My Passion- History

Since I was a kid, my mom used to tell me stories about Mahabharata, Ramayan and Shivaji. Sounds too cliche but in my case its entirely true. I grew up hearing tales about Saints of Maharashtra and Heroes of our epics. This made such a vast impact on me that as I grew up I understood Cultural History is where I belong. History according to me is a medium through which we can learn almost anything. Because, History is nothing but the testament of past. Many times, this testament might be closer to fiction than reality. The base of it might be fact but it is not necessary that the whole account is truth. This we can see clearly in the movies like 300 where the Battle of Thermopylae which was fought between Persians and a Greek city-state. But the story that revolves around it, is a work of fiction. So due to this tampering sometimes, the main account gets lost and it becomes important to find the truth all over again.

History can not be made, it is already present and it needs to be found and understood. When someone reads an account of any Historical Event or any testament such as Mahabharata, Bible, the perspective is very important. Not everyone sees the reality as it happened. It is often exaggerated and sometimes it does not resemble truth in any way. While understanding the History, one should not be biased and look at it as mere account of past events. If this does not happen, then due to the various views over same incident, confusion occurs. This makes it hard to understand what really took place. To make my point clear here is the example of Mahabharata again, as the epics are in Sanskrit (which is not understood by many) it becomes hard to know the events of such a great epic. Some scholars say Pandava were seeds of extra marital affair (sorry to put it so bluntly) and others say they were God-lings, which means they were kids of Gods. Due to this, there have been many debates and arguements among the scholars which has led to confusion in general public. But then again, the event has taken place almost 2000-3000 years ago which makes it near impossible to know the truth from fiction. I know, I am contradicting myself here, but isn't History also contradictory?

Now, the main question is What history means to Me, as a person? I will not give another cliche answer of History is everything. I would rather put it in few words which my Best Friend said to me- God can not change History, but Historians can. I want to be that person.I want to be the person who changes the History by doing avid study of it. It encourages me to strive for that knowledge which will help me bring about the change in the world around me. History encourages me to move forward every single day. This all sounds too big and too typical once you read it. It feels dreamlike. But that's how it is to me. Studying History is my dream. The whole purpose of taking History as a subject was to learn new things every single day. To tell you the truth, I, myself did not know what was I going to do with the subject which I had taken due to pure interest. But someone very close to me made me realize how beautiful the subject is and how it can change my life. Which I am proud to say has changed very much. It made me who I am today. The incidents of the past has definitely taught me lots about present and It continues to teach me.

Now one quote which will sum up this post-

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. ~Pearl Buck

I hope you all enjoyed reading this. Please comment and let me know my faults.