(This is a transcript of the Video testimony of Sri Anand Pillai)
My entry into the world
I’m here to tell you the story because even though I as a Hindu, came to know this Saviour very differently. The story is very long, and I don’t want to get into the details, but many years ago, there were two incidents that happened on the same day. You can call it good news, you can call it bad news or you can call it a combination of both. My father was a businessman, a Burmah Shell kerosene distributor, and he had a large distribution. On a particular day, a person in the neighbouring field (this was in the outskirts of the city) blasted a rock to construct something. In the process, it hit the kerosene tanks and there was a big explosion and the loss that was incurred that day in the year 1959 was in excess of 25 thousand rupees. Now that money in today’s value is hardly anything. But at that point in time it was a lot of money and of course he lost that. He had to pay damages. He was even arrested for negligence and was later released. As he comes back home with this burning news, my relatives (and mother who are home) come to greet him to say that they have good news for him. And what is the good news? The good news is – a son is born. And just around that time my father told the story of his loss to the others and immediately that good news became bad news because you know there are many traditions and superstitions that go around that if a child is born and if around the same time ill luck or disaster or something happens, that child has brought bad luck. And that’s my entry into the world. My birth name was Venkatesh, named after one of my great grandfathers because I believe (I don’t know), I had the nose of this great grandfather of mine, whose name was Venkatesh. But my father changed it to Anand because he wanted me to have joy. You know that’s what you say- joy. And in Sanskrit, Anand is the ultimate form of joy- the ultimate form of bliss. You don’t have anything that is closest. It is the highest form.
The three Incidents that shattered me
But as life went on-I was very close to my father as life went on, there were a series of incidents that happened. I still remember when I was only 9 years old, my father came back from a family discussion and as he came home that evening, as he was offered dinner, he threw the plate. Everybody said, “Why are you doing that?”. Rice had been offered to him but he said, “No, you are giving me worms”. Because to his eyes, that food appeared like worms and all of us were flabbergasted. We said, “What is wrong? This is rice!” He said, “No, these are worms. Anyway, with great difficulty we put him to sleep. He was upset the whole night. The next day morning, he moved into the dairy farm (which was of the same Anglo-Dutch connection as that of the kerosene business, which provided a flourishing dairy business). So, when the milk was brought, he went to each one of those buckets of milk and he turned it over. We asked him “Why?”; all the milk was going down the drain. He said, “The cows have started giving blood”. It was shocking for us because that was white milk, but to his eyes, it appeared as if it was blood. And he went on turning several hundred litres of milk. All the buckets were overturned, and of course all the educated section of the family said he’s ‘mentally disturbed’. The religious section of the family said he’s ‘possessed with an evil spirit.’ Each day this conversation went on and so he was admitted to NIMHANS, the mental hospital in Bangalore. He would then come back with an injection and some very heavy drugs and many things happened to which the religious section would say “No, no, no, this is not the way to treat him”. And he was whipped and stoned. When we asked, “Why are you doing this?”, they said, “We are not stoning your father, we are not whipping your father. We are whipping the spirit in him.” The evil spirit. And he was really tormented. And I knew the power of that frustration. One day when, because of all this difficulty that was there in managing my father, my relatives and my uncles locked him in a room. And all through the night he was shouting, conversing and arguing with somebody. I was in the neighbouring room and I was wondering, “Why he is doing this?”. We could not sleep, none of us could sleep. He was alone, nobody was there with him; we knew that. We locked him alone in the room. But he was arguing. There was another voice also that was heard. We thought that this was something crazy. In the morning, when we got up and opened the door, we saw my father sleeping on the floor, and as we turned him, there was scratch marks as if somebody had scratched him with their nails- diagonally, from one end to the other. Now you know that humanly speaking, we cannot bring about those scratches ourselves. Those weren’t self-inflicted scratches. Obviously, there was somebody else and we did not know who it was. And that’s when the spiritual side or the religious side of the family won and they said, “Definitely he is possessed with the evil spirit.” To cut the long story short, we had to sell that house and we moved from one part of Bangalore to another part. For a few months, the trouble kind of settled but after that he was tormented again. And one day, he seemed to be kind of in his own self and arguing. I had gone out to play; my mother had gone to the market. I was thirsty when I came back home but the door was locked. I tried to bang open the door and I forcefully did that and as I walked into the room, I saw my father hanging from the ceiling. He had committed suicide. I was only 10 years old at that time. I did not understand what was happening. So the stool that was fallen down I put it back and went to the kitchen, got the rope, went up to the windowsill and tried to get to the ceiling and cut the rope. There was no way I could hold the body. The body fell and I untied the rope and I started screaming. Pretty soon all the neighbours came, and I kind of knew what had happened but I really did not understand the concept of death. My sister, my aunty, everybody came, and tried to console me. They said, “No, no, don’t worry, your daddy will come back”. But daddy never came back. My elder sister-we both used to go to the same school-said “I’m there for you”. My aunt-my mother’s younger sister who did not have any children-said, “I don’t have any children. You are my son. I’m there for you.” All my relatives said, “We are there for you”.
