.. says author John Balian, who was in the city recently
The Kardashians are vocal about their Armenian heritage, and have been outspoken about the Armenian Genocide,” he says. “They are very popular with the Armenians.”
The wounds of that enormous tragedy that occurred during and after the First World War – and killed up to 1.5 million people – have definitely not healed, and its upheavals have impacted the region even decades later. Despite repeated requests to the world to officially acknowledge this crime, almost every country has turned a largely blind eye. “The Jewish Holocaust was not as well documented as the Armenian Genocide, but the Jewish community is a powerful one,” says the author with a shrug.
Dr John Balian’s life story is remarkable. He was born in a remote village in Anatolia near Diyarbekir, a historic Armenian city, to a very poor family, and grew up to a life of destitution and wandering through several Middle Eastern and European countries. With the kindness of strangers, he eventually reached America where he attended Columbia University on a full scholarship.
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When he decided to tell his story, he was unsure if people would read a memoir, because, as he puts it ‘he was not a well-known entity’. Instead, he decided to rework his real story as a work of fiction, although he says each and every incident he mentions is actual and factual. “It’s almost a Dickensian story, I’ve been told,” he says. “The Armenian community has a small presence in India, historically,” he adds. “They’re mostly in Kolkata and many students also visit India to study.”
“I would like my story to be told through cinema,” he signs off. “I was happy to hear that Shekhar Kapur had shown interest in filming a story on the Armenian Genocide, although based on another book that came out a few years ago.”
Times ofIndia
