasted for a day, some for a week, and some for lengths of time I could not imagine attempting myself. I admired their discipline, but admiration from a distance asks very little of us.
This year, I wanted to stop watching from the sidelines. Not because I wanted to prove I could endure hunger, but because I have begun to wonder whether fasting is really about hunger at all.
Food is only one form of consumption. We also consume noise, praise, opinions, outrage, comparison and distraction. We repeatedly feed the version of every story in which we were reasonable, wounded and misunderstood.
Perhaps the real fast is not just from food. Perhaps it is also a fast from certainty.
I should say this clearly: I am a Vaishnav, and Shrinathji is who I grew up worshipping.
But the neighbourhood in which I grew up was largely Jain. Many of my closest friends were Jain, and I often found myself in the derasar more frequently than in the haveli simply because that was where the people I loved happened to be.
As children, we do not consciously choose all the values that shape us. We absorb them from the people around us. In many ways, the people with whom we grow up decide which values first find a home within us.
For years, I watched people fast during Paryushan. Some fasted for a day, some for a week, and some for lengths of time I could not imagine attempting myself. I admired their discipline, but admiration from a distance asks very little of us.
This year, I wanted to stop watching from the sidelines. Not because I wanted to prove I could endure hunger, but because I have begun to wonder whether fasting is really about hunger at all.
Food is only one form of consumption. We also consume noise, praise, opinions, outrage, comparison and distraction. We repeatedly feed the version of every story in which we were reasonable, wounded and misunderstood.
Perhaps the real fast is not just from food. Perhaps it is also a fast from certainty.
What Does Sorry Mean?
On Samvatsari, the final day of Paryushan, Jains say Micchami Dukkadam to the people in their lives.
Most people outside the Jain community understand it simply as "I'm sorry." To someone hearing it for the first time, the phrase can sound almost mystical.
If Micchami Dukkadam were a spell, it would be one of the most useful ever invented. We would all love a sentence that could erase the consequences of our mistakes. The difficulty, and perhaps the beauty, is that it doesn't.
The deeper meaning is closer to this:
May the wrong I have done become fruitless. May it stop creating further harm.
That is very different from merely saying sorry. An apology can settle a room. It can end an argument. It can allow everyone to move on. But an apology does not automatically undo what happened.
You can say sorry and still carry the argument for four more years. You can be forgiven and still replay the conversation at two in the morning. You can apologise sincerely and still repeat the behaviour that made the apology necessary.
The words may have ended, but the damage can continue travelling. That continuing damage is the residue.
Most apologies try to end a conversation. Micchami Dukkadam asks us to end the damage.
On Samvatsari, the final day of Paryushan, Jains say Micchami Dukkadam to the people in their lives.
Most people outside the Jain community understand it simply as "I'm sorry." To someone hearing it for the first time, the phrase can sound almost mystical.
If Micchami Dukkadam were a spell, it would be one of the most useful ever invented. We would all love a sentence that could erase the consequences of our mistakes. The difficulty, and perhaps the beauty, is that it doesn't.
The deeper meaning is closer to this:
May the wrong I have done become fruitless. May it stop creating further harm.
That is very different from merely saying sorry. An apology can settle a room. It can end an argument. It can allow everyone to move on. But an apology does not automatically undo what happened.
You can say sorry and still carry the argument for four more years. You can be forgiven and still replay the conversation at two in the morning. You can apologise sincerely and still repeat the behaviour that made the apology necessary.
The words may have ended, but the damage can continue travelling. That continuing damage is the residue.
Most apologies try to end a conversation. Micchami Dukkadam asks us to end the damage.
The Standard I Apply to Myself and Refuse Others
Someone once told me:
"We judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions."
I have never been able to forget that sentence.
When I make a mistake, I know the pressure I was under, what I was trying to achieve and why I behaved as I did. When someone else hurts me, I usually receive only the action itself. I see the sentence that hurt, the promise that was broken, the call that never came.
I see the moment. I do not see the story.
And so my mistakes become exceptions while yours become evidence.
Mine are explained by circumstances. Yours are explained by character.
I ask you to understand the person behind my actions while reducing you to the action that hurt me.
