A Window into My Past

I was born in a Hindu Brahmin family that was very proud for their higher social and religious place in the society. The Bhatta caste in Hinduism comes from the higher priestly family. In addition to the priestly caste, my father was very much into astrology. For him, everything and everyone on earth has astrological correspondence. Generally, in a traditional Hindu family, when a son is born, the parents should call their local priest (skilled in astrology) to draw up the horoscope that forecasts child’s personality and future based upon the position of the planets in relation to the zodiac sign under which the child is born. It so happened that I was born in a time that meant the imminent death for my father. The only way for him to avoid his death was for both of us never to see each other. In such a case, the priest would advise the mother not to feed the infant or give it away to someone far away. My mother kept me alive and finally left me at her parents' home.  

My grandma took care of me until I was 11. Meanwhile back in my home, another priest had a new look at my horoscope, and helped my father change his mind. Finally, with great hesitation and reluctance, my father agreed to bring me home in my 11th year. When I heard that I had parents and that I was going home gave me a new kind of hope because from the age of seven, I had been asking questions about my life and had never found any answer. I had visited many temples around our village, tried to read Hindu Scripture that my grandfather and mother made me to read for them as I learned to read and write. But there was no answer as who I was and where I had come from. So, the news about my origin was a great relief and thought that my prayers had been answered.

The day I came home, there was a big religious ceremony going on in my home; villagers were gathered and my family was busy with all kinds of rituals. As I arrived, I was washed, and was given white clothes to put on and they made me to enter the sacred room where my father was performing the religious rituals with many other priests. Someone guided me to the entrance of that room and told me to go and bow-down to father. As I entered the room, there were about seven men and did not know whom to bow to. So, I went to the man sitting nearest to the entrance; he happened to be one of the priests and kindly showed me who my father was and for the first time I saw my father and bowed to him as they made me to sit on a mat next to him and take part in the rituals for appeasing the deities so that my father would not die. As I sat there in that room, I tried to steal some glimpses from my father, but I saw him only focused in the rituals and never turned an eye towards me. He seemed to be very much full of anxiety and uncertainty.

As the day died down and all the villagers went home, I was hoping that my family would gather around me and welcome me. I was told that I had two elder sisters, two younger sisters and one younger brother. Except mother, everyone seemed to be hesitant to come near and my father went out with his friends and came back home very late. I was given a place to sleep but could not fall asleep and knew when father came home. I gave him the benefit of doubt, thinking he must be tired and may be from tomorrow he will speak to me. But the next day came and went, but my father never looked at me and never said a word. Finally, without realizing a year had gone by without my father speaking to me and having any kind of conversation. In an agrarian society, life for the children can go on without much social interaction and my life took a lonely path. After a year of silence, I found my father to be very angry man and soon his anger was expressed with severe beatings. I found out that he loved his younger son so much that no one was allowed to mistreat him. My inner loneliness was turning into an expressed anger but I was afraid of my father, so I expressed my anger over my younger brother. This brought the wrath of my father on my head and since then, it was a constant beating and mental and verbal abuse that left me totally detached from reality. My emotional, mental and physical condition began to deteriorate.

One day, when I was about 13 or 14 years old, a group of young people visited our school and were selling bags of books with fraction of money. I too bought a bag of books, but when I brought home, father saw the books and he destroyed them all. Somehow as he was burning them, I had hidden one book along with my school books. The title was “friend of all” and it had many pictures in it. But the book remained unread somewhere in the house until I was 16.  By this time I had abandoned my faith in religion and gotten into the company of communist friends who taught me the Darwinian view of life and Marxists system of politics. After spending considerable time with them, I thought that I found the meaning of my life; revolution for national liberation from tyranny.   But deep in me, I was far from real liberation and peace of mind. I was so angry with my father and my anger turned into depression and began to contemplate about suicide. I saw no end to my misery; I saw no one who could liberate me on a personal level. As I contemplated on taking my own life, I had this urge to take revenge on my father who had brought this misery in my life. I became a violent man and finally left home because I could not stay without trouble anymore.

When my father saw that I was determined to destroy my life, and was also afraid that on the process of destroying my own life, I might harm him as well. So, he sent message to his eldest daughter who was married in a faraway town. He asked her if she and her husband could do something about it. I had never met her husband, until that time; when they heard about me, my brother-in-law came to the place where I was living because I had refused to go home. As he met me, he gave me a book.  To my amazement, it was the same book that years ago I had bought and saved from being burned. I had never known that he was a Christian; he had married my sister in an arranged marriage in a fully Hindu religious way. But the title of the book “friend of all” once again drew my attention and this time I was able to read it with full attention. It was in this book that I saw the man named Jesus reaching out and touching people who were lost and forgotten by the society; he appeared to be the person who could provide the personal liberation that I was longing for. Much later would I know that this was the gospel of Luke! That day, my brother-in-law offered me the chance to come and live in his house so that I could finish my high school. 

