Mind of my Stroked Brain

Couple of days back, there was a "Homa" at my mom's place. I might not be translating right, but a "Homa" is a traditional offering to various deities using fire as the medium for making the offering. Needless to say, it involves controlled fire but a lot of very uncontrolled smoke. Especially because of the offerings, it's very irritating to the eyes and lungs - usually a lot of burning in the eyes and coughing. The intention was conveyed by my mom a few weeks ago since my sister's family was visiting all together after some time and it's an auspicious thing to do. I said ok and didn't give it much thought. Usually thoughts and intentions fizzle away for everyone when it comes to following through with actions. But, she was following up actions and it looked like she will get it done. Few days ago (maybe a week and ½), she asked me in case necessary, will I be ok to get involved in the same only when needed. I usually don't involve myself in

This morning, I was replying to "happy new year" messages on my phone when one of my nurses saw me doing this and said to me: (She is from north india and speaks only Hindi. My interpretation / translation below) "Sir, why do people wish each other happy new year? Every year our remaining life reduces right. They celebrate like they are in Jail and every year their sentence is getting over and they are getting freedom." I am pretty sure she didn't realise the gravity of the truth in what she was saying - for aren't we all imprisoned in our bodies and nearing freedom from it each passing year. Maybe that is what we all celebrate every calendar swap and our birthdays. The anticipation of nearing freedom.... 

It is the time of the year when I get very affectionate emails from everyone... All my bank accounts, my insurance, my trading account, etc, etc. they are all very prompt. Another date on the calendar when they remember promptly is my date of birth. Every place where we can't avoid giving our date of birth. Honestly, after sometime , it's just a change of calendar. (We have not got the new calendar yet, so even that will not change for me tomorrow 🙂) Don't get me wrong, I have had my share of new year parties, get-togethers and fun. Have had fun in all of them. It's just the age and where I am currently, it feels a lot more like "what is the big deal". But, I do know it is a time and an occasion to celebrate, so - I don't mind the fun that comes with it. But seriously, I think I am getting overly paranoid these days seeing talks, documentaries, news, etc. Everything seems to point southwards for society and humanity in general. There are so many issues an

  Before my stroke, I had enough and more work to do - both on the work front and home front. I had reasonably ok health, reasonably good eating habits, reasonably good physical activities. Money is not enough for anybody, but it was reasonably ok as well. The only thing I had very less of (almost none) was time! Free time specifically. I keep sharing video recommendations to many folks regularly - most of them,  long talk show formats (1½ - 2 hours sometimes). Very interesting and informative pieces in my opinion. In today's world filled with over information and disinformation, it is almost impossible to understand most things if we don't spend the time and either read and research ourselves (which is a very far shot) or spend time going through secondary sources who have done it for us and can present it in an unbiased way.  Without it, it is very easy in today's world to get biased, subscribe to misconceptions, get misled, manipulated, etc.  However, often I get the res

I keep reminding and following up on many things with everybody I ask for something. To the point of frustration and getting upset with me (although everyone is polite and thank me for it 🙂). I can certainly imagine how irritating it must be. I do it simply because of my own experience. Everybody has a huge pile of things to do everyday and they keep adding to the pile and many many things get forgotten or slips down in priority and I only try to bring back things to the top of the pile. Obviously I have a great memory to be able to do this consistently with many people on many fronts. So what is the secret to my good memory? I wish it was some glamorous thing like that and I could tell you my diet for the reliable memory. The reality is, I had a massive stroke years ago and my memory is worse than anyone who I know. Definitely much worse than myself before my stroke. So what is the secret behind it? The secret is knowing I have a very poor and unreliable memory - and accepting it ful

Yesterday, I watched a news item. A young man in a big city was on a two wheeler and was knocked down in a hit and run case. He lay on the road bleeding and struggling for a long time. A crowd gathered around him. They took videos of him and some even stole his mobile phone and few other personal items. He eventually bled to death on the road itself. Nobody helped him, nobody called an ambulance nobody called any emergency number etc . I don't really know if karma exists. However, I know the definition of karma at a broad level (I might be wrong), but broadly, I understand karma as a outcome or consequences of our actions. In the above case, I can think of 5 actors: 1. The person who caused the hit and run accident in the first place.  2. The folks who gathered around and looted the dying fellow 3. The folks who made and uploaded videos of the dying fellow 4. The folks who stood around and watched but did nothing 5. The folks who saw it happening but were too busy to stop even  No

Before my stroke, I was a regular bloke with lots of work, lots of goals, lots of priorities and lots of distractions. This was both office work and personal life at home. Like with any regular bloke, I had ample share of distractions, procrastination, laziness etc, etc  After the stroke, it has come down significantly . I am not professing to be above all these. It has come down significantly though. Very significantly. I keep getting the complaint from everyone about my very painful following ups, urgency with everything, pestering about progress as follow up to something or updates etc. I have thought about it. It's not like I was setting such crazy expectations and the bar so high earlier. I had assumed it was just natural because of the effect of not being able to do anything & understanding the value of time and abilities because I am like this. It made sense and I had made peace with that explanation to my mind. Some days back, I was watching a podcast type talk show, wh