About three years after that, my elder sister got married and dowry was promised. We gave that, and more was required. For the first Diwali, when my mother went to call, as is the custom, to have the daughter home, there was an argument. My brother-in-law said – “Yes, she’ll go and come back with X amount gold”. And my mother said, “Yes we will give it, but don’t make it a condition”. The argument went on and my mother came back without my sister. A few months after that, for Sankranti or Pongal, my mother went to call my sister again. And this time, the argument was even more severe. He said, “Ok! She can go, but she will never touch food in this home if she does not bring back this much gold”. And a lot of other things were demanded. My mother did not agree to this and she went back. And as she went back, she was weeping. My sister, seeing my mother weep and being sad, said that, “I’m the reason for her sadness “. She went to the kitchen, drank poison and committed suicide. And I just could not understand why this happened.
A few years after, 2 years exactly after that, my aunty, my mother’s younger sister, who by that time was barren for 10 long years, was cursed all over. It was actually a medical problem. She had the cancer of the uterus and had to do an operation and remove it but everybody said, “You’re cursed of God and that’s why your womb is closed”. My aunty did not take that seriously and my uncle, after it was discovered that the uterus is removed said, “It’s clearly not possible for me to have children, I’m going to marry another woman”, to which my aunty gladly agreed. But the people who had come forward with the proposal, said, “Send your wife away, because as long as she is there, our daughter will not live in peace.” To which my aunty did not agree. She said, “I’ve not done anything wrong, why should I go? If you marry and have children, I will take care of that child as if it is my own child. If necessary, I’ll be the maid in the house but don’t send me away”. But anyway, the argument went on. And a few weeks after that, news came that the girl who was promised for my uncle was actually engaged to somebody else. In that frustration my uncle said, “You don’t live, and you don’t let others live”. My aunty got very frustrated and went to the kitchen and poured kerosene and burnt herself. When this happened, I was questioning myself, “Is there an answer to death? Why is death happening? Why is misery happening?”. I worshipped every God that I could think of, but I did not have any answer. And then in 1978 August, my sister, younger sister, who at that point in time was only 16 and a half years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer. We took her to Kidwai Memorial Cancer Institute and the doctor said, “She will not live for more than 5 months. 4-5 months. That’s it”. And as we were bringing her back from the hospital, I said, “I’m not going to live in the home to see another death. I’m going to run away.” So, I actually ran away physically, in the idea of saying, “Listen, I’m not able to study at home. I’m don’t have peace, so I’ll run away”. My mother’s entire attention was focused on my sister as she was taking care of her. She tried convincing me but anyway I succeeded, and I ran away. But I just could not take that decision to end my life because I did not know that if I died would I go to heaven or would I go to hell. I just did not have the answer. Anyway, few months passed and in the month of December, I wanted to come back home to collect one of my books which I had left behind. And when I came home, I discovered- there were lot of relatives there- that my sister had passed away 3 days before. All my relatives, they were cursing me, they were shouting, they were calling me names; “What kind of a son are you? What kind of a brother are you?”. Little did they understand the struggles that I myself was going through. Then I said, “Listen, I’m not going to wait for long. After the third month, (because after the fifth day there is a ceremony) I’m not going to wait. After the third month, I will end my life”.
