Rana Ram carries a bit of his pained past in a weathered wallet that's always close to him. It's a photocopy of a grainy clipping from an Urdu newspaper that shows a woman and her child. The caption reads: 'Impressed by Islam, the woman with the baby became a Muslim'.
"This isn't true,'' says Rana, a lean man with expressive eyes. For the last 18 months, he has been crying himself hoarse that the newspaper lied. "No, that's not why Samdi Mai, my wife of 10 years, changed her religion. Ever since my father-in-law switched his faith, we were under pressure from the maulvis and others to become Muslims too."
But Rana, of Sadiqabad tehsil in Pakistan Punjab's Rahimyar Khan district, resisted. Then one day, when he was away tending goats, a fleet of cars filled with bearded men arrived at his house. On his return, he found his wife gone.
The 30-year-old farmhand rushed to the police station only to be told that his wife had converted of her own will.
Someone passed on a message a few days later. It said, "To get her back, you also must become a believer."
Rana, though, wasn't ready to give up. He managed to get back his three-year-old daughter at a village 'court' after paying off the decision-makers. But his wife was 'out of the question'. That's when he decided to take the weekly Thar Express to Rajasthan.
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5:42 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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