Subjective or objective?

Many years ago, an ‘over-smart’ ‘nondescript’ ‘scholar’ had informed me of a major defect in my writings. That is that they were all totally ‘subjective’ and not ‘objective’ at all.

What this man hinted was that whatever I wrote were my own personal feelings or personal experiences, and that they had no connection with actual reality. Actually it was just a case of him being accosted by the green-eyed monster.

However, let me first deal with how the subjective versus objective issue would infect this writings. After that I will move forward.

One man applies for the driving licence. He goes to the RTO office and remits the required fee. After that he attends the Driving Learner’s Test and passes it. With the permission received from this licence, with the assistance of a trainer, he learns to drive a car.

After that he applies for the main Driving Test. He attends the Driving test. Seeing his driving skills, the RTO office informs him that he has passed the Driving Licence test. Within days, he gets his Driving Licence.

This is the Objective information with regard to getting a Driving Licence.

However, in reality, the procedure to get a Driving Licence is not that easy. Actually the real experience can be of two totally different kinds. One is to give the amount mentioned by the driving school. In this amount, the bribe for the RTO office employees will be included.

Once this amount is given, getting the Driving License is quite easy. In the earlier mentioned Objective narration, the critically important item, that is the bribe amount has not been mentioned or hinted at.

Without giving the bribe amount, if a person were to be so arrogant as to imagine that he can get his Driving Licence based on his own driving skills, there is always the possibility that his experience would be quite different.

If these two latter mentioned experiences are described, they would be quite different from the earlier-mentioned Objective description. And they can be mentioned as ‘mere’ subjective. For, aren’t they just individual experiences?

This kind of subjective character is there in my writings. Even though this can be seen as a defect, when one stands aside and experience events, and refuses to follow common conventions and thought processes, one might come across experiences which are not common.

In the current-day history writings of the South Asian Subcontinent, the truth is that the above-mentioned Subjective kind of items (example: the critical information on the bribe amount) are being missed or deliberately left unmentioned.