One, by Richard Bach

How many times has it seemed to you, that what is happening right now has happened before; that you have somehow seen this scene before?

It happens to Richard and his wife Leslie when they attend a conference of intellectuals. The names of the delegates, the ideas they present- they have heard them before, they have met those people!

Not really, not in the actual, physical sense. That way, they are indeed meeting them all for the first time.

But, still….!

Haven’t there been times when we have all felt like that? Richard Bach has created a whole novel out of it!

Samy gifted me this novel last week, as a return gift from her sister’s wedding. And I was overwhelmed to have got it just then. It almost seemed as if this book had worked its way to me!

For quite some time now, I have been thinking of writing a novel. I have the story I want to tell, but I can’t decide on a suitable format. The ‘way’ has to be right for the story to be effective. And the one way that has really held my fascination is of “What if?”

Haya Grewal is the protagonist of my story. I have been thinking of writing my novel as a series of “What Ifs?” What If Haya had made that decision at that cross-road, and this decision now, what if she had known this, or had not known that, what if this had happened, and this had not happened…..What really fascinates me is the infinite little permutations and combinations of events that shape our lives, and if any of them had been a little different, we could be totally different from what we are!

So, instead of focusing on what Haya is, I thought I would focus on “What she could be?” and the factors, known and unknown to her, that kept her from being so.

So, imagine my delighted surprise when this book came to me. I just went “Wow!” It is based on the same premise- of the many possibilities hidden in each one of us, of what we could have been, of what we can be.

It underlines the impact of the choices that we make. We are indeed made by our choices.

The theme of the book is really fascinating. The treatment however is not that good. There are times when Bach gets so lost in his musings that he forgets that the reader may not be interested. Some portions of the book are a drag. I particularly found the part about the Russian couple and Marsha as irrelevant to the story. In those parts, the book seemed to have been reduced to a blatant platform for making statements about his political ideology.

So, I will not relish this book for being a wonderful reading experience (it’s just average that way), but for the thoughts it gave me.

In the book, Richard and Leslie get a “one-in-a-trillion” chance to visit many of their alternate selves, the people they were or could have been. But the thought that came to me was that even I could visit all such alternate selves of me- if only I let myself. The thing is that we just don’t let ourselves think beyond certain limits. Whenever our questions try to go beyond those boundaries of comfort, we immediately pull ourselves back, “Shhh! I must not think that way.” We just don’t question our beliefs and ourselves. And I think that is how we limit ourselves.

The one idea I particularly liked in the book is Richard’s thoughts about war and the army. He had joined the Air Force, mainly because that would give him a chance to fly the best planes. Flying was his passion. He had no compunctions dropping bombs on cities during wars, because as a soldier, wasn’t it his duty to follow orders? He was fighting for his country after all, and that was an honorable thing to do. These are the platitudes with which he would silence his guilty conscience then. He just didn’t let his conscience ask difficult questions, because he was scared of the answer it would give- that he was a selfish murderer. He could silence his conscience then, but now, when an older Richard visits his younger self- the soldier that he had been- he throws these questions in the face of that soldier. The soldier is unable to avoid them anymore. He must face them. And by doing so, he can make a different decision from what Richard had made in his youth- he can choose not to be a part of the war machinery, and thus move away from the path that will lead him to the present day Richard. By facing those difficult questions, he can alter the future he is apparently destined to!
The book could have been better-written, but still it is worth a read, if only for its really unique concept.