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WHILE REDEEMING MY SOUL: Chapter 2 - Closer To God, Than Ever Been Before
To read the synopsis or to read about the characters, locations or any other detail of this short-story with a bird's view, click the following link:
WHILE REDEEMING MY SOUL - Synopsis
Every necessary detail is in there. To read the previous chapter, click:
CHAPTER 1: THE CRIMSON EVENING
Chapter 2: Closer To God, Than Ever Been Before:
Since the past couple of years, I was noticed many times, being drowned into the thoughts of why people do anything to harm other people, bad to nation and bad to the whole country. Although this was not my way of thinking prior to the diagnosis that I am suffering from lungs cancer and will live a few more months. I realized then that when a person is about to meet his God, his heart starts to melt, and he is inclined towards goodness, but I was never the same. I was a cheat, a selfish person who didn’t do anything for the sake of other people, for the sake of this country. Now I feel ashamed for what I was my whole life, but I am still not ready to accept it, and to flush that feelings of being ashamed, I start to look something on my bed. I was lucky to find that without much effort. It was a diary of my father, Mr. Rehaan Siddiqui. I personally believe now, this diary was the most priceless gift I could ever have from my father. I often read it in the wee hours of night, when I could not sleep because of the heap of thoughts, running into my mind. After all, what a sick old person can do except thinking about his life that he spent in such a miserable and regrettable way.
He was a teacher by profession, but his diary taught me the greatest lesson of all time. It changed my way of perception, my way of thinking, but the greatest of all, my way of living. Missing him is the sweetest part of my recent life, and this is what I am doing right now. Along with the fact that I am missing my father, and to divert my mind from the feeling of guilt because of the way I spent my life, there is another important reason as well, why I decided to read this diary today. Those burning flames that my eyes witnessed exactly a year ago are very much identical to the flames referred by my father in this book. People died in front of my eyes and people died in front of my father’s eyes as well. Nothing has been changed except the fact that only the murderers now are within ourselves, and this is what I am most ashamed of.
My father was born in 1915 in Raja Sansi. This town is located about eleven kilometers north-west from the city of Amritsar on Ajnala road. He was tall; broad with brown eyes and had a decent personality. He was a type of person who never harmed anyone. He believed in humanity, he honored human lives. He migrated to Lahore, after the partition and married a girl named Razia, my mother, in 1949. I was born a year later and life seems to him, to be as good as it could be, but before coming to Lahore he had a horrible experience, he saw something devastating - he was a victim of the 1947 riots.
