44 My Rebirth

My nervous breakdown and the slow recovery gave me time to introspect and look at life in a very different context. As I mentioned earlier, I started attending church again and spent a great deal of time in studying the Bible and fellowshipping with the Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church which was just across the colony where we lived in Bombay.

The Seventh-day Adventist Family in India is very cosmopolitan and there were people from various parts of India as well as from various religious backgrounds; who had converted to Seventh-day Adventism which is the Protestant part of Christianity. I came to know of their conversion experiences and this greatly encouraged and motivated me – amongst them were people who came from various backgrounds including Marwaris, Hindu Punjabis as well as Sikhs, Muslims and Parsis! This diversity attracted me and slowly I became comfortable mingling with these Seventh-day Adventist Christians.

Conversion and Christianity had negative connotations for me earlier and I felt that there was a social stigma associated with such conversions. And of course, it is also true that conversions were at times not because of genuine convictions but had ulterior motives like marriage situations and getting jobs. All this had created stereotypes in Indian Society and therefore this was a major mental block for me to overcome.

Seventh-day Adventists observe the Saturday Sabbath and therefore church attendance is on Saturdays unlike other Christians including Catholics who go to church on Sundays. Seventh-day Adventists believe in observing the Saturday Sabbath strictly like the Jews and this was from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset when we abstain from any secular activity; including going to college and attending exams on Saturdays. I realized that this would pose a serious problem for me both educationally and from a career point of view, if I decided to embrace Seventh-day Adventism.

So there I was, at the crossroads of my life and I had to make the decision – to be a Christian or not to be a Christian! My inner voice told me that if I truly believed that God was in charge of my life, then I had nothing to fear, and to go ahead and make my decision. So in the latter half of 1971 when I was just turning 20 years old, I decided to officially become a Christian. This was my rebirth when I was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bombay!