Nostalgia as history – 1

l “There is a book in each one of us,” it is hopefully said. The rejoinder would naturally be, “Who wants to read it?”

Well, the author’s near and dear ones, I imagine. That, however, may not be sufficient inducement for a publisher to touch the manuscript. Not to worry. This is the era of self-publishing and anyone who has half a story in them or advice for the rest of the world, and a reasonable amount of money can now be a published author. Depending on the print run (that could be as low as 50) and the quality of the publication (that can stretch from bare bones to almost-coffee table) these books could cost anywhere from Rs. 5000 to a couple of lakhs to publish.

The set of books I will be discussing in the next few issues of Madras Musings fall under a special category of self-published books – family histories. These are, however, no ego stokers. They answer a felt need – the desire of families to preserve their histories in the written or digital format. Formerly, when families were still together or lived close to each other, their own histories would be the subject of conversations at family gatherings. Memories were longer and you could always count on an elder to come up with the right references.

Members of more Westernised families kept journals in which they recorded both personal and familial events. But the pages of the journals faded and the memories vanished as family members scattered to distant parts of the globe. There has consequently been an increasing fear that families would lose touch with their roots. (How many people can now confidently say they remember the names of their forefathers beyond three generations?) So now, when an important anniversary comes along, the centenary of the founder of the family or remembrance of a fond grandparent, members of the family get together and share their memories, dig around their family histories and come up with interesting facts, someone puts it all together and there is a memoir all ready for the occasion. Copies are despatched to all members of the family as keepsakes. There is, I am sure, great comfort in the thought that their family history has at last been captured in some tangible format for future generations to refer to – and, possibly, learn from.

That should be about the extent of the importance of these books. Curiously, however, their interest extends beyond that. These books are enjoyable reads even for people who have no connection to the families they describe for the simple reason that they bring to life an environment long past, of lives and lifestyles that we have heard of but no longer see around us. They offer the same interest that any historical writing does, presenting the profile of a world long gone. There is also an intimacy to these biographies that you cannot find in the commissioned biographies of more famous people. Seen through the eyes of ordinary people, the world appears truthful, realistic – there is no effort to dramatise events as there is no need to. Descriptions of streets, households, neighbours, furniture, pets – all these are intimately described from an everyday perspective that has a refreshing quality. And as this particular set of books is mostly about Chennai families we get vintage portraits of the city as it was a hundred or more years ago. We start with the story of Madabushi Seshadri Iyengar.

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