To: To the Hindu priest at the temple
Kshama (Hindu / Jain)
February 2, 2026
You told my widowed mother to remove the bindi. She was forty-three. Kshama — patient endurance. I forgive my fury at you on her behalf. I do not forgive the custom. Padmanabh Jaini writes that Jain ethics extends ahimsa beyond physical harm to harm by tradition. The harm by tradition was real. The bindi went back on by November. She lived another twenty years.