We cut the tags off in the changing room, walked out, and sold the clothes at half price to rich college kids
Early childhood
I grew up going to sunday school, singing church songs and winning prizes for scripture examinations. However, by the time I reached 8th and 9th grade, I started to lose interest in church and activities. The only reason I liked church is for the music. It was for church that I was trained to play the organ. Later on, I went on to pick up the guitar and learn it myself just by observing the Sunday School teacher play.
Soon, my interest in all church activities dwindled and I stopped attending church. I wanted to explore more of life and fun. After my 10th grade, I thought I had all the freedom to do whatever I want. With both my parents working and with nothing to really look forward to every afternoon, friends took prime spot in my life, and guess what, these were music lovers too. I spent a lot of time bunking lectures, playing the guitar outside the college main gate, drinking, smoking and yes, we started slipping into the consumption of drugs.
College days
I loved rock and heavy metal music, spent most of my time playing guitars for a rock band, practiced hard to get good at my guitaring and wanted to quit studies so that I could concentrate more on my music. Yet, there was nothing positive about the music we were playing. It was more about hatred, rebellion, hopelessness, giving us a hundred reasons to hate God and hate other people.
Whatever I did, I loved to give my best shot at it. So whether it was fights, music or overdosing on drugs, I was now pushing it to the max to see how much my body could take.
Obviously the money coming from home was limited and restricted. So, my friends and I would walk into the most expensive section of a shopping mall, happily chop off the RFID tags with great mastery, try them out at the changing room and then walk out with the most expensive clothing, go out and sell them at half rate to some naive rich college kid.
We spent most of our time at a friend's place doing drugs all day and night, talking about karma and why this life was so meaningless. When you're high on drugs, you love making up theories and talking out things out of reach as if they were well within your reach of comprehension. I bet that's how most of the world's theories have come out. A bunch of rebellious guys trying to give a name and build a system around their rebellion.
Getting darker
Life was getting more and more dark. I lost 3 friends to an overdose of drugs. Another very dear friend of mine was sent to rehab and couldn't come out of the influence of the harmful chemical drugs he was hooked on to. There were violent fights with parents at home where during fits of rage I would break furniture and other household items. Being uncontrollable, on multiple occasions the police had to come in to calm things down in a tough way. Life was hopeless, meaningless and with no future.
I almost came to be convinced that there was no God and that even if there was one, He was too far to help me out or simply, I was too far. I was far from church, living helpless and hopeless, mostly alone. I felt unloved, miserable and guilty that I had caused too much grief. I was heavily addicted to alcohol and drugs and found myself going alone to the bars often.
First year engineering
My getting admitted into an engineering college was a miracle by itself. With a percentage as low as 50 in my H.S.C College examinations, I realized that God was somehow answering all my parents prayers. I did get into one of the best colleges as one of the worst students.
Due to the drugs, I had lost some straight thinking and memory abilities. I was not able to sit to read or study for more than ten minutes at a stretch. So, I worked really hard but the result was, I flunked my first semester exams. I failed in 8 out of 10 papers and got a year drop. Thus, I was now at home with nothing much to do except play the guitar and surf the internet all day besides meeting friends.
Someone along the way invited me to play the guitar at a prayer meeting.
Encountering God
Playing the guitar is something I loved. Church and prayer meetings, I was allergic to. I thought it to be a boring place for boring people. However with not much thought, considering that I had nothing significant going on at that time, I decided to show up to play the guitar at that prayer meeting.
One afternoon, I smoked my cigarette and was heading to this prayer meeting. I stepped on stage, befriended by the music team all neatly dressed, and proceeded to take a corner spot. The unholiest among all holy people I thought I was.
The meeting was good. I had never seen people pray like that before. While people were praying, so many were experiencing the power of God at that moment. Some were weeping, some falling under the power of God, some had their hands lifted up. Never before had I seen a sight like this.
All of a sudden, a lady started to scream. It seemed like she was possessed by an evil spirit. The preacher ordered in the Name of Jesus, over and over again, before the lady dropped to the ground and the spirit left her.
