What I miss these days are not the weepy, sentimental things. My Sun, for example, could be counted to run for months on end without a restart. Thrice in the past week, yokels with backhoes have cut off our connections, plunging my Sun (and all the computation-intensive stuff it was running) to oblivion. Each time, I restarted the process with a sigh. I yearn for the days when I could start a job and know that five days later, it would be complete. I yearn for the days of certainty!
Another thing I miss is that of belonging to a peaceful country. It doesn't get you anything (ask any Canadian) but the idea that your countrymen are not going to walk around with AK-47s, missiles and grenades somehow convinces you that you are a civilized country. Maybe, Indians don't go around blowing up airplanes and lobbing grenades but exploding a nuclear device doesn't help perpetuate a peaceful image.
France, if you remember, exploded its bomb in the South Pacific, as far away from the bulk of its citizens as possible. India? They conducted the test well within Indian borders. This is similar to when, a few months ago, India (along with the U.S.) refused to sign the landmine treaty. American landmines are in the Korean peninsula while Indian ones are inside India itself. Indian lives are cheap, even to Indian politicians.
