Book Review: Once There was Me by Bobby Sachdeva

Title- Once There was Me: The Extraordinary Life of an Unknown Indian

Author-Bobby Sachdeva

Publisher-Pan Macmillan India

Format- Paperback

Genre- Fiction

Rating- 4/5 stars

In his autobiographical work, author Bobby Sachdeva has poured down his heart through a deepy personal and emotional tale of voilence, communal unrest, ultimate realization and future hope. I believe the book is a key to understand his debut work, where he has uncovered the various shades of human life and society and laid before us some fundamental questions to contemplate. When we go through his second work then we actually understand how he gained so much understanding about religious madness, the importance of helping others,  value of relationship and family etc and shared them in his debut work. His lifelong experiences helped him to understand the futility of religious hypocrisy and the madness of true blood which ultimately leads to utter mayhem and destruction. He accepted the real religion, the religion of humanity, which holds the power to bring world peace.

In this work, he has given us a thumbnail view of his childhood days at Delhi and how the dark shadows of communal voilance not only snatched his golden adolescent years but inculcated in him extreme hatred for others. But through his experiences at Amritsar, particularly in his own college, he realized that anger can never be the answer to the problems, it can never bring peace and happiness, only love can. From the alleys of darkness, hatred and voilence he had the realization of inner truth, which shaped his perception of the world to a great extent.

He was directly or indirectly affected by two incidents of voilence namely the Anti- Sikh Riots of 1984 and the 2002 Godhra Incident, which actually forced him to contemplate over the situation and do something for the marginalized class of India. His journeys to US and China further broadened his understanding of the universal brotherhood and the decision to file a PIL at the supreme Court for the benefit of the downtrodden was actually a result of his understanding of the world. Going through this work was really an amazing experience for me. And I would like to recommend this book to everyone.

I recommend this book because I think the book needs to be read by every indian. The hatred towards a particular community or relgious group is still very much in existence and even though we don't want to acknowledge it publically, to some extent inside our heart, we too are influenced by these issues. That's why going through this book is extremely important. It is necessary to learn from a fellow Indian who was about to become a militant but somehow by the grace of god he survived. The youths todays are very much influenced by religious hypocrisy and only the light of knowledge can tear away this madness and darkness. Anger was neither a solution at those days nor a solution in the current times. India is world's largest democracy and we should protect it by spreading happiness and support to each other like the author.

Go through the book and let me know your thoughts.

Happy Reading

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