How little we will ever know

As a high-school student, I never considered any future other than joining the history guild. In school and college, I received all of the required marks, and thereafter applied to only one department at Dhaka University: it was history or nothing else. A few anxious days later, I was admitted – and my life changed. Serious politics, serious liquor and serious history all struck me and my new classmates like a thunderclap. In retrospect, we never really recovered.

It is not that the classes themselves were riveting. After the initial thrill of university had dissipated, my studies soon became little more than a distant priority. The world had to be saved, and tutorials were a bit of a bore. Indeed, for many above-average students, university courses in Southasia are not tough enough. History is a notable example. With few applying for these programmes, standards are kept at a level that, it is hoped, will accommodate the less academically inclined. The result is that history inevitably becomes a mediocre subject, taken up by those who could not make it into economics or international relations. History became everyone's distant, poor academic cousin.