The Power of Tears

Jemimah Jessica Rodrigues. The scorecard read a feisty and fiery 127. The lofty 338 was scaled. The mighty Australians were thundered out. History was scripted. India celebrated her. India celebrated with her. But was it the complete story? A definite no. The real ‘power play’ was in her press conference. It was in the upfront admission of her vulnerabilities. It was in confronting and winning over those roller-coaster rides. It was in steely resolve not to leave the battleground. It was in the strength of her honesty. It was in her tears.

Tears always had a testy relationship with the muscular narrative this inanimate world sells us. While emotional upheaval is loudly crawling its way into mainstream conversation, crying in public is still a reluctant occurrence, attracting wide eyes and furrowed brows. The greatest minds could not concur on it, let alone the lesser mortals. Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary deductions were second to none, wrote in 1872, ‘We must look at weeping as an incidental result, as purposeless as the secretion of tears from a blow outside the eye’. The British biologist, perhaps, left it bare and basic, dry and dull. From the proposer of an explicitly aesthetic theory of evolution, it was a letdown even by Victorian standards. Darwin’s compatriot and litterateur Charles Dickens, however, rendered a humane connotation to tears. In Great Expectations, Dickens wrote, ‘Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before – more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle’. It lends a purpose, keeping it moist and mindful.

Jemimah was overwhelmed. Visibly so. Justifiably so. She did not hold back in confessing, ‘I was going through a lot of anxiety at the start of the tournament. I used to call my mom and cry the entire time, because when you’re going through anxiety, you just feel numb’. She let it all out while adding, ‘I will be very vulnerable here because I know if someone is watching, this might be going through the same thing. Nobody likes to talk about their weakness’. These are statements we do not read every day. These are visuals we do not consume every hour. We live in a ruthless world where brand equity neatly tailors every action and emotion of a celebrity. There is not enough room for a stolen breath. Jemimah danced out of the crease and knocked these strait-jackets out of the stadium. She set a narrative far more meaningful. She is the gust of wind we needed.

Crying in private is an act of ordinary proportion. We all have cried in deaths and desertions, on shoulders, in solitude. It is an emotional vocabulary, often resorted to. But when a celebrity cries in public, it becomes an act of confession and confrontation. Entrenched perceptions label tears as a sign of wrecked composure, uncontrolled spillage and a dreaded pathway to embarrassment or shame, more so in professional or competitive fields where equanimity is held in high esteem. That is a culture which equates achievement with immunity. When Jemimah headlined the fall of the curtain, the dialogue shifted from her startling feats to the cost of carrying expectations in silence.

It is not the first. It will certainly not be the last. Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shreya Ghoshal, and Smriti Mandhana – all have welled up in public, once or more. Celebrities are cultural mirrors. We tend to paint our unachieved perfections on them. When they cry, it unsettles our own projections. It confronts our own beliefs, however unfounded they may be. Can someone be successful and still feel lost? Can someone be loved by millions and still feel lonely? Jemimah’s revelation is not only her personal struggle but also redefines what resilience means. Resilience, perhaps, is not the absence of tears but the courage to embrace them.

Crying is a human language. It is older than any language, per se. The logical and psychological explanation of tears is the brain’s way of seeking empathy and bonding. A social signal or an irresistible urge to connect and communicate. A noisy quest for that elusive succour. Tears are a great equaliser. It constantly reminds us that fame and fortune do not insulate anyone from the tempests which brew inside. Public tears let private struggles be visible. Visibility is the first step towards change.

We need a course correction. Both in private and public lives. We need to understand, leaders cry, athletes burn out, artists crumble. It does not demystify greatness. It redefines the entire game. Jemimah has liberated souls which weep in the abyss of darkness. She has normalised cathartic healing. Jemimah, you have just won the match of life for us. You have strummed into our hearts. Her Insta bio reads, ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear’. We love you, and you have driven the fear out of us.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a communication professional and former journalist