The Hindu Business Line : Why reminisce?

THE other day I sauntered into a public library and asked for a much-talked about book of reminiscences written by a long time friend of mine who retired from a high official position.

I was startled to find that it was kept in a shelf marked `Fiction'. I could not make out whether it was by an intelligent design or an apposite accident. The librarian had put on a Sphinx-like mask and I did not have the temerity to have the matter clarified.

But then, on reflection, I think everyone who piles up 300-400 pages of stuff about his supposed exploits owes an explanation to anxious posterity why he took this rather drastic step of writing the story of his life and times.

The answer is in the poser itself. Shorn of all facts, stuffed with all fibs, it makes a good story!

The fun in writing a book of reminiscences is that you can be as inventive as you want and make it a kind of novella. Whereas cogent depiction of facts demands a lot of sweat, toil, tears and blood, autobiographies are a breeze, full of flights of fancy going back by so many years that nobody is in a position to verify them.

For instance, if someone claims Jawaharlal Nehru ate out of his hand or that he had Indira Gandhi under his thumb, who is there to say Nay?

But, then, you should be careful not to commit the bloomer of unjustifiably picturing yourself the hero of contemporary happenings.

If you make extravagant claims, you are liable to be caught, as Mr Al Gore, former US Vice President, was when he boasted that he was the person who invented the Internet. Some judges in India are known to invent even their dates of birth!

Reflecting insecure, inflated egos of authors, autobiographies present them in the best possible light and gloss over their failures.

You can count on the fingers of one hand those who resist the temptation of filling pages with self-serving commentaries on events in their lives.

For that purpose, incidents may be twisted or newly invented; replies, retorts and rejoinders that are concoctions are freely interspersed; judgments are passed with little basis in fact.

That was why, when I told my son now settled in the US that I was writing my memoirs, he immediately asked, "Not all of it fiction, I hope!" I assured him that a good part of it was, in keeping with the times.

B. S. Raghavan