Music composer Vishal Dadlani yesterday met Jain monk Tarun Sagar. Hands folded, he apologised to him for his sarcastic tweet about him. The monk asked him to seek forgiveness from the Jains for hurting the community’s sentiments. The composer apologised as per the Jain tradition of seeking “Panch Mafee”, that includes holding the ears. 

Sagar said he had already forgiven Dadlani and would appeal to the community to forgive him and treat the matter as closed. “I have been saying this right from the start when these events unfolded (when controversy broke out after Dadlani’s tweet) that personally I don’t feel hurt or sad. I was talking to Vishal today and I told him that the Jain community has been hurt, it was their demand that he should come to me in person and apologise after which they will stop protests against him.”

Last month, Dadlani had offended the sentiments of Jains across the world, describing Sagar (a member of the Digambar sect that does not wear clothes) as “some naked monk,” and his act of not wearing clothes, as “colossal idiocy.”

Dadlani, who has been one of the most visible activists of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for quite some time now, had to soon bow down to pressure from Jains, AAP and Twitterati, and he announced to quit all active political work/affiliation.

Dadlani later told mediapersons: “I apologised over Twitter 32 times and Tarun Sagarji also forgave me… I wanted to come personally earlier, but there was an FIR against me. I did not want the people to think I wanted to come here only because a case had been slapped against me. “I felt it from my heart that my remarks had generated so much controversy and caused so much hurt. What I had wanted to say is that religion and governance should not be mixed. What people understood from that tweet of mine was unfortunate. It was not my intention to hurt anyone’s sentiments. What I had said was as per the Constitution, religion and governance should not be mixed because we are a secular nation,” Dadlani, who reached the Digambar Jain Temple and held a closed-door meeting with the monk for about 20 minutes, said.