Paromita Vohra: The latest state of sorry

ldquoSORRYrdquo is such a tiny word but it is packed more tightly with meanings and narratives than a drop of shampoo in an advertisement is packed with fruit oils and wholesome sighs or a hair follicle with dandruffIrsquove always felt Indians have a hard time saying sorry Several years ago in this column I had written about the late RR Patil who while in office was photographed in his car sans seat belt Instead of a good natured apology he said the law was stupid always reassuring coming from the government because in city traffic we can barely drive at 20 kilometres an hourDr Mohan Agashe in Astu So Be ItThis whataboutery mdash basically saying ldquoteacher itrsquos not my fault he was distracting me in classrsquo mdash is a fear of admitting error for fear of being obliterated Itrsquos indicative of our maturity as a society and also what gives us a talent for trollingOf course it is too simple to understand it like that As a feudal and oncecolonised society wrongdoing is often used to fix your identity as worthless and so fit for control a justification for your oppression the basis of administering physical violence beating locking you up in your room occupying your state or social humiliationWe can understand then why the powerless might avoid ldquosorryrdquo but why those in powerful positions such as Salman Khan who has persistently refused to apologise for his rape analogy Perhaps this refusal is not only wedded to the feudal mdash sarsquoab ki shaan kam ho jayegi mdash but also the masculine mdash real men donrsquot apologise at least not to those lower in status such as women the poor or onersquos fansubjects An extension of this is the refusal by the State to apologise to victims they have not protected from violence despite being voted in to do so sometimes doubling their punishment to disguise this reality and blaming the victim as in the recent FIR issued against the family of Ikhlaque Khan in DadriOn the other hand perhaps one must be wary of those who say sorry too often not in order to rectify a mistake but as a token sop to maintain the imbalance of power mdash abusers in domestic violence often do thisBeing able to say sorry comes from a place of security in self and others mdash an ability to make oneself vulnerable and trust opponents an imagination of equality the confidence to changeSo there is something to be said for the recent exchange between Rajdeep Sardesai and Sania Mirza beyond the memes Rajdeep while interviewing Sania about her memoir asked when she would lsquosettle downrsquo mdash yaniki medalsvedals theek hai but woman ki ultimate destiny you know na Cringes rippled from Bhatinda to Bengaluru Sania sighed and called him out with forthright style after which Rajdeep tried to joke his way out but said sorry on TV admitting he would never ask a man such a thing Sania fairly enough did some more eyerolling Rajdeep took it apologised again promising therersquoll be no repeatBoth moved the social narrative on Sorry a step forward here Sania in saying with selfconfidence what she thought rather than suffering it and Rajdeep in apologising instead of being defensive Irsquom not sorry to have seen this rare occurenceParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevipicturescom