Saturday, October 3, 2009

History : Evaporating

Yesterday I was watching the movie Gandhi on Fox History. It made me feel so bad that I couldn't remind myself the sequence of the Indian struggle against the British.
I mean ...is that why we are taught history ?? That after being brought up in the land of some great leaders , kings et al , one cannot write 10 lines on the Indian Freedom Struggle :|
I really cannot.

The problem is history is my fav subject but they made me hate it in school because all we were required to do is mug it all up!
Is that how history should be learned ? No!
Why not such a wonderful subject interesting ?
I never studied about the French Revolution because it was omitted from our syllabus.Instead , we had more of Gandhi.Three yrs in a row or something.
And then back in school..you couldn't just deal with being told about someone you had actually read enough about.

But I realize it now..that if we were taught a little methodically , interactively & in proper order..I would have been able to write the summary of the last century's history - world history.

I do this random exploration on my encyclopedia now & then.I was amazed to read the Roman history.That too wasn't in our syllabus :|
Not that..we needed to learn the history of every square inch place on the globe , but they should have included some of the European History.Its fascinating!
As a matter of fact , I didn't know who Julius Ceaser was until I got to know about him through English Literature.

As for the movie Gandhi - its wonderful how someone could brilliantly present the subject 2 decades back.
As for Gandhiji , I think we all have lot of myths about the iconic figure.I know so many of us who do not find Gandhi a great leader , who think he was one of the people behind the partition.
Maybe we all need to dig for some proper historical records.

They had series of documentaries played over on Fox yesterday.Just a while before the movie began , I happened to watch one such.
For the first time ever , I saw the rare clips of Ghandhiji's funeral.A large herd of people surrounding his dead body : screaming , crying at the top of their voice.

*I love watching these infotainment channels.

8 comments:

  1. completely moved... no more words to say ...

    love this nation for whatever it is .. and being the best at whatever it does ..

    S

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  2. Ohh well you are right and Even Einstein was right, though he went in to the depth all the time ...he wanted to know the reasons of the War rather than the dates on which they occurred ....History sucked in skool ..they only reason I would say was that we were not able to relate to it !

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  3. Very nice template! :-)

    ohh how many times Gandhi has been shown.. was this ur first time??

    I also love history.. and somehow by crook and little hooks, I made my teachers think that i am gud at history so i got gud marks in 10th..!!


    hamare waqt main.. ahem ahem.. we studies french rev. russian.. and what not.... its bad u missed!

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  4. couldn't agree more, Indian education system sucks truly,royally!
    When would we would just 'teach' and let students 'learn' in our schools and not run after marks as if there is death awaiting you if you don't score 90%, or wait 90% is poor nowadays!!
    I had great history teacher, she introduced us to fascinating movies,books and stories revolving around the subject of the chapters. I loved it!

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  5. so true!!thats precisely the reason why i used to hate history back in school. How i wish ppl understood this.

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  6. i so agree with u..u might wanna read this:

    http://serenegurl.blogspot.com/2009/02/indias-education-system-is-choking.html

    and even this:

    http://serenegurl.blogspot.com/search?q=gandhi

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  7. did you see the Gandhi by richard attenborough?
    well its a wonderful movie...but this is again a matter of concern that the role of Gandhi was portrayed by a foreigner and not an Indian.....
    well since I get this opportunity I must say that I LOVE Gandhiji..and some of his principles...some because some of them are now getting obsolete..

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  8. Sugar ..

    Could not agree with you more..
    it does not happen with my history, but every time that we have election time going on ..

    I really have to rack my brains to remember the eligibility criteria for a candidate.. because it seems to be violated all the time :P

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