An History of Distortion

If there comes a time when I have to share the credit for by knowledge, however meger it is, Hollywood will take about 50% of it. From the best slang for the best curse words to some of the lesser known and less useful facts like white christmas. Yesterday, I saw the movie on Alexander. To be honest, it was a bit boring. A bit high on the dramatics, low on action and loads of bits and pieces that just happened. In fact I slept through most of it after 'taming of the horse' scene until Alexander's death. In between in my drowsy state, I heard Alexander frequently spouting romantic dialogs. I didn't think over it until later when it hit me that there wasn't a female in sight long enough on screen to justify all those dialogs.

Imagine my suprise when the greatest teacher of our times, wikipedia, revealed that Alexander was spouting those dialogs at Hephaistion, apparently the most significant love of his life who came next only to his kingdom. I rewinded all the records inside my head on Alexander and I remembered reading about his famous horse Bacupalus, general Ptolemy, and his wives but nothing on his childhood friend, second in command, right hand man and possible lover. A result of selective historical national amnesia I suppose.

Hepaistion had the misfortune of being born with the wrong gender for the post of Alexander's great love. If he had been a woman, he would now be sharing space with Juliets and Cleopatra's of history. Poor chap, although I doubt he would have known he would be ignored so much. He could have been just a close frined of Alexander but the possibility of something more to the relationship had effectively ensured that he disappear. Even Alexander wouldn't have expected glory to be such a selective mistress. After all he did do everything short of building the Taj Mahal to remember his freind. I bet he would have built it too if he had met Shajahan. Then again Shajahan would have told him the truth that Mumtaz being a woman was more likely to bask in the Taj and the consequent historical glory that came with it. To his credit, Alexander did try to make Hephaistion God though.

Why was Hephaistion not worthy of mention as much as a horse in our history books? Because he was a man who sullied the perfect christian heterosexual image Alexander should have had? If this could happen in the story of a legend who roamed the fringes of India, what have they done to that rich mixture of legends, myths and icons inside our boundries. How much is true about Ghazni, the Rajputs, the Mughals, the Chera's, Chozhas, Pandiyas and all the way up to Gandhi and Nehru? Is truth taking a beating in the iconization of our heroes? How much have we carefully errased from history? Are these great men made by us after we cook and extract our legends?

I still rememered the shock I felt when at the age of 19 I read somewhere that Gandhi used to ignore his wife and sleep with young girls just to prove his own chastity and strenght of will. Now I know that Gandhi was human and had his own faults but at 19 it was the shattering blow that brought down the greatest icon every Indian is feed from birth. I felt utterly stupid when I learnt about the emergency in my twenties and that too through 'Midnight's Children' when I have been told that Indira Gandhi was a great leader and prime minister who had the guts to take on Pakistan ignoring the US. Would it be detremental to have studied about the emergency in our history lessons? Why are the faults and the more humane episodes of our icons removed from history? Is truth valued only as long as it is safe and acceptible to the social norms?