I have lately been reading this fabulous book called- “The White Mughals”. While it is brilliant in its own right, it transpired to bring numerous other thoughts to my mind. William Dalrymple has written beautifully the tale of love between James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a Scotsman & Khair-Un Nissa, who belonged to the Nizam of Hyderabad’s family. While writing about them, the writer extensively makes use of letters written by the two and by all other people connected to this tale. He analyzes the personal letters written during their lifetime to build a picture of their lives in front of us modern day readers. It is typically an art which historians have mastered over generations of sniffing out the truth without actually going back in time using any time machine.
So what if I someday become famous and the world wants to know my story? Will my letters also be read? Alas I have not written too many except when forced on days of examinations! But yes I have written plenty of e-mails. I have also opened my Facebook account which I ‘need’ to view each day & write comments. I recently read that a man had asked for his Facebook records to the social networking organization themselves, he received a 22,000 page ‘document’ in reply. So data available will be aplenty for sure. What will the world think of me when my records are viewed? Will I come out as a voyeur? As greedy? As nasty, or a tyrant? Or maybe the picture I give could be that I am extremely kind-hearted. Wonder what an image of mine the world will make of me. Till then I will just tweet along my next message.
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