Why I Love History – short film tries to provide a fresh understanding of reading history.
This is Creative Pragna’s first short-film made for Anveshi Channel.
- Why study history?
- Why history matters?
- Why history is important?
Our short-film Why I Love History tries to provide answers for the above crucial questions regarding history.
This film is about a person who at first dislikes history but later develops love for it. It’s about how history takes us from fiction to facts.
In my childhood, I was an introvert with an inquisitive personality. I had some unexplainable difficulties in growing my friends’ circle.
My parents, my sister and a few chosen friends – That is all what my tiny, personal, private universe had in it!
Discovering this trait in me, my father brought-in a new set of friends.
All of them were of different shapes, sizes, colours & smells. All of them had a common characteristic. They were all quiet.
No noise. No screaming. They all were as quiet as quietness can be!
I started loving them as they were reflecting my personal character…to be quiet and to be introvert.
Those new friends have a common name – A BOOK.
Though they were not speaking loudly, they were conversing with me and I too was conversing with them. Many conversations with varying formats. Stories. Poems. Puzzles. Jokes. Facts. Through these conversations, I was getting information. Gaining Enlightenment.
It was whole new experience for a child. Silent but splendid!
As more books came in, my conversations were growing bigger…longer & deeper.
*****
Days rolled into months and months snowballed into years.
Though the conversation remained, there is a big change in the contents.
Stories got replaced by novels. Poems matured to become Kavyas & prabandhas. Chandas & Alankara have become the new acquaintances. There was no room for puzzles and jokes.
Information branched out into politics, movies, business, sports & anything that interests me. Vedanta has become the fountainhead for enlightenment.
*****
Few more years passed and pushed me from young age to middle age.
Sports & movies were no longer attractive.
Politics stopped appealing.
A void started creeping in.
*****
At this juncture, a new friend walked into my universe – HISTORY.
The rise and fall of empires, palace intrigues, wars, battles, strategies, diplomacy, art & culture – this new friend has many fascinating accounts to tell.
Every account was a thriller. Was suspense and also a thorough entertainment.
“History is boring” was my thought – “History is an adventure” is my new thought.
“Why should I care for history?” was my old attitude – “History is a time machine to back in time that I just can’t travel!” this is my new understanding.
“No need to learn history & mug up the dates, dynasties and all such stuff” was my distaste towards history.
“Forget the dates and dynasties, history must be learned to know different cultures, to explore places & to understand conflicting ideologies and arrive at new creative ideas” is what my intuition now tells me!
*****
History is a Triveni Sangama.
Past, present and future come together in a history book.
One writer wrote in an American history website that “historians do not perform heart transplants, do not arrest criminals and won’t build highways. Yet they are important because they connect the people with time.”
Now, I feel the same way as that writer felt about history & historians.
People, time & history are interconnected from time immemorial.
Let us not disconnect ourselves from our history.
Read history. Learn history. Love history.
This is how I started loving history!
