February 5, 1983 the hero, who already seems to be a receding entity. What eventuates are merely some stray soliloquies, idiosyncratic mixtures of self-pity and rational, or not so rational, emotions; all the residual drama that happens, we have to take on trust, within the soul. It could be New Delhi, January 1983. And, at a baser level, as the minutes tick by, attention gets riveted on short-term calculations of how much, if any at all, can be salvaged for the class, or the group, or the household, before doomsday strikes.