Mind of my Stroked Brain

Around 3:00pm is my daily torture and I dread it. It's the time they give me half a glass of juice or water orally for swallowing. Half a spoon at a time. Every day I secretly hope that they have forgotten, but the glass emerges without fail. Every spoon, or every other attempt, the fluid aspirates (goes into the wind pipe), causing violent cough and a very painful struggle. After the nightmare for sometime, comes the next spoonful and I have to open the mouth, knowing fully well what follows next. Most days I have to stop after a few spoons as it's unbearable. After this, I swear to myself that I won't go through this torture again and send harsh messages to my wife that I will not undergo this (self inflicted torture) daily and not to give anything next day... Next day, is another day, and like someone seeking pleasure in pain, I go about it all over again, with a small hope that this day might be better forgetting what yesterday was like... PS: before I can trust in God,

Luck: ===== If you can get up to your alarm Or snooze it, and have the pleasure of falling back asleep     Consider yourself Lucky. If you can sit up on your bed And think about what to do next    Consider yourself Lucky. If you can get up and walk And go where you want to go      Consider yourself Lucky. If you can go to your bathroom And relieve yourself.      Consider yourself Lucky. If you can hold your brush And vigorously brush your teeth      Consider yourself Lucky. If you can splash water on your face And feel fresh to face the day      Consider yourself Lucky. If you can have a shower And feel the water trickling over you      Consider yourself Lucky. If you can wipe yourself dry And have the pleasure of putting on fresh clothes you feel like      Consider yourself Lucky. Some would call it Blessed Whatever you believe Be very grateful to it For these are just the first half hour And there's the rest of the day To be grateful for And feel very Lucky...

One of my friends asked me this morning "what is Success"?  I am not sure if there is a definite thing or one definition for being successful. I feel it's a constantly moving goalpost and different for different folks. I think when we are very young, toddlers really, there is no such concept even. When we become a little bigger, middle childhood basically, I think success is doing well what gives happiness to our primary carers. Parents mostly. Could also be grandparents, teachers or anybody who cares enough. In the adolescent world, teenage basically, i think the need to find acceptance with peer groups, friends, classmates drives most of our definition of success. If we "fit-in" and seem "Cool" to our group, then it's success for us. As we get to the young adult phase, probably the more productive stage, i think success is defined more by the broader society we live in. More so, the group we believe we have a common mindset with. However, i think

We all tend to follow many customs, rituals, practices, etc. day to day. I would call them Socially acceptable behaviour. Most of them are not new. It has been so as a tradition for ages. When they were created, I reckon there was good reason. Most of them would not be reasonable anymore. Some of them might be relevant even now, except we don't know that reason. It is very understandable that everyone (irrespective of gender, religion,caste, etc) usually are compliant, and don't think of questioning it, because they have seen their parents, aunts and uncles, basically everyone around them following the same norms. They have grown up seeing it, so it is imbibed.  If someone wages a lone battle, they will most certainly become the outcasts, the misfits, the black sheep of the family basically. Many such things lead to anything from simply silly/stupid behaviour to low esteem to things with can be outright injustice. So what can someone do in such times? Simply follow the norm or

I am not very sure what this note is about... Wrote it over a few days so all over the place. But here it is anyway... Many times in the past few months, I have often thought about what I keep writing about and so frequently. The frequent bit is quite straightforward for me to understand. I have stayed too long with no means to express anything and even now, since it's so frustrating to not speak, I just spew things unhindered on whatsapp. Even though I have usually been very sparse earlier. But what I write about are both varied and slightly deep by my usual standards. So how did it happen? The stroke did not affect my thought patterns (brain stem has nothing to do with thinking). If anything I have lost a few memories, nothing else. I have wondered several times what it is.... This is my theory: Space. Not physical space but Mind space. For almost 18 months, all I could do is think. After the initial turmoil, that's all I could do.  So the natural thing to conclude is that I

I was chatting this morning with my friend about the world of no mobiles and how its unthinkable now. It got me thinking a bit further on the topic... I guess every generation has seen this happen. I'm sure we've had some version of a conversation where someone has told us what all they could buy with 4 annas. And i suppose at some point we've told some device attached kid on how we didnt have any of it. Even TVs. So, it got me wondering, are the next generation better off or worse off? I guess everyone has adapted/ adjusted to the changing world and done ok. However, I can't help but think of the rate of change. When the steam engine or the light bulb was invented, it was a new world. But i guess it lasted a century so a few generations to get adjusted to it before the next big thing hit them. The amount of world impacting things that we have created in the last 20 odd years, mobiles, tablets, email communication, chats, online everything, streaming on demand anything,

We all fall asleep everyday. Naps, proper sleep etc. No matter how we sleep or dream or not. The body keeps time. When we wake up, we may not know the time, but we know we slept and approximately how long or short. However, when we are administered general anesthesia, we have no clue. I have been under several times and I can vouch for it. I have never made it past 95 (when I have been asked to count backwards from 100) and my eyes close, much like a blink and when the blink is done and i open my eyes, the procedure is done or I'm in some recovery room. It doesn't matter if it was for a minute, an hour or many hours I am sure, its just a blink. It's like the body and mind were incapable of having a sense of time. The chemical reactions of anesthesiology is known well. But we don't yet know how or why it works that way. There are theories and hypothesis, but no concrete knowledge. Just that it works. The body is still carrying on with vital tasks like heart beat, lungs b