Notes on India and her world - preface

What is a historian? Who is a historian? What propels men to be one? To observe, record and preserve - what is there motivation. Perhaps there is none. Except an inner desire to immortality the times that one has lived in. A desire to beat time in her game and last long after dying. For if a man rights about himself it does not matter much. But if a man rights about mankind - that is what becomes history.

And so, from these desires and some others, I start this document. Not with any grand intentions. My bits and pieces of text, notes, blog entries and smsed thoughts may never amount to much. Long ages hence, a bored granddaughter somewhere may read this. That alone would be my claim to immortality.

Kings and prime ministers I will leave worthier heads than mine to document. I shall document the simple people around me. And the simple events in my immediate surroundings - intercoursed with mega events in the world at large. With my intended audience a grand daughter many ages hence.

But before I begin - a few lines to what made me start - howsoever unrelated or trivial it may sound. Rang De Basanti - watched it twice. And ofcourse as an Indian I felt all the things that other good countrymen of my age and mental disposition felt. But I felt something more. Something that escapes expression in words. Something that I will try to hint at time and again as I keep recording. But I am not sure I will be successful.

so my reaction to Rang De Basanti are these pages - my notes on India and her world