By Saakshi
Yesterday morning, when I accessed my WhatsApp messages, I felt a little bit happy. There was a message from my friend saying that he is blessed with a son, whom he has named Irwin. This message was from Mr DM Soni whom I met while travelling on a train from Delhi to Bengaluru. Since it was a long journey, we naturally got engaged to talk about many personal issues besides exchanging our views on day-to-day matters.
He was quite a sophisticated person with hard likes and harder dislikes. He introduced himself as Deen Mohammed Soni. He told me that he has adopted Islam as a religion only a year ago, and used to be a Hindu before that, called by the name Deshmukh Soni. He chose to have the subsequent name as Din Mohammed Soni to retain his official initials same, and there was no need to change his nameplates. I just laughed and told him that he's quite economical, as just to save the expenses of a nameplate, demonstrated the skill of retaining the initials of the previous religion even after converting to a new religion. He also laughed loudly, at my comments. He further told me that he lost his faith in Hinduism as he developed disbelief in rituals he was advised to follow, whenever he visited temples.
I quietly smiled at his statement, though it was surprising to note the importance he felt in telling me about his personal decision, though I was a stranger to him at that time. He continued to share his views and it appeared he was trying to justify that he was not at all guilty in his act of converting to Islam. He didn't seem to be a missionary even so I was listening to him very silently. The more he was telling me, the more I was lost in my thoughts that why he is telling me all these things. Does he want to suggest that I shall also convert to Islam or he just wants to defend himself about his decision?
I just asked him about what he was doing in those days of his desperation when he converted to Islam. He said his patience was totally lost in those fateful days, as he was just out of prison after spending a jail term being implicated in a false case of dowry. Behind the bars, he came across a person called Mushtaq, who made him understand the rich traditions of Islam and convinced him to get converted, within three months of his imprisonment.
Then he told me that soon after he came out of the prison, he went straight to a mosque locating it from the address slip which was given to him by Mushtaq. Over there, he met Imam Sahib, who taught him the other rituals and some more beautiful facts about Islam and convinced him to get converted. So he got converted and was blessed with a new name called Deen Mohammed Soni. Explaining this, he felt much more relaxed, since he didn't any more have to go to follow different kinds of Hindu rituals.
I listened to his comments on Hinduism as well as on Islam with a lot of patience and he was convinced that whatever he did was right, since I didn't even for a single moment contradicted his decision. But when he became silent I just asked him how he felt when he was behind bars and he was released from jail; did he wish to go to another jail, or he just wanted to enjoy the life of a free man. He wondered why I wished him another jail term. I corrected him by saying, that I only intended to ask, if he becomes habitual to seeing the same atmosphere in his new religion too, and if he happens to get into jail again, within three months, based on some other person's influence, will he switch to another religion.
He frowned at me, "What nonsense you are talking. Why should one want to cross over to the third religion, being in the second, while he is free from the first?
Then I told him, as a Hindu you felt that every Hindu tradition became a burden to you. You wanted to be a free man and got unshackled from all those traditions. Then again, just as a human being you again wanted to bind yourself to Islam. Will you will leave Islam in case you become sick of a certain tradition of Islam. By doing so, you shift yourself from one chain to another chain. Why can't you live a free life without religion, can't we be recognised only as humans? Is it a must to have a religion or the other? Just think, do whatever your heart believes, and be honest with your conscience. As a Hindu, you were not allowed to consume beef as your food, and now as a Muslim, you're forced to accept that you should not eat pork. You are freed from the bindings of one religion and got tied up to the bindings of another religion. Just think over, why you should be in a hurry to tie yourself to one sect or the other when you are about to be blessed with a son or a daughter? Why you can't wait instead of deciding in a hurry to make your child a Hindu or Muslim or a Christian? Let the children grow up and decide whatever they want to do! I assure you, at the age of 12 years, our children grow up to be decision making, choose their religion, and will be definitely better people than us.
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