Non-Fiction Isn’t as Monotonous as Deemed Mostly

Now, most of you reading this would state that this is too deep and strong a statement to make, yet I have my counters ready right here for your perusal, and my disposal. Perhaps this intrinsic strength of its kind is being derived from the current book that am eyeing through, one by a renowned and one of my most favourite journalists in India, C Raja Mohan. Entitled, “Modi’s World”, the book encircles around Narendra Modi coming to power for the first time as PM in India. 2015. Yet, here, I wouldn’t state ample arguments in my favour, that’d advertenty be stating the cause behind the delay in picking up this piece. 

While relying solely on fiction is partly to be blamed for this, but definitely not fully, I’d like to emphasise, that prior to that “The Accidental Prime Minister” (guess I delayed in picking this too), by ace journalist, and former media adviser to the ex Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru had caught my attention. Truth to be told, International Relations, as a subject had always been a matter of great interest to me, and anything to do with politics makes it to my list of favourites soon enough. 

Baru’s book not only emphasised on the foreign policy of India, but also highlighted on Baru switching careers between being a journalist, Professor and of course working as a media advisor, serving the Singh Government. Even though, most of the facts and incidents mentioned in the book were completely known to the readers, as they’d appear in the papers everyday, yet hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth made it sound like a closed door narration, one that you’d want to be carried on and on. 

Fiction, on the other hand, definitely has its cascading effect, definitely on the minds of the readers. Just last month, while Khaled Hosseini was playing a dominant role in shaping my opinion about the Afghan society as a whole, I had no inkling as to when I travelled through the snow capped mountains, witnessed the rocky deserts, spotted women in burqa, carrying children that’d mostly be conversing in Pashto and Farsi; while I just stood there simply being a spectator to all this, not knowing when Afghanistan had stepped into the corridors of my inner self. 

Likewise, fiction enables you to travel, get acquianted with different cuisines, culture, attire, body language, and you get to have an upper hand in all of this, as you could move in whichever way you did feel like. Its very own counterpart non fiction, on the other, that brings you back to reality, mentioning certain incidents that you witnessed yourself in person, and reading about it again would mean reliving it again. To stress on this even more, many do actually fit into the list, definitely demonetisation tops the list. While fiction does fetch some brownie points, over it being comparatively easy to read, and relaxing, yet non fiction couldn’t entirely be wiped off as one that’s mundane. 

Although there are countless examples to substantiate this statement of mine, I’d choose to get back to Barus’s book. The reason isn’t too far to seek ofcourse. It was only after reading this piece of non function that I got to know that “Singh is Kinng”, is not only an Akshay Kumar starer, the same phrase was used for Manmohan Singh too, when he had single handedly retrieved the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation movement. 

Bottomline: Nonfiction ain’t that monotonous