Why is History my favorite subject?

I like history. Not because I got 100% marks for this subject in my 10th standard exams. Also not because, it is easier than most other subjects to get more marks by just bluffing your way out in your exam paper. In fact, I found it utmost difficult remembering anything that I read from my history textbooks. Even if I remember, I find it most difficult to reproduce that in paper. The fundamental reason behind that is I can't multi-task; I can only write or think, one at a time, but doing both together is very difficult and takes enormous amount of time and energy. Even today, I have the same problem, but fortunately nobody cares. But, not the same while you write history exams.

So, what do I like about history? A lot. First of all, history is universal. All of us have our own. Even non-living things have history. Organizations have, countries have and the whole planet has. Even time has its own (ever read 'A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking?)

Recently, I listened to the audio-book 'A short history of nearly everything' by Bill Bryson. Exceptional - the content and the presentation, but I liked the content more. Extensiveness of the content and all the research that has gone into writing this book is simply superb. It talks about history of various subjects including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, genetics, geology and so many more. I'm sure anyone who listens to the book (or reads it) and has some idea about latest happenings in these areas will appreciate the importance of history. Isn't a natural instinct for all of us to want to know how we came to existence? The book says that the first instinct of any living species including humans is to reproduce themselves. I'm sure our need to know more about ourselves, our past, our heritage ranks at least second.

History is nostalgic. You never need to have experienced the past yourself, but still you can be nostalgic about it. Strange, but true. Here are examples, I've known myself.

When I went to the Nandi hills at Bangalore during the last weekend, we visited Tipu Sultan's fort there. My cousin was explaining to me, how the fort was a strategic centre for Tipu and how several wars had been fought between him and the foreign invaders at the very same fort, sometime during the late 18th century. All of a sudden, he got overwhelmed by the subject and started talking as though, he had lived through those ages. I will find it difficult to reproduce all that he told me, but he showed me the exact locations where the war had been fought, explained about the architecture of the fort and how it was strategic to Tipu, how enemies were attacked with the various weapons, how trespassers to the territory were thrown down the aisles to the valley over 1500 meters deep, with their hands and legs tied with rope. For a moment, it sounded like he got invaded by Tipu's soul itself! He was so talkative.

During another such instance at Calcutta, I visited the Victoria Memorial Hall. My niece had been staying in Calcutta for the past several years and grew really fond of its immensely rich history. The entire 2 hours I spent at the museum there, she was talking. Her words were filled with imaginations. For the next 1 hour, she took me to some parts of the city, with many historical buildings in shambles, almost near to death. She especially had a strange connection to those monumental buildings. She told me the people of Calcutta are really proud of those monuments and derive an immense pride of being part of this city. I don't know for sure about other people, but undoubtedly, she was one of such. Although, initially I felt that she was going a bit too far in her craziness, soon I realized even I am no different when it comes to taking pride about our past heritage.

Now, I have this strange habit of spending time imagining things about the past life - for example, the other day I was watching an old (40 years old!) Malayalam movie on the television, which had a 5 minute car chase followed by another 5 minutes of fight scenes between the hero and the villain. Both cars were old 'Ambassador's. Shooting location was somewhere near the central part of Kerala, my native place, both sides of the roads being rice farms spread across the whole area seemingly up to the horizon and everywhere around filled with greenery. Now, here is what I imagine. Perhaps, there is nothing green left there anymore. Perhaps, all these places are now up with multi-floored apartments with not an inch of vacant space available anywhere in vicinity. Perhaps, the place where the fight scene was shot had been converted into the busiest traffic junction in the city. Perhaps, my parents might've visited the place while it was still green and might be they'd spent some good time there when they were children. There could've been umpteen numbers of changes that possibly happened to this place over the past 40 years to this place. If my parents ever visit this place again, will they ever recognize it? Will they ever be able to meet their childhood friends there?

It is very much possible that none of what I imagined really happened; and my parents might never have seen this place anytime during their lives. But, somehow I've this strange affinity to link all of these incidents up and create a story that sounds nostalgic, albeit nothing of this sort ever happened in your own life or the lives of anybody that you know of. It may sound crazy, but entering into other people's minds and imagining about their nostalgic moments can be very satisfying. I know how it feels like. I bet, there are many others like me, out there...