Steady Meanderings. : Historical Passion!

I was browsing through all the blog posts I have written, when I realized that I have forgotten one important aspect – I have. It is the factor which differentiates me from others, makes me all the more unique and which influences most of the actions I do – My passion for history!! So in this blog post I am going to reveal the effect of the past on me and in short the history of history in my life!!

When I first got excited about it………………………………………

I think it was in third standard , the teacher was taking another ‘boring’ class on the Neanderthal man and telling us how history could be divided into – ancient , medieval and modern and all the other basics……

Me being rude didn’t hide the fact that I was bored with it…..let out a yawn. A yawn which changed the course of my life! The teacher hearing my big yawn realized how BORING she was and decided to tell us a story.

A story how Charles Darwin found about the evolution of species, about how there were only inorganic molecules when life started , how we found fire, wheel , clothes etc etc

What interested me most was the story of Darwin himself, how his theory was not accepted, how he struggled to prove it. Soon I started becoming inquisitive of everything that happened before we were born , the idea of the same house being so different and having different people in different points of time appalled me!

Actually thinking about it now, I think that people excite me more than the events or the places. I don’t care if a story is about a coal miner in Scotland or a Dalit person in Pondicherry; it is the feelings of a person which gives life to it.

Without a person called HITLER the world war 2 wouldn’t have become so appealing, ie, a villain is required everywhere to animate a story , or a person like Mahatma Gandhi is required to make an incident all the more charming and interesting. Sometimes historians/people would pick a topic just to criticize it ! Many read the story of Mahatma just to criticize his techniques and decision…the point is he at least took the decision and responsibility unlike the people who just talk about it and created a democratic forum to talk about it!

Sorry, I become a tad to passionate and went off the subject!!

Why I like it SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much……………..

As I mentioned above , I like the human’s unpredictable feelings which makes history so diverse and hard to take.

In a prudential point of view, I think history is an awesome way to score marks. I can imagine the frown in your faces! Seriously , history is an easy subject , once you know that you have the passion for it you can score in it.

Unlike math, we can know the questions which can come. However you don’t need to mug it as many of my friends think. I deal it like a story, In many textbooks there is no hero for an incident. They just state the hardcore statistics and the reasons and impact of an incident. What we as students should do is , give life to the people in the incident.

You can never tell that there are no people involved in an historic incident. It is People Who Form History, so give the crowd of people who marched in the jallian wala bagh some life, you would easily remember the date , place , no. of people and the villain- General Dyer! L

I love the culture involved when reading history, first we knew that man was a monkey , then that he worshipped the nature , then gods and formed his divisions based on it –to make it easier for him and in the end made it only tougher by fighting over it!!

the ugly duckling

Reading about the caste (Varna) system in India , the protestants and Catholics of Europe , the division between the rich and the poor always boggle my mind! It amazes the faith we have in our form of worship and the greed we have to not share things with the deprived!

I don’t know why , but I always end up loving books on discrimination! The female discrimination seriously makes my blood boil and I am happy that I was not born in that time as 1 !

Speaking about freedom , I suggest all of you to read this book called ‘ a place called freedom’ by Ken Follett. It’s a rather old book, but it would open our eyes to our current state to.

Saying that I am revealing the most important reason I love history – it opened my eyes to the present world to. If we observe the old way of life makes feel happy and sad about the changes in today’s world

Eg. Present day – Scientific improvement

Past days – No environmental degradation were present.

So overall history teaches us what we were yesterday, shows how lucky/unlucky we are today and makes us ponder how we can achieve development or at least some balance with the angels and demons of the society.

The influence it has on me ………….

I regularly read biographies and nonfiction books which helps me keep my foot on the ground.
I have millions of role models right from Chandra Gupta Maurya to Meera to Ashoka to Winston Churchill to our great Sai Baba! ;)
It has made me respect other subjects as even math has a history!! I also <3 scientific inventions because of the history in it ( who can forget Archimedes’ Eureka! )
Made me socially conscious J and has given a burning desire to contribute something to the society and my historical country and not to just live in it and talk bad about it.