Haunting Past

I worked as a government official before the India-Pakistan partition. My colleagues called me Binal Babu. Our staff included both Hindus and Muslims, working under English officers. Even though the British ruled over us and there was unrest everywhere, my life was simple. I worked during the day, came home in the evening, enjoyed good food, took long walks, and spent my nights at a tea shop with my best friends—Karim, Usif, Abdul, and Sharma. When we were together, religion never crossed my mind.

I often wondered how freedom fighters found the courage to endure so much pain. Sacrificing everything for the country seemed impossible to me. My part in the movement was just talking about it with my friends at the tea shop. We all enjoyed debating about current events. 

At work, the English officers treated us badly. They shouted at us for small mistakes, insulted us, and made us feel inferior. Their words hurt me deeply. I hated them inside. I needed my job to support my family, so I stayed quiet. But my frustration kept growing. I had no way to release it; sometimes I took it out on my wife. When she had enough, she took out her anger on our children.

The British left, and India was divided. Suddenly, people like me, who had always stayed quiet, became aggressive. 

When I heard that my brother and his family were killed in Lahore, I was deeply sad. But that sadness soon turned into anger. I joined a violent group – killing, burning, destroying. I surprised myself. Where was this anger when we were fighting for freedom? But soon, I realized what I had done. How could I take revenge on innocent people who had nothing to do with my pain? It was like searching for a lost coin on the street which I lost at home.

For years, I convinced myself that I did the right thing. I told myself, “They started the fight. It was all part of God’s plan, and that I was just a small part of it. Also, I wasn’t alone in the violence, and I wouldn’t be alone in hell either”.

But I never felt peace. No one punished me, no one called me a criminal, yet my own thoughts tortured me. People talk about hell after death—I was already living it.

To make up for my past, I started helping people. It made me feel better. People started respecting and listening to me. But during quiet moments, the guilt came back. What if people find out what I had done? “Cat went to Hajj after eating 100 mice”. Would they call me a hypocrite?

I felt that ending my life was the only way to escape my past. The past had not been created overnight, so how could it disappear overnight?

I turned to meditation. How can I describe the relief? It was like a woman enduring labor pain for a long time, and then suddenly the child was delivered. I had touched one extreme of pain, so when relief came, I immediately recognized the other extreme. For the first time, I knew there was a way out. From that day on, I became sincere in my practice.

Gradually, I became a happier person. The past still crosses my mind, and I sometimes wish I had never done those things. But now, the pain no longer controls me the way it once did.