Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
I saw a lonely bit of refuse labelled "BASURA," which…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2004 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I saw a lonely bit of refuse labelled "BASURA," which looked ominous. After a moment, I recognized the word as "garbage," from the "Solo Basura/Garbage Only" labels on SF residential trash bins. It had seemed foreboding because, in Hindu mythology, an asura is a demon.