One of those rare qualities that endear a person to others around him is

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to be non-judgmental. To a very large extent, that applies to a book, too. This then, is probably one of the best things that can be said in praise of Dreams from My Father, the book written by arguably the most famous person on the globe in the past few years — US President Barack Obama : it does not try to pass any judgement. But perhaps this can also be attributed to the fact that it was written when its author had not yet come under the spotlight of global fame. Originally published in 1995, when he became the first Afro-American president of Harvard Law Review, and then later in 2004 when he was nominated for a seat in the US Senate, the book’s rise to fame followed Obama’s own.

Most people read the book after he became President. It is natural, then, that it was mostly viewed as the history of an individual, a way to understand the persona of this man who took the world by storm. However, the book is not just about one man and the meanings that he draws from life. Rather, it has the capacity to speak to the soul of any reader who has ever felt strongly for a cause, has ever wanted to speak out without being forced to take sides.

Obama’s life reflects the dilemmas of many young people caught in the throes of interracial suspicion and hostility. His childhood angst at the treatment meted out to black people, yet never being able to view whites as the enemy — for half his family was white, too — illustrates one of the biggest yet most misunderstood truths of life: that the world can’t be divided, quite literally, into black and white. You cannot always choose one side as the right side.

Like the remark of Obama’s college friend Regina, “It (the black struggle) is not just about you. It’s never just about you,” Obama’s biography is not just his own. The black community’s plight echoes the condition of any underprivileged group anywhere. In so many ways it reminds you of the plights of the unknown Indian living in some squalid suffocating area of a dazzling city, or some star crossed remote village reeling over with the blow of youth taking to militancy, much like the gun-totting black adolescents inhabiting the streets of Chicago.

A very significant part of the book — and that’s where it draws its name — is the effect of his father’s image on Obama’s life. His feelings on visiting Kenya will touch a chord somewhere, feelings that can hardly be understood by someone who has never felt out-of-place in his or her world. It could be something as tiny as having your name pronounced correctly, or having it recognised by a stranger. “You could experience the freedom that comes from not feeling watched, the freedom of believing that your hair grows as it’s supposed to grow…”

The end of the book offers no conclusions, but one observation. As Dr Rukia Odero, a friend of Obama’s father explains, “We keep looking for authenticity in our lives. But history changes life, so everything becomes a mixture of each other. And as Obama points out, you can’t correct everything, but keep doing little things, so that you can choose a ‘better history’ for the future.”