I lost my senses, did not know what to do and how to react. This sort of thing had never happened to me and it was frustrating to know that it was me who was, in some sense, responsible to get into the soup myself. Add to this, were the junta’s taunts “If it can happen to systems society secretary, it can happen to anyone”.
Some of the most gruelling hours of my life started when yesterday evening, my computer started working slow. I tried the usual restarting and stuff but it did not work. And then it happened. It was as if Duryodhana himself came to earth with a mood to challenge Krishna. I ran fsck -a. Linux told me that this could be fatal but alas “vinashkaneen vipreet buddhi”. I did not heed the warning and ended up screwing up my grub. What was to follow was a three hour internet search for a solution. There were many but none worked. In the end, I ran another fsck and in the process blew up all my data. Can you believe it, ALL MY DATA?! It was like the end of the world. I knew that the judgement day had come, god would emerge and separate the good from the bad. I waited for some aakashwani. I waited some more.
But nothing happened! No, the world continued to run. I told my story to people around and they seemed not to notice. How could everyone be so indifferent, so stupid? And then slowly, it dawned one me. There is life beyond computers. Do you hear that? THERE IS LIFE BEYOND COMPUTERS! It dawned on me that even if I did not have my computer functional, I and the world could continue living normally.
Now that things are normal, it all feels like a dream. As if it never happened. But, the data loss is for real and the insignificance of it continues to haunt me.
