Independence Day, and a request ... serious readers, please don't ignore

I-Day passed unusually quietly in my immediate neighbourhood, in the sense that the usual blaring, deafening 'patriotic songs' and speeches over loudspeakers that shatter my early morning beauty sleep were missing. Who knows why? I have been flooded by 'Happy Independence Day' messages, which made me wonder: has it become like 'Happy Valentine's Day' or some such inanity? After all, wasn't it supposed to be a day for sober retrospection and introspection, remembering with gratitude and awe all the great women and men who suffered and died so that we might have this enormous privilege? And then we just take it for granted and trivialize it? This was the season of the Great Freedom sale, and ads telling us 'Shop karo azaadi se'. Maybe all countries gradually become like that, but if anyone tries to glorify it or even justify it instead of lamenting over the cultural degeneration it implies, sorry, I am not on the same page.

One very personal kind of good news: the Income Tax department has just discovered that I have now become a senior citizen, and very graciously granted me a sizeable tax refund. This is the first time the government, any government, has done me a personal favour since I read in Jadavpur University at a hugely subsidized price. Since they have even withdrawn the old folks' discount on railway tickets, I guess I must be satisfied with this pittance.

I am reading a book based on the life of a real woman doctor in 15th century China - Lady Tan's Circle of Women - and I am entranced not only to know how much doctors knew in those apparently Dark Ages, and how many lives they saved even in situations where modern doctors would immediately give them up as hopeless cases. And (combined with my great grandpa's book mentioned in the last post) it reconfirms my conviction that someone I knew who grew up into a 'medical entrepreneur' and tycoon, and burnt a remark on my mind that 'a doctor is only as good as the machines at his disposal' is not only an ass, but a greedy, callous, lazy ass, unwittingly insulting countless great stalwarts living and dead in a time-honoured calling. Pity he has become so diminished, but maybe it's just the zeitgeist? Oh, by the way, I would have loved to read some comments on my last post. Readers, cat got your tongue?

Finally, one old boy, Soham Mukhopadhyay, a physicist just finishing his PhD in Vienna, has taken it upon himself to collect good memories about me from old boys and girls who have some such and would like to share. About a dozen of the best people have already written in. I now put the link here, and would love to read more contributions. They will be balm to my soul in the dusk of my life. So please do write. And nobody has to confine a reminiscence to one hundred words!