In no particular order. With no particular significance.
"Remember the time when you were looking forward to an event -- you would do this and then that and then something else. It was all planned out. And when the magic day finally arrived, somehow the sequence went all awry. And the rest of the day felt like stale soda left open too long."
Jan, 1990 "Any belief that is placed beyond question is potentially dangerous. The potential is rarely realized but when it is, the consequences are horrendous. An unquestioned belief can be used to justify anything and is open to manipulation by the lumpen elements. The Nazis, the Afrikaaners, the slave owners of the Confederacy, the Crusaders, the Bolsheviks, the Inquisition, the Conquistadores, the umpteen little sadistic cults and terrorist cells; the list goes on and on. People still hold Belief dear and deliver themselves, body and soul, to the dealers of dogma."
Aug 14, 1990 It has been 43 years since Independence. At first glance the country is in a mess: unbounded population growth, religious bickering, ever-deteriorating law and order situation, mindless military adventurism and so on. In fact, it is a marvel that it still exists. But it has managed to break the death-grip of semi-regular famines, to have three peaceful power transfers, to become one of the more industrialized of the third-world nations without selling its soul to the super-gigantic multi-nationals and yet allow its citizens more freedom than most other countries in its sphere. It is a land of contradictions, this country of mine.
Aug 14, 1990 In a few hours, it will be Independence day once again. As a kid, it used to be a day to look forward to. Kharagpur was a sleepy little rural backwater back then and watching the IIT students marching around the stadium was one of the few high points of a kid's life. For sure, it would pour the day before and the ground would be all slushy -- just the right consistency to plaster one's buddies with. There was no TV and the national parades in Delhi might well have been on another planet. Somewhere in the process of growing up, I lost the fascination for the parades, the guns, the dutiful seasonal flowering of patriotic sentiments. The independence day celebration was yet another thing to chafe against. The buddies are all gone -- sprayed all over the surface of the globe. And mud no longer has the same attraction. These days I wonder where did the folks who fought for the independence get all that motivation from.
Jan 1989 Have you ever felt like taking a black magic marker and making thicker and thicker lines on a sheet of paper and feeling upset when the paper tears?? Or looking at an approaching train and wondering what would happen if you dashed in the middle? And especially wondering if you're demented because you think these things which no one else seems to?
040993 friday 8 pm another week has leaked away. One less week in my life. I wonder what I have to show for it. I wonder if it is possible to count these things. The skies have descended and turned grey. And they will be grey for a few days to come. or so they tell me. We are back to our familiar gloom. It will probably drip all day tomorrow. The place is empty. Me and my computers. The building looks like a sponge. And today it looks like a sponge that has been squeezed. So many computers in one single building. Constantly talking to one another. Once they have been allowed to chatter on the network, they are condemned to chatter forever.