Documenting experiences
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SURESH KOHLI speaks to Avtar Bhasin who has just penned "India in Sri Lanka: Between Lion and the Tigers".
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HE HAS been proving to be an exception to the rule. Tirelessly going through a grind over and over again with the zeal of an upcoming athlete he seems to have mastered the art of documenting facts into invaluable voluminous books. He chaffs through massive scattered records of diplomacy, and overt and covert official agreements. Avatar Singh Bhasin, a retired diplomat, has been fashioning an authorship style since he went for superannuation a little more than a decade ago. All his attempts have, reportedly, been found to be treasure troves of dislocated facts of great historical import. No wonder they have been lapped up by concerned agencies, and governments. He has a valid explanation for embarking on a course others fear to tread. For documentation of any sort can at best be dull, dreary, and boring.
"When I was in service, especially posted in far-flung countries, I had to often go through the cumbersome process of locating vital reference material. Going through records often packed into cardboard cartons, and dumped into backrooms of the mission, or seeking the same from Delhi. It often proved frustrating, and time-consuming. So apart from the need to keep myself suitably occupied I started work on my first book, `Nepal's Relations with India and China, 1947-92.'"
Sifting archives
He continues, "This entailed cooling heels in the Central Secretariat, Parliament House, IIC, Nehru Memorial libraries, and National Archives and sifting through dusty, at times, moth-eaten volumes and stored documents. It was certainly boring to begin with. But since I had dealt with some of the issues myself during my diplomatic postings, and the subject interested me, I nevertheless took up the whole exercise as a kind of mission."
Avatar Bhasin's latest work, "India in Sri Lanka: Between Lion and the Tigers" brought out by Manas Publications is againa by-product, of friendly counselling during tea breaks in the IIC lounge with the likes of Jagmohans, Arun Jaitleys, motley armchair intellectuals and pontificating journalists. The really commendable work is a compilation of 1,223 documents during a five-year period contained in five volumes (3,273 pages) sniffing the corridors of information in Colombo and elsewhere.
Specialising in South Asia during and after his official days, Avatar Bhasin has seven volumes of records on India-Bangladesh (1,899 documents, 3,881 pages) as well as a monumental work titled `Some called if Partition, Some Freedom' - a blow-by-blow account of the last 75 days of the British rule.
With more and more working and retired civil servants becoming successful authors, by sitting in, and getting out of the South Block - using history as fiction, or tracing and documenting history - the trend seems to be the flavour of the season.
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