If I am honest, I have held grudges against people who wronged me. I have also hurt people who did nothing to deserve it and called it an accident, a misunderstanding or a bad day.
Micchami Dukkadam refuses that shortcut.
It asks me to stop hiding behind the goodness of my intentions and look honestly at the impact of my actions.
Someone once told me:
"We judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions."
I have never been able to forget that sentence.
When I make a mistake, I know the pressure I was under, what I was trying to achieve and why I behaved as I did. When someone else hurts me, I usually receive only the action itself. I see the sentence that hurt, the promise that was broken, the call that never came.
I see the moment. I do not see the story.
And so my mistakes become exceptions while yours become evidence.
Mine are explained by circumstances. Yours are explained by character.
I ask you to understand the person behind my actions while reducing you to the action that hurt me.
If I am honest, I have held grudges against people who wronged me. I have also hurt people who did nothing to deserve it and called it an accident, a misunderstanding or a bad day.
Micchami Dukkadam refuses that shortcut.
It asks me to stop hiding behind the goodness of my intentions and look honestly at the impact of my actions.
The Wrong That Continues After the Wrong
The greatest consequence of wrongdoing may not be the original moment.
It may be what that moment slowly turns us into.
This is how hurt travels. Not always dramatically. Sometimes through a colder response, a withheld kindness or a judgement made too quickly.
The real danger of resentment is not only that it remembers the past. It is that it keeps recruiting the future.
As I understand it, Micchami Dukkadam is an attempt to interrupt that journey.
It is the hope that the wrong stops here. That it doesn't enter another conversation, shape another relationship or become part of somebody else's inheritance.
The greatest consequence of wrongdoing may not be the original moment.
It may be what that moment slowly turns us into.
This is how hurt travels. Not always dramatically. Sometimes through a colder response, a withheld kindness or a judgement made too quickly.
The real danger of resentment is not only that it remembers the past. It is that it keeps recruiting the future.
As I understand it, Micchami Dukkadam is an attempt to interrupt that journey.
It is the hope that the wrong stops here. That it doesn't enter another conversation, shape another relationship or become part of somebody else's inheritance.
What I Hope to Lose
I am not expecting 72 hours without food to transform me into someone new. What Paryushan has given me, however, is something I often need: a deadline for honesty.
If I complete this fast, I do not want to emerge feeling superior. Hunger is not a moral achievement.
If I do this well, I hope I emerge a little less certain that my version of a story is the complete version, and a little less eager to explain myself before understanding what someone else experienced.
When I finally say Micchami Dukkadam, I do not want it to mean simply, "Please forgive me."
I want it to mean:
"For once, I have looked at my actions with the same honesty with which I examine yours."
I want it to mean that the harm I caused should leave no residue. That I should judge the actions of others with the same compassion with which I judge my own intentions.
Perhaps that is what Paryushan is asking of us.
Not to become perfect.
Not to erase the past.
Not even to forget.
Just to become honest enough to clean what has quietly gathered in the corners of our lives.
And if I can do even a little of that over the next 72 hours, the most important thing I lose during this fast will not be food.
It will be the distance between the person I believe myself to be and the person my actions sometimes reveal.
And that may be the most nourishing thing I have ever given up.
I am not expecting 72 hours without food to transform me into someone new. What Paryushan has given me, however, is something I often need: a deadline for honesty.
If I complete this fast, I do not want to emerge feeling superior. Hunger is not a moral achievement.
If I do this well, I hope I emerge a little less certain that my version of a story is the complete version, and a little less eager to explain myself before understanding what someone else experienced.
When I finally say Micchami Dukkadam, I do not want it to mean simply, "Please forgive me."
I want it to mean:
"For once, I have looked at my actions with the same honesty with which I examine yours."
I want it to mean that the harm I caused should leave no residue. That I should judge the actions of others with the same compassion with which I judge my own intentions.
Perhaps that is what Paryushan is asking of us.
Not to become perfect.
Not to erase the past.
Not even to forget.
Just to become honest enough to clean what has quietly gathered in the corners of our lives.
And if I can do even a little of that over the next 72 hours, the most important thing I lose during this fast will not be food.
It will be the distance between the person I believe myself to be and the person my actions sometimes reveal.
And that may be the most nourishing thing I have ever given up.
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