Seek to Understand

"I will not talk to you, I won't even come to visit your house", these were the words uttered by Sandhya. She was really angry and one can see the anger with pain in her eyes. I always envy women for their transparent faces. I know I am generalizing too much, but this has always proved true with me. I have seen all women around me with transparent faces. You can just read the emotions in their eyes. Somehow I always remained away from acquiring that skill and my emotions are only visible to some of my skilled and dear ones.

Sandhya was angry with Appu. Appu is a common friend to Sandhya and me. He was in trouble now because Sandhya was really angry. The reason she was angry is not important now as Appu dissolved the issue flawlessly.

"Don't take it lightly", continued Sandhya, "you cannot get away just by apologizing to me."
Appu said "Sandhya, you are angry with me. You don't want to come to visit my house now. Fine Sandhya, you know what? I am not angry with you, and I will talk to you and I will visit your house. Will you allow this? I want to be with you and understand."
The way Appu said "will you allow this" was so real and dramatic it was as if getting the answer as yes without the listener actually saying yes.

What I admired from the situation was Appu was not defending his position. He was just trying to be with Sandhya when she was angry. I would have defended my position, would have argued with her about who was right and all that. Appu took a different path to be just with her and understand her.

I feel this approach really helped them to solve the problem. It is very important to understand that when someone is angry at you, there is some pain working behind the scenes. The act of expressing anger may be anything and in any way but the truth lies somewhere in that person getting hurt. If we want to eliminate the anger we need to understand the pain and try to eliminate the pain. The first thing to achieve this will be to be with the person who is angry and understand the view point.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur