Who is there to understand the pain of reading about your own country and its complex and tragic past? I get so incredibly frustrated and bitter reading about a past that can be changed, if we were to look hard enough. If it weren’t overwhelmingly possessed by an Other that has come to mean the world to the world.

The West. It’s difficult not to hate when you read about colonialism and neo-colonialism. The twisted characters it created and the ones it selectively chose to represent the past. Why Gandhi and not Bhagat Singh? Why Nehru? Why Jinnah?

Why do we sit for more than two weeks, even in an advanced class that has taught me so much, discussing people who the entire globe know and not the minor characters that make up Indian nationalist legends?

I know, explicitly from this class, that it is not right to necessarily be nationalist. That nationalism, race, culture, religion — all these things are social constructs that have come to determine each and every action that every single entity on this planet makes. But I am. I can’t help but be nationalist and objective — it’s not that either is necessarily expected, but no one’s fond of them.

We’ve come to such a level of political correctness and love for objectivity and, ironically at the same time, scandal that we fail to express what is truly going on. We forgot to realize that every single person has their own narrative that can be incorporated into the past and present and future. It would be impossible to get everyone, and it’s problematic to even try — but if we don’t learn and try to incorporate as many people as possible, then who will?

I was sitting in my post-field seminar class on Tuesday. My teacher told me that “why” questions are impossible to answer. You can understand and deeply contextualize them, but you can’t really answer them. And it’s not that I want answers or a moral truth. If anything, I am sick and tired of hearing about morals and ethics and moral and ethical obligations. We have no obligations. We drive on based on passions and intellectual interests. And if we don’t, we should. Because it’s all about understanding and knowing. My thirst runs so deep at this point that I can’t imagine not spending my entire life just learning about the past and how it’s created by the present but also creates the present.

What happened?

How did it happen?

What’s happening now?

What am I doing about knowing all of this?

What do I do?