THE SECOND EDITORIAL 2023

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 Everyone is born free .. ... After Abraham Lincoln

My Life is my paper ...   .... After MK Gandhi

Nothing goes down the drains in one's life no matter how hard we try or get abused. .....   After Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath Thakur (ঠাকুর Tagore)

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Why Prometheus? How? When and Where? Was it any good?

I had been asking these questions over the past 20 years, since you had known me at this Den (ঠেক). I had spent the same restless energetic enthusiasm in vain for a long time 1995--2003. So Prometheus had been in my head for 28 long years. This page is Prometheus --- what I could be. I make plans, long term like a 'communist planner'--- a phrase that may be foriegn to average American though not a terra incognito for the FBI or CIA or American scholars. It is about making long term plans, keeping oneself alive, reviewing oneself periodically with peer feedback  ---- hoping to bloom into a mature fuller blossom.

A scientist who wants to become a Professor, as I wanted to be since 1985-- is an honorable profession all over the world with varying pay benefits. What is common is teaching, research study and writing, mixing and matching at one's convenience. What is different in various countries is business outlook, employee strength and money: in short I call it a business model. In India rewards are limited unless one gets the highest positions after stiffest competitions. I started like that as a lecturer in IIT Kharagpur early in 1988. Things did not bloom the way one could have dreamt, and I had become little different -- even my professors had hard time explaining my predicament.

  But I did all of my trades in the profession I liked, and what's what I wanted Prometheus to become.  Of course I did not grow as big or as rich and powerful that I had dreamt in the year 1988, but how many become richer without political power? That's the good question I addressed and Prometheus became scaffolding around which I could convince you that I was serious in my graduate school in UIC, though by 1993 many of my classmates and professors in the USA took me for a rotten chaff. I tried and did the best I could do, and others around me did far better. And I did better than few other people I know. That calls for a review of plans and strategies and I had to invoke alternate thinking with alternative business models.

You must notice a few things. It is aperiodic: I wrote only two editorial here. More was not called for.

You would find me scattered all over, in AuthorsDen, Facebook, conferences, publishing houses and even in books. More focus than that was not possible.

You would notice my long life with a short CV and no grants to support myself and others. But how people write longer CVs? And that's why I needed Prometheus as something mine the complete myself.

You would see a gap here at the Den 2010---2023. I was writing at my Facebook pages quite often. I could not have managed otherwise. So Prometheus is split over many locations; the unity is what I wanted and pointed to.

Now I am updating this page again with the hope to finish what I promised you. I hope that I would start on new books by 2025, finishing my backlogs.

I wontmake this a longer sermon or speech. I let you read, think and choose your way of life. Remaining alive is what is the top most priority for all of us.

Dr. Subrata Ganguli,

Kolkata,

St. Patrick's Day 2023.

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***** HOW MUCH I LIKE THE DEN *************

 THE FIRST EDITORIAL 2004 

Like the Den, Like a Dane, At the Den. ------------------- I take this opportunity to thank the editors and the organizers for maintaining such a system for writers --vast majority of whom do not earn enough money. I toyed with similar ideas with the bulletin boards and the web when it was very new -- in the 90's; but I was never a pro. In India the web was not popular until the turn of the millenium. Most Indians did not like a pennyless "scientist" who even did not carry a floppy -- as I had already learned in the USA how to use the e-mail and the web proficiently. My early writings in Bengali, and some in English, I had saved until I went for graduate school in the USA. They were lying with friends--- when I was anxious to print my old writings after my return from the USA-- there were no friends! So all of my early writings are lost for ever. In the USA (Chicago), I had jealously guarded my scientific, technical, and fictional writings. My luck was so bad thatI had to loose everything. I was so dejected that I prefered to start a new life from scratch-- from a homeless shelter. I was pennyless, homeless and insignificant again, but Franciscans in Chicago kept me alive. Without them I could not have printed this note. During this apparent aimless vagaband life over the past ten years (1994-2004)-- the painful ten years that taught me to remain calm, cool and "average", are the years hated by my peers in the establishment. These pros believe that I was not smart enough to grab any jobs paying me dollars. Some believe I am cranky, if not "insane"--- throwing away my own career. They have their own reasons for such opinions, and I have my reasons for my actions. Fragmentary writings during these years were lost again, since I could not afford internet and the web for many years! I wish the Authorsden could save me from becoming extinct. At least now I have the luxury of seeing my writing in print. Thank you so much.

SG/Mysore/April 8, 2004/                                                                    ---------****--------++++++&&&&&---------                                                                                                                       

 https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=42794