Peeping into the past

As this century draws to a close, numerous lists are being drawn up in an effort to enlist all those who made a difference to our lives. ...

As this century draws to a close, numerous lists are being drawn up in an effort to enlist all those who made a difference to our lives. There is suddenly a scramble to delve into the past, to peep more intently at the present, to find what makes history. Or more precisely, who makes history.

For events in themselves have no significance, it is the person behind, who controls the motor. And as I come across another name, another list, the reaction nevertheless remains the same. It is one of awe mingled with happiness. The message coming across is subtle but clear. At the end of the century, it is the power of the individual that has won.

One person here, another there, scattered scantily across the globe, but still their8217;s is the presence we have felt. Either as we slogged at those history notes or, as we grew, aware of a distant voice miles away talking of things that the heart nodded at. The mind too.

We are lucky to be seeing the turn of the century, for it has given us time, a purpose, to look back.Some faces, forces, who touched our lives before we started ours. Gandhi, for one, has been an influence whether we wanted it or not. For in the books we absorbed and the cinemas we thronged to spoke his voice, and we knew more about him than the next door family.

A handful of people managed to change the world? The laws and accepted truths of today were born of a few souls? We owe an entire philosophy, a new way to living, to somebody who wasn8217;t afraid to use his brains. Makes one feel like a parasite, as if all we have done is to take what they gave.If there is one common attribute to all those who gave us a better today, it was their belief in the individual. No revolution is won without the masses, yet no revolution is started by them. The direction, the strength, has always come from one. Whether that lonely voice belonged to Martin Luther King Jr, urging the blacks to fight for their rights and in the process changing a nation8217;s history, or to an unknown woman hugging the trees to save thetribals.

The amount that has been handed down to us is amazing. Quality and quantity. It is almost as if evolution somewhere becomes selective in nature. Our will is questioned. Our decision becomes the choice. To be an individual, to stand alone, hug your truths and revere the tiny voice that seems to be muttering inside all the while. Or to lie to yourself, tell the voice to relax and stand where you are told to. Submission and obedience, thin lines separate the two.

But we have plenty to rejoice about. For one, George Orwell8217;s 1984 never came. To be honest, it has come but just in bits and parts. We can deal with that! It seems almost like a luxury, to be able to sit and look back. Through an entire century. And then to look ah-ead, into the coming one. To have the trophies and the disasters of the past clearly spelt out, an opportunity to learn and grow. To know the full horrors of wars and the real meaning of democracy and communism. We are a lucky lot, for plenty of our homework has already beendone. It would be a pity if we failed even now.Is it possible for us to fail even now? Looking at all the paperwork of history, one is tempted to say a vehement no. But one pause and a look at our present, the answers change. For Kosovo is our refusal to learn from the past. Avarice and brutality continue to wear the crown. And the end of the world is always predicted to be around the corner. We are capable of choosing, and that includes the ability to choose the wrong and then justify it on the basis of power. But someone will always speak. For amidst the crowds, a few will get lonely and break out of it. Just to think. And talk their hearts out. Our heros never die, they just get foggy in our memories as newer ones take their place. This is what we carry with ourselves as a new era quietly wakes.