ANUROOP TANTRY

Well, who doesn’t enjoy ‘voyages to our past’ (pun intended )? It happens more often than we know it. In fact that’s what gets everyone (from politicians and Youtubers to family WhatsApp groups) riled up these days. The past offers us certain critical ingredients through which we engage in our daily lives; ranging from movie scripts to balms for assuaging our unending identity crises. We live in a world which is flooded with information; there’s some ‘fact’ or the other being spread every second. Multiplicity of narratives; ‘real/distorted histories’; some make you feel proud, some make you judgmental. How do you actually know that a particular history is ‘real’ or ‘distorted’ ? What exactly is at the root of this judgement? It might be the other way round; or it maybe all distorted?

This blog is created by a historian ‘in training’. What new does it have to offer ? Well, its just another set of narratives ! ‘What’s different’, is for the readers to decide. There are no ridiculous claims of attempts to present ‘real’ or expose ‘distorted history’; rather there might be an effort to trace the contextual history of such phrases!

Essentially treading the thin line between formal and informal; the writer confesses no rigid standpoint. Don’t be surprised if the articles show conflicting viewpoints. Like E.H Carr has mentioned; “the brain of the brain washer has itself been washed“; likewise a historian is also a product of history. The writings across a span of time are going to evince a history of their own; a history of how the writer’s thought process and viewpoints have evolved and refined. The readers are also welcome to point out, if the ‘reverse process’ is at work !