Could truth be second hand? If
time could be second hand then the truth of that time could be second hand as
well. This line of thought is really complicated, but not for those who have
experienced those times or those truths. Because then, it becomes a matter of
making peace with either this or that. In between this and that there are a
million stories which either have the luxury of sadness coming out of intense
love or a senseless, ugly death or an amputated life. The people in the stories
collected by Svetlana Alexievich are not fictional but they either have been or
still are extreme romanticists. This romance is curated till it takes a life of
its own. Where did the creation of myth
start and why did it suddenly fade away giving immense room to some
expectation? That is the story of USSR in this book where people are cogs of giant
machinery and its glory, and suddenly the machine is dismantled and the cogs are
left to think for themselves, total strangers to each other.
Identities are changed in an instant, the myth is changed overnight;
centre of power is moved from an idea to a deep sense of personal ugliness or
fairness. Suddenly the tribes are there, nationalities are there, God is there
and Satan is there. All of them in people because they are the tribes,
nationalities, Gods or Satan. This work would not fit into any category of
fiction and non-fiction because these are people telling their own stories,
their own perceptions and their own truths. Truth, even repetitive is not
boring. There is love, immense love in this book.