An attempt to take my own life
And I’m living to tell you the story. So, in the third month, on March 14th, I still remember, I decided that I am going to end my life the way my father did. But as I tied the rope and was about to put my neck into the noose, I saw that the cupboard was open and there was a New Testament in it .It was given to me when I was in school- I mean, I had no clue why people gave that in schools. It was given to me by this organisation called the Gideons which distributes the New Testament. I had taken it and the only reason why I had it in my room was because it had a gold lining and I said, “Ok, let me keep it”. That day, I decided in another few minutes, I’m going to die. If I die without reading that, I probably will lose out on it. Now I had heard the story of Jesus and I had a lot of respect and love for Jesus, but he was just one of the Gods to me. I said, “Ok”, but here I’m going to end my life and I said, “I’m going to read it, let me go quickly into the introduction and go to the specific page number where the story of Jesus is given. Let me read it and then I can end my life”. So, I went, looked at the first few pages and fortunately in that Gideons New Testament there was no introduction at all. I got frustrated. What kind of guys are these? I mean they’re writing a book without an introduction. But interestingly there were two other pages: one page was where to find help when you’re in sorrow, when you’re in need of happiness and so on. I said, “I don’t want canned answers. Let me search more”. I went to the next page and that page was another section which was what the Bible talks about Christian virtues, what it talks about joy, what it talks about peace. And in that point in time, I wanted peace. So I went to that section on peace and went to that page number and some verse was written- John 14:27. I had no clue how to look up that verse but since the page number was given, I went to that page number and read that verse and the verse read like this- “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. It was a very bold and authoritative statement. And when I went back and forth to see who this person was who was saying it, I found out it was the Lord Jesus Christ who was saying it and I said, “Wow! He is giving His peace and He’s also giving a comparison.”- “I do not give the peace as the world gives”. I said, “Oh, I need to know more”. And that’s when I stumbled upon John 10 verse 10 and I read that “The thief has come to kill and to destroy but I have come that you may have life and life in all its fullness”. I was living – He was talking to living people. But I was only existing without Christ. I said, “Here is this person who has come that I may have life”. And I went to another verse, another book, Romans chapter 5 verse 8. And when I read that- that was the turning point! Because that verse says, “But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us “. I said thought, “WOW! If ever there is a God, I would like to believe in this God, who did not wait for me to purify myself, did not wait for me to do anything good, anything holy. While I’m still a sinner, He sent His son Christ Jesus to die for me”. So I said, “I want to believe in this God”. I went to the end of the book, there was some prayer that was written but I prayed a simple prayer. And that prayer was “Dear God, you are a Christian God. And I’m a Hindu and I want to know more about you”. Somehow, I had the strange feeling that I had not prayed the way a prayer should be prayed. So, I went back and re-prayed that entire prayer including a lot of ‘Thou’ and ‘Thee’ because in my school, I had heard prayers prayed with ‘Thou’ and ‘Thee’. And I made sure that I ended with “Amen”. Interestingly, I think God heard my first prayer.
