These excerpts from her diaries were written at different periods, but mostly during 70's during the college and university days:
Years of your healthy, wholesome, lively youth! Days to be remembered in the old age with a pang of grief that they passed all too soon! Imapssioned feelings, bubbling activity, whole-ness of life - living a full life with an easy grace to put others to shame! Oh glory! perhaps youth today is too old for that kind of thing.
I had entered BA with a most receptive and enthusiastic bent of mind. Perhaps I should summarise those days here so that I don’t have to repeat it again to anyone. At present I am burdened with an insatiable anger and a strange feeling of estrangement which does not let me have any peace of mind. I seem to quarrel easily with everyone, and I have just one longing - that is to sleep. I wish only to sleep so long that no one can wake me up ever. But I have no wish to die or do away with myself - not any more.
What I feel is entirely personal, and extremely peculiar. Never have I known such weariness, pain and lingering exhaustion. It is impossible for me to keep awake at night - I am just not fresh enough.
I have begun to detest myself greatly lately. This is not vey new, but now I just can’t understand what to do with myself. Today is the 28th May - exams were over on the 9th, and all these 19 days have gone by like truckloads of heaviness. Not that there is no work in the house. Mum’s is always after me to do something or another. But it is an internal weight which I can’t shed off, and I am denying reality as well as myself... I want to do away with this fatal exhaustion which is eating me up gradually, but not uncertainly. I have no creativity or anything left in me and nothing to feel - no enthusiasm or laughter and none of the happy-go-lucky nature left anymore. I have a nagging doubt that I am finished for good, and will not be able to get anywhere in life...
In BA, I had gained some experience of the versatility of human nature. In the first year, my hopeful world and lovely dreams were broken cruelly... From the very start I was experiencing alienation at every step. And I was certainly not ready for such behaviour. For instance, two of my best friends turned their faces away from me on the first day itself. The other girls were totally unknown to me, hence there was no question of my going to them and getting acquainted. Nevertheless. I tried to respond very politely at every step so as to ease the pressure of desertion that was oppressing me from all around...Hence BA I was a small hell in itself. Comes BA II, I got the top position in college and everyone’s attitdes shanged radically. I could just look on like the fool that I am. I should put in here that at this time, I stopped creative work altogether. I used to write poetry and stories. After KP I stopped writing anymore, and burnt a few and tore up others to let them fly in little pieces to a land of no return when a strong wind was blowing...
...I am now tired of repeating to myself those days - those looks - the feelings I had, the thoughts thought, the ideas formed about the world - have lasted me for more than my days. For three whole years, I have faced sarcasm - mostly mental, by implication or interpretation - perhaps also natural to others. It is wonderfully easy to speak against someone, but it is awfully hard to digest what is said about yourself. And till lately, I was no exception. But now I have become almost immune to others. I can listen to all without a qualm, and I feel extremely detached while listening to them. As soon as they’ve left me in peace, I have to go and sit in solitude for some moments, and find some comfort in myself...
It was terrible to dream each night of the terrible disaster of these people. One day with them was enough to deject me for two-three days. everything was unnatural and uncanny. I think I had the worst sample in the class...
...I had finished data collection in January 1976, but for next one and a half months didn’t do anything for my project. Then I just had it typed and bound. On 10th April, I submitted five copies of “Frustration & Adjustment in Amputees and Paraplegics” by Geeta Saxena. Very good and innocent. But oh, for the blood and sweat and tears behind it!
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