As I read the book, I was greatly attracted to the person of Jesus Christ.  I had never thought in terms of that book or Jesus Christ having any kind of relationship with the religion called Christianity. I thought that my brother-in-law randomly got the book to give me as a gift. One day I took the book to a friend who was much older to me, had finished university education, had a good government job, and was considered to be the wise and successful man of the village. I wanted to ask him if he could help me to know more about the man called Jesus. As I gave him the book, he was shocked to see it and tore it into many pieces and threw them into the village air that took away the pieces of my dear book to many different directions. As he tore the book, a cold chill went into my spine and an unknown fear hit me. He warned me that such books have some kind of magical power and if someone reads them, the person will be either insane or lose mental stability. I left him there screaming at me, feeling sad that the book I was in love with was destroyed (In a few months, that person died with no apparent reasons).  Finally, I came home and found the same old book, hidden in the midst of all our school books. It was already dirty and dusty but the message of the book started to hit me home every time I read it.  

I decided to go and live with my sister’s family. It was the first time I had visited their house and saw that there were many other books. I learned that my brother in-law was actually the leader of this underground church.  As I stayed with them and the first Saturday came (Nepali Churches worship on Saturday), three more men came to their home and sat in a room and called me too. As we sat there, they began to pray, sing and some one gave a brief speech. I still remember the first speech, it was “where does my help come from? My help comes from God” (the preacher has now gone to be with the Lord). There I was asking the same question from my early childhood and the man there says that there is a God who is interested in helping us and this God has come to us through Jesus Christ. In my heart, I decided to find out about this God.  I was given the New Testament to read; I finished it in no time.  The verse that stuck to my mind was Matthew 7:7 where it says “ask and it shall be given to you”. I had many questions and here there was a possibility of my asking being answered.

My sister's family did not know but secretly, I began to talk to Jesus, but the longer I stayed with my sister’s family the more confused I became. The kind of Jesus I saw in the Bible and the kind of Jesus they believed in appeared to be different. The family life, the kind of controversy about the finances being misused in the name of church and mission had infected this group of new believers who were fighting with one another for money and power for leadership. On top of that I had brought all my troubles with authority figures along with me and my relationship with brother-in-law broke down.  But one day I found another book in that house, the title was “God who answers by fire”. Somewhere in all these coincidences, I began to see some kind of mysterious pattern. This book opened my eyes to see how God has a plan for every person, and the things that had happened in my life were not by accident, but were ordained by God.  I wanted to know this God.  I had thought that Jesus was the best human being to follow, but there was no proper understanding of him being the Son and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Then, God brought another incident; an English preacher by the name of Norman Mitten came to visit my brother-in-law and he spoke to our group. His text was from the gospel of Mark 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”.

As Norman began to expound the gospel to a group of about seven of us, I had a strange burning sensation in my chest. Whatever he said, it was as if he was reading my heart with absolute certainty and for the first time I recognized that my biggest problem was not my father, but my sin. The way to God, his help, and answers to my questions is made possible by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The meeting finished without any fanfare. There was no altar-call or prayer for anything or anyone. But a fire had begun in my heart and did not know how to quench it.  The following day, I went to a nearby bush alone and asked Jesus to come and save me from my sin. Since my relationship with brother-in-law was already broken, I could not ask his help. So, I asked other members of that group as what I must do in order to be fully forgiven of my sins. The person said that I had to take water baptism (this was a group that placed a high value on baptism by immersion for salvation). When I said to the group that I want to take baptism, they were taken aback. For them, I was anti Christian because I had opposed their leader and had expressed certain views that were contradictory to what they thought. It was a great danger for them to baptize me because if I was not a genuine believer, I might report to the police of my becoming Christian which then can put the leader into seven years in prison.  Finally, there were two more people who were getting ready for the baptism and I insisted to be included into the ceremony.  They arranged the baptismal program along with two other candidates and took us to an Indian border town in North India.  In the year 1985/6 (can't remember exact date due to the dual dating system in Nepal), I was baptized in an old Indian church (Church of North India) and since then, it has been a life of adventure filled with joy and pain, laughter and sadness but in everything, God’s amazing grace has provided the strength needed.

Right after baptism, I went home with the hope of reconciling with my family.  But my father he could not accept the fact that his prodigal son is now turning to Christianity.  It took another 10 years for me to go back home.  By this time I was married and had my son with me.  In order to break the ice, I took my Indian wife and three years old son to home, hoping that when he sees the daughter- in-law and grandchild, his heart may melt. It did melt, but only to the point of general formality. I could feel how uncomfortable he was with us being in his house.  And it took another 10 years for him to admit his mistakes. In 2007, we heard that he was very sick and had become very old and frail. I and my wife visited him. As we arrived at his home, it was about noon time. There was no one else in the house, children had gone to school and my mother and brother’s family were working in their field. As we went about the house, we saw the old man sitting way back in the garden, turning his face away from home. I went from behind and called him; he was surprised and tried to get up but could not. I grabbed him in my arms and helped him to walk back home. It was the first time that I had held my father; I had never known his touch or embrace. Within me, I was weeping, but had to put up a brave face so that the old man would not faint to see me crumble. For the first time, the old man confessed his failings and released me to do whatever makes me happy. As I saw his painful tears running down his boney chicks; I could not hold anything back and told him that the only thing that would compensate me of my robbed childhood is when I see him confess his sin to Jesus Christ and accept him as his personal savior. He neither denied my wish nor accepted; and realizing his social stature, I gave him an easy and wishful suggestion - “even if you cannot accept him in public due to the fear of your religious society, accept him in the privacy of your heart”. I am not sure how long my old man will live, but it is my prayer that when he leaves this world, he would have made his peace with his creator.