I often thought of maintaining a diary.I did start a number of times,but these efforts were shortlived.I was thinking why? and came to some conclusions.Firstly, perseverence has never been one of my strong points.I give up too easily. After all, giving up does not require much of an effort. This may not be true of our politicians though or for that matter Dhanjaya (in the story) who had to be kicked out when all efforts failed to get him out.

Secondly, my life and the events that shaped it were not interesting enough to be recorded. Or so I felt.I know this depends a lot on how you look at things. After all a daisy in the field or a skylark flapping its wings across the sky caused a lot of uproar in someone or others mind. We all know of the face that launched a thousand boats much earlier.And an enigmatic smile that artlovers all over the world still debate about. Nearer home, we have Bankimchandra,otherwise a very rational man, swooning over a cuckoo's 'pancham swar' -the fifth note in the musical scale or Jibananada,the natural poet,enamoured by the weeping Kite.Well, I tried but could not look at things the way they did.Something must be amiss in my DNA.

Thirdly,one needs to have an orderly thought process when you write. Mine shifts very fast from one direction to other, almost in Brownian Motion.So fast in fact that I often forget what I started with.

I have heard that writers often suffer from a mental block when inspite of best efforts they fail to produce anything. Something like what happened to the great orator Edmund Burke in his first speech in the British Parliament.He started with ' I conceive... I conceive...' and could not proceed further prompting another parliamentarian to intervene and say 'Mr.Burke conceives, but cannot produce'.Any way, great writers,why great - even small time writers come out of such block soon enough. But in my case, well , I conceive..but seem to suffer from a perpetual mental block.

After all, even if it is your diary, your own private space, you might be leaving it for posterity to browse through.Even if they don't erect a statue of yours for crows to do what they do best, you would like them to have an appreciative smile on their face.

That is how I thought.

I am maturing however.May be it has taken a bit too long to do so, nearly sixty five years.If I have not made any impact on the world all these years, I am not going to make one in the years left to me. Posterity can take care of itself. So why not experiment with your thoughts however random they are . Somewhere in Chaos Theory it says that one random act generates another and then another and finally a pattern emerges. Just as Brownian Motion can be defined in Physics by a mathetical equation.Well, so what if a pattern does not emerge.The World is chaotic enough as it is.I can not make it worse.