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Editor Letters Index
People
can have many passions. For example, some are fond of playing
cricket and would go to many extremes to keep up their passion. Some
are fond of girls/women/lovers/wives/husbands/etc, and would go to
all corners of the world after them- Orpheus went even beyond the
corners of the world- he visited the nether region of Hades (the
abode of dead people) to bring back his dead wife Eurydice from the
god of Death, Pluto. Some are fond of studying so much that they
would keep up with books for decades long (god and they themselves
know how they do it). I hope you got the point I am trying to make.
Similarly, I am fond of web development, and I am fond of my site.
For the last two years I have been engrossed with it for all my
conscious hours- I am sure I haven't thought of girls as much as I
did about priyatu.com. The result may not be so obvious,
unfortunately. And there are various reasons.
I have had the good and bad fortune of
studying literature for the last four years (and god knows how many
more years to come). Good because it improved my English, increased
my knowledge about English and Classical literature, and sharpened
my perception. It has liberalised my conceptions, broadened my
outlook, and focused my conscience. I can write more confidently,
more beautifully, with a poise that was absent a few years back.
Unfortunately, in return, I have lost that acuteness of sensibility
of youth which is the hallmark and spirit of vibrant writing (just
compare my poems over the years and you shall perceive the marked
difference). I have been a willing victim of imaginative atrophy-
now when I imagine, I compare, I cross-refer with other literary
composition, I tire myself with technicalities. In short, in being
Classical, I have ceased to be a Romantic (unfortunately if you
don't have a literary background, you might not perceive the import
of these expressions). It was a satisfying trade-off, however. When
the strict confines of university life will be left behind, the
euphoria of freedom shall redeem all imaginative atrophy, all
lacklustre sensibilities, and a new dawn shall come. Or so I fondly
hope.
But what I have missed most in
spending all these years in literature is that I have missed the
Internet train. I may be knowing more than all my friends in my
class about computers and the internet, but then I know nothing of
programming, a bare minimum of multimedia and web design. All those
big dreams that haunt me night and day shall remain dreams only- for
a long time. It would take me a long time to learn everything- from
bits and bytes, to computer architecture, to various forms of
programming, to advanced web design, database theory and practice,
and what not. If I knew something of programming, I could have
brought this site quite close to my vision. As the site now exists,
it is very incomplete, unsatisfactory and unfulfilling. And my only
promise as a webmaster and content creator is to give you the best I
can- given the circumstances.
6-7 April 2002, Calcutta 63
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