History? My view.

During the delightful days of my schooling which are now past by some five years, I always had a surprise for the wonderfully concerned individuals who used to pose the question, "What is your favourite subject?" My answer would pleasantly surprise a few while most people concerned about my future were horrified. I guess it would require little thinking on one's part to know that the answer was history.

Yes, history, which has, been defined by the dictionary as: the study of past events, the past, someone's or something's past; a narrative.

'What future does someone who wants to study the past have?' was the thought, which came to many who had taken to patronizing me. Even among friends and classmates I was viewed as an oddball quantity with eccentric tastes.

My experience, which I have narrated above, can be considered as indicative of our society's approach towards history. This leads me to ask two questions, which should be obvious. "Why is history so despised by both the students at school, and the parents and the benefactors of the children?" and more importantly "Is there any use in studying history?"

As a person who loves history from the very depths of the heart and once used to live, speak and breathe history, I would like to tackle the two questions not one by one but in a way that appeals to my 20-year-old brain.

To deal with this, I would like to expose the way in which history is dealt with in most schools by most teachers. It is taught as a series of dates, periods, wars, treaties, etc, which seem to have neither rhyme nor reason. History is taught by people who seem to take the dictionary too literally when it gives the definition of history. They treat history as just the past, they do not seem to know that history is the shaping of the present. The fact that only a proper knowledge of history gives rise to a mature understanding of the present is totally missing in the students and unfortunately even in the teachers.

This shows why history is generally disliked and despised, history which is just another subject to get marks in and be done away with.

History is treated as irrelevant and boring subject by both who teach it and those who are taught. The attitude which is prevalent is 'Who cares about what happened in the past?'.

This even ignores the oft-repeated cliché 'History repeats itself' and this piece of wisdom from Malcolm Muggeridge, "All news is old news happening to new people."

So there is on the basis of just these two observations, enough reason for people to care about studying history.

Then there are the reasons of pleasure, the aesthetic reasons will be known to the connoisseur.

One might put forward an objection that not just history but the deep study of any subject gives pleasure. However, I would argue as is my wont that the tingle one feels when he comes to know about certain events which directly affect his existence today, and the warmth that fills the heart when the stories of individual courage and bravery are read, the satisfaction and excitement that one feels when he perceives a principle used in a battle which can be part of his everyday strategy to deal with life, that feeling is unparalleled and quite unlike most feeling one gets when he learns something.

So, history can be studied and relished, but changes have to be brought about in the way it is taught and those changes can be best dealt with in another article or even better in a book.

But, the reader as a person can keep taking steps to take history to its rightful place.