Mind of my Stroked Brain

" So it shall be written... So it shall be done!" Not my words. They are lines from a movie "the ten commandments" which was released in 1950s - much before I was born.  The lead cast was Charleston Heston (Moses), Yul Brenner (Ramses) and Ann Baxter (Nefertari). I feel it was ahead of other movies of that time - with regards to the visual effects and magnificence of the scenes. I watched it for the first time when I was in 8th standard (8th grade). Whilst I knew the English language, I was not very comfortable or confident with it. My thinking language all the years earlier had been kannada. So for some reason, I can't figure out why, the dialogues in that movie - especially those highlighted lines had an impact on my mind. It was a young adolescent highly impressionable mind at that time.. It was a very long movie - over 3 hrs. I don't remember exactly how long, but I am sure it was over 3 hrs as we bought the movie and it was the first movie we had bought

Couple of months ago, I had written about my amusing experience of my PEG tube falling out. A follow up of that was a write up of my experience getting a new one put in. Well guess what, I got a new one today as well. It was even more surprising... and amazing I must add. About 2 weeks ago, my PEG tube developed a leak. Nothing serious, the mouth of the tube and the cap were not closing "water tight". It started leaking at the rate of maybe 1 drop every minute. I wanted to see for some time whether it will become ok by itself. Wishful thinking - it did not. Very slowly was increasing. Maybe 3 drops every 2 minutes. So my wife asked her friend (an ex doctor - who had kindly arranged for everything previously at the hospital) what we have to do. She has clout in that hospital. She arranged for someone from the hospital to come home and check it out.  He came this morning. He said he was in the hospital procedure room when I was there. They all wear masks in the procedure room o

 There are 3 theories I am aware of with regard to how we evolved as species: 1. That it was a barren planet and one day couple of millions of years ago (or billions), by accident , a single cell figured out how to convert sunlight into its own energy and also by accident figured out how to divide itself and multiply. Many millions (or billions) of years of mistakes and many species evolved. We are one of them . 2. We were a barren planet and one day a meteorite crashed (it was very common millions of years ago with no atmosphere to burn it up). It carried with it cells with some degree of evolution on intelligence (DNA) and how to multiply and many species evovled from this seeding. It still took millions of years, but it had a leg-up in the process. 3. There are many (or one) superpower somewhere who designed the evolution and species and created all species according to that plan/ design. All 3 are very plausible theories and what we make our own is true for us. The thing I have rea

Every day, nowadays, I spend a couple of hours in front of the laptop. It doesn't have predictive typing and everything is so painful to type letter by letter. Takes forever. I keep cursing it and wishing it worked like my phone. However, for those few hours, I get used to the alt key, the control key, and very importantly, the tab key and delete key . I move back to my room later and back to using the mobile. While I love the predictive typing and suggested words, I keep cursing it for not having tab and delete key wishing it worked like that! Aaarrrhh!! It's so bloody frustrating. I think our minds are doomed with "grass is greener on the other side" mindsets! 

When I had my stroke and was able to understand anything coherently, I was told that my neurosurgeon (just after the procedure) had said that I will have hiccups and difficulty balancing because of where I suffered the stroke. I knew what the hiccups meant - but I was not ready (mentally or physically) for what was really in store. I have written earlier about my bouts of hiccups which have festered for days. I still get them - they usually persist for a day but letting up every 1-2 hrs before restarting again. The balance thingy I could not understand. These were the days I was a complete vegetable and could not communicate in any manner to ask what it meant. Nor was I able to get online to research and understand what it meant. Firstly, I needed to know what a stroke was to begin with 😂 All my schooling and adult understanding life. I have understood that the inner ears are what are responsible for balance. Here I was being told I had some stroke in the head and I will not have bala

When you brush your teeth in the morning, do you remember if you keep your eyes opened or closed initially when you take the brush to the teeth? Check tomorrow morning if you are not sure 🙂 before my stroke, I used to have my eyes closed when I started brushing. I don't know why I used to do it, but that is what I did. Maybe it is some sort of a reflex to close the eyes when we open the mouth wide - I don't know. For about 3½+ years I didn't brush my teeth. It was cleaned by my nurses with some gauze dipped in mouthwash and cleaning what they could with artery scissors. In the last couple of months I have been using an electric toothbrush as I have the strength to hold it and move it around a bit. I still can't use toothpaste as I can't rinse my mouth with water. I still just dip the toothbrush in mouthwash and swirl it around a bit.  Every morning I think about this - because I keep my eyes open when I start now.  Even with my eyes open wide, I am unable to bring

First everybody world over were growing food. You rarely got to eat foods that were not from our locales. But that changed over the centuries. With increasing connectivity routes and transportation options - everyone got access to everything. Which is great. This however meant very gradually people only started growing stuff in their spaces what was easy (economically less expensive) and profitability. Soon agriculture focussed jobs reduced. It definitely still exists - we still need food. But the shift made people to go find something else to do. After a while, manufacturing jobs bloomed everywhere propelled by the industrial revolution - everyone had something to do. Blue collar jobs everywhere. Soon what could be done in one place, could be done elsewhere as well. Manufacturing moved to more convenient places (inexpensive supply, abundance of labour, etc) - more economically viable and profitable places. Thus blue collar jobs shifted. Within the countries, overseas etc. So we had lo