I was still in the corner trying to make sense of what was going on. I had a huge question in my head: if the Name is so powerful, what then must the person be like? I knew that I had taken that Name for granted and that I did not believe in or trust in Him. I was now very afraid, not of the spirit but of the Lord's presence. I thought to myself, if evil spirits submit to Him, why then cannot humans like myself submit to Him?
If the Name is so powerful, what then must the person be like?
Sheldon Bangera
I was afraid of Him and I thought to myself, He has really been patient with me. He should have ideally destroyed me for what I had done to myself and others but He did not. In love, He patiently waited for me to meet Him.
While on one side I felt the fear of God, on the other side, I felt the love and mercy of God drawing me near. There was a voice I could hear inside. I was familiar with that voice but only as a background voice. But now, this voice was louder to me than all other voices. It was the voice of the Holy Spirit.
I heard him say a thousand things to me in a minute. He affirmed and reaffirmed that God loved me, that He had a plan for me, that He cared for me and how He was going to change me. For the first time in my entire life, I felt so loved and cared for.
Bowing my knee
The meeting was over and everybody had gathered for tea. But I was still there praying and talking to God. Without wasting much time, I wanted to bow my knee to this great and magnificent God. I gave Him my life and asked Jesus to forgive me of all my sin. I told him that I was giving Him my life and that He could do whatever he wanted with it. All my gifts, my talents, my guitar playing, my voice. I gave Him everything. I felt like I had received new life and that my world had changed.
I had so many questions and I suddenly felt new desires. The want to understand what's written in the bible and the need to be around godly people. God changed my desires and I now began to attend every prayer meeting possible, spending the rest of my time with people of God learning from God's word.
Music and friends were idols in my life and so I decided to run away from them as far as I could. I stopped playing the guitar and deleted all my music collection.
Starting new
All that I did for the next two months was read the bible and attend prayer meetings. I was listening to gospel music and serving as much as I could. It was so dramatic that even I could not believe that I was completely delivered from drugs and all the former habits.
Finally when I met my friends after two months, on being asked and probed, I started to tell them about this journey and how God saved me. I shared the truth about Jesus and His Lordship and how we are all going to be accountable to Him, how He loves all of us and wants for us to turn. This sharing did lead some to receive Jesus while others thought I was completely off my mind.
A new song
After an entire year, I picked up the guitar to play again. I loved to worship God and so I spent my time singing new songs to God. Very soon, I was writing songs that others could relate with and sing.
The Holy Spirit started to whisper in my ear that He would give me songs in Hindi for the nation to be blessed and touched. I hesitated because I was very poor with Hindi but in time, I felt like the words flowed from heaven and started touching many lives. My childhood dream was to be a musician and God was so gracious to use me in the area of song writing and leading others in worship.
Marriage
At one stage, being the kind of guy I was, I never thought anyone would marry me and I never knew if marriages would work especially because of the disturbance in my parent's marriage. I was against the idea of marriage, but God gradually worked on me and on my thinking and understanding in this subject.
He showed me through dreams how I was to get married to Anita with glimpses of how it would be for us. God promised me that He would use all my brokenness and broken experiences to help many young people and repair many broken homes.
Life today
Today, my wife Anita and I run a small company, a recording studio, a music school. Most of the time we are travelling either with the Sheldon Bangera Band for concerts or as a couple to teach and mentor youngsters. God has been very gracious to us in this one year of wedded life.
We are happy to serve in the local church whether it is about teaching in the weekly Bible study or helping young people meet with God. Anita has a burden for evangelism and every week shares the gospel at the nearby slums. It is overwhelming to see how God has taken our music and influence around the globe.
We are living to see a generation experience the life transforming power of Jesus Christ. If He did it for me, He can and will also do it for you.
Deepakshi Satman
Wrote the Talent Search interviews across the magazine's first year. Appears on the 2013 masthead as publisher.