I was born and raised in Pakistan, in a fairly religious family. Since the very start i knew there to be a very sharp distinction between right and wrong. I was always mindful of the things i should not do even as a little kid. i started saying my prayers and reciting the holy book at a very small age and my life was marked with deep bliss..
Then something happened that would leave imprints on my mind for the rest of my life.
I was in 3rd grade, when i began to notice this petite girl with silky hair in my class. As soon as she joined the school there started a vicious gossip about her being a non-muslim..I did not pay attention for a long while until one day my elder sister came home crying. She was the head-girl of the school and her title had been wrongfully taken away from her and awarded to a girl who was an Ahmedi* and whose sister, i got to know, studied in my class. I was deeply upset by the unfairness of it all. My closest friend at that time re-affirmed the news and told me how hateful these people are as they deny the teachings of prophet Muhammad who was the dearest person to God. That night, in my bed, i promised God that i would teach this girl a lesson. That i will do my bit to shame her for not believing in my dear God. That i would punish her for being a bad person who is sister of someone bad, and who doesn't believe in God the way i do, the God who is so sweet and kind. I made this vow and slept a tormented sleep of nightmares.
I still remember to date the feeling i got the next day i saw that girl in my class. My blood began to boil, there was fury throbbing in my temples and tingling sensation in my palms. I went to her and teased her about being a 'kafir' until she started crying. I hit her the next day. I tormented her for a whole week, and no one really stopped me in a school which was dominated by Muslims 'of the right sect', of course.
I used to think that I got even with her. Maybe according to my own plan of action, I did too. But since that day the spiritual enlightenment within me started disappearing, i still prayed five times a day and recited the holy book but my heart was never into it. It was as if some invisible force had deliberately put off my focus from whatever was important to me to the distractions surrounding me.
My superficial devotion to religion, however stayed for a long time. The rope of this attachment receded to a thin thread with time.
Over time i acquired the ability to judge everything presented to me with an open mind. On top of reading the scriptures, i reverted to listening to all the Islamic scholars about the plethora of questions rising inside my mind everyday. They were never able to provide satisfactory answers.
When i grew up and out of the stuff we are spoon-fed at school ( whether it is about the country you belong to or the dominant religion in that country ) , i started to question the very fundamental basis of everything i was being taught. I started to look at everything differently. There are so many loopholes in the account of events/faith which you are made to perceive as good and true which are not even subtle, yet to challenge the authenticity of this information counts as blasphemy on so many levels that most of us decide to suppress these questions with the hammer of a conscience that is itself programmed according to the norms of this diabolical society.
Fighting the odds, I refused to give up on the quest and continued my search for the truth. At first this struggle for truth remained inside my mind, but later it rose to the surface of my thoughts and resulted into arguments with a number of people i held in high esteem. People started changing, the way they looked at me started changing. Once during 8th grade, i was passing notes to my best friend about some of the queries in my mind about religion which were later seen by my family and i still remember the horror of the confrontation i faced. I assumed silence with a vow that I can stay quiet for my family but I would never change my opinions to adjust those of the majority no matter what price I had to pay for this.
The underlying thought behind this post is my very strong belief that no religion is necessarily bad. It becomes bad when its practitioners start to oppress others or hail themselves as the only right ones. I was not trained to fight or hurt someone who did not belong to the same faith, Yet my environment had definitely fed into me a sense of hostility towards those who were different, i started to seek it as my religious duty to fight anyone who differed from my point of view, which according to me was the universal truth. It is not hard to imagine why people kill in the name of religion . Only later when i discovered the weak foundations this 'universal truth' was standing on did i begin to realize how naive I had been.In flattering myself as being close to God, i went farther away from spiritual bliss by hurting humanity. As a result i lost all the purity in my connection with the divine force even before I subjected my faith to logical testing.
Wherever you are today, I hope you are confident in the knowledge that you are entitled to respect just like any other citizen of this state. I hope you realize that you are not a criminal for having a different outlook on life, the people who make you feel this way are. I hope you are able to let your oppressors talk without feeling thoroughly shaken and defenseless,
For everyone who casts a stone at you, I hope you are able to rise above the agony of wounds inflicted by these tormented souls.
*Ahmedi : A sect widely persecuted nation wide in Pakistan and declared non-muslim by constitution of the country.
Impressive writing..
ReplyDeleteand you are beautiful..