God heard my first prayer
That evening, I quickly untied the rope and threw it away. I had to go and meet another friend of mine; we both were doing a combined study. And as we began to do our combined study, he said, “I have done my part, have you done your part?”. I said, (I had not done my portion, I was supposed to study electricity and magnetism and he was supposed to have studied statics and dynamics) “No, I have received full of life, all my life”. He kicked me and he said, “Anand you cheat! I did my work and now what are we going to do?”. And as we were talking, he said, “Wait a minute. You said full of life, all your life. Where did you get that?”. I said, “I also read the good book”. And then he immediately asked me, “Do you want to know more about Jesus?”. I said, “Wait a minute, that was exactly the prayer I prayed. How did you know?”. He said, “I don’t know that you prayed a prayer. I’m just asking you a question”. I said, “Yes, I definitely want to know”. And he said, “Ok, there is a friend of mine. He is a scientist. He is a double Ph.D. in electronics. He will come and tell”. I said, “How can a guy who is a Ph.D. in electronics come and tell me about Jesus?”. “No, no, no, this person is a visiting professor. He can come and tell you”. So this Dr Graham French, he came and I asked, “You’re not going to tell me anything with a preaching and pointing finger?”. He said “No, no, I just want to share about my life”. And he went on to talk about his love for electronics-which was also my subject. And I loved his conversation. But then he made a statement which kind of left me startled and that statement was this: he said “At the age of 21, I realised that I was a sinner. I accepted Christ Jesus into my life and became a Christian”. I said “Wait a minute Dr. Graham, aren’t you a scientist? Aren’t you a bright boy? How can you realise that you are a sinner?”. He said, “Listen, what you are saying is right. In one sense you know, in the eyes of my friends, I was a bright student. In the eyes of my parents I was an obedient boy. In the eyes of my teacher I was smart or a genius. But in the eyes of God, whose standards are way higher- compared to that- I have come short of His Glory. In contrast, in relative terms, I’m a sinner. And the best of my intentions is not even the lowest”. I said, “Ok, I kind of accept that. But how did you proceed and how did you become a Christian? Weren’t you born a Christian?”. He said, “No”. And that’s when he shared this verse which is in John chapter 1 verses 12-13 -“You become his child not when you are born in a family. You are His child when you accept Him as your Saviour”. And I said, “How this happened?” and he said, “I prayed a prayer”. And then I asked him “What happened after that?”. He said “Well, I became a new person”. And I said, “How did you become a new person?”. And then he shared another verse in the Bible- and I mean this person had a crazy habit of replying with a Bible verse to any of my questions. He gave me- 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17. He said “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come.” I said “Wow! I want to become a new person. What do I do?” He said, “Pray after me”. So, I prayed after him, and as I prayed after him, I expected to become a new creation. I said “No, I have not become a new creation. You cheated me. You just now told that if I accept, I will become a new creation”. He said “No, the process of becoming a new person has begun”. And then he shared about how (he was, at that point of time, 45 years old) more than 24 years ago, when he accepted this, he started changing and said that the process is still continuing”. I said “Now you’re cheating. You said ‘You’ll become a new creation’”. I said “Give me an answer to this, how the process has become”. And he then replied by mentioning a verse from the Bible, 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18 which says “All we with unveiled faces as we behold the Glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another”. Now as much as I wanted to instantly become a new person, I accepted this process of becoming new.
Endless Hope through Christ
Now I can go on, but the interesting thing is I took the decision on March 14th, 1979, in the evening at 4.30 PM. After that, I completed my studies. I went to the Indian Institute of Science, completed my computer science, got selected with DCM for management training. Joined the Tata, worked there for 10 years, went to 2 American companies, served HCL technologies for 14 years, before the current assignment. I had a thorough, what I would call, joy ride. I say, ‘joy ride’, not because things were easy. Things were difficult. But amidst the difficulty, I had the strength, I had the power. I had the capacity to live a life that was called of me because of the One who is working with me. Because the Lord Jesus said in John 16 verse 33, “In this world you will have trouble but be of good cheer for I have overcome them”. And I’ve had a very competitive life. The world in which we are living is not easy. Your appraisals don’t go the way you want it to go. Your client will not give you the CSAT score the way you want it to be. You would have done everything. Amidst that difficulty, you have a purpose in life. And that’s what happened to me. 33 years of my life, I have continued with this one thing. In closing, I just wanted to tell you- my life, as you would have seen, in the beginning would have come to a hopeless end without Christ. But with Christ, I have endless hope. My earthly father intended me to have joy and therefore, changed my name from Venkatesh to Anand. What my earthly father intended; my Heavenly Father has accomplished. Now it’s not just my name that is Anand. I am Anand. Now you can google me and see all my professional achievements. All that is a rounding off error compared to the purpose of living that I have. And that is what I want to tell you. You can get into all the traditions- Jesus Christ came this way, He came that way. It all means nothing. He came on this day, He came on another day. He came in this month, he came in another month. However, as far as I’m concerned, Christ came into my life. Christmas began for me on March 14th,1979. Christmas can begin for you when you accept that reality. I want to thank you for this opportunity to share how I experienced Christ into my life. I continue to be in the professional world. I continue to be in the corporate world but with one difference. Now I know why I’m here. And that’s the important thing. Thank you.
