My hidden love for history:

In childhood I am sure allmost all of us enjoyed listening to stories.  Similarly whether real or fiction every kind of story fascinated me as I used to love imaging the past, the way people might be dressing, the way they might be communicating or eating etc. My parents used to narrate the stories and I used to just get lost in my own thoughts imaging kings, queens , their palaces etc.  Least I knew that this is my hidden passion. My inherent love for knowing about past. 

I also hold one belief very close to me. I used to think and still believe that one person's life is too short to gain all knowledge through one's own experience. Wise person is one who can see, interpret and learn from past or other people's experience. This belief made me much curious to know about past. But I never co-linked my this liking for past with formally reading and knowing history. 

For this I should thank UPSC preparation which made me realize my hidden love for history. The more I read about the past the more I want to read about it.  When I started reading about India's ancient times I had no idea what I was digging into. But slowly as the pages turned I felt if I was entering into a fairy world. I was so mesmerized and awestruck of ancient way of living, thinking of rulers, rationality of people of this sub continent that I if allowed I would like to call our ancient times as "modern phase" of civilization on this land. Reading about ancient India not only added to my knowledge but made me to fall in love with this country much more than earlier. Every chapter filled me with sense of pride and belonging.  In my upcoming article I will separately take each phase of Indian and world history and illustrate what past has to teach me. 

I feel my history books are my silent gurus now. These books are like my well wishers and guardians who not only want me to succeed in my career but also teaches me best values in life which helped leaders in past and can help me in future. It teaches me that every thing which is now past for me was present for someone at some point of time , so what is present for me today will also become past for some one else tomorrow. This is inevitable like mortality. Only thing which I can do is add enough meaning to it so that it becomes worth-full enough to be a read as history by many others.

I would like to end this writing with following quote which aptly summarizes the importance of knowing the past: