JUGAAD

2012 seems to be an year of promise unlike my jinxed year ,2011.It is the first time i dont have any resolutions :p

In other news, I think i have found my calling in life!!!! - I plan to propagate the understanding and effectiveness of JUGAAD in the world of business.

According to an article in ET, 81% of Indian businessmen said jugaad was the key reason for their success. I can see their logic.

I mean look at the odds. My laptop had the following problems : Screen not working , CD ROM gone , no battery and last but definitely not the least , WINDOWS got corrupted.

So I think to my self , I have had it worse and then i realized all i had with me was : 1 Knife (sharp) and a pirated Win XP boot CD. No i had not had it worse.

But if there is one thing i ve learned in life it is this : Jugaad is not just a shortcut or quick clever solution, it is a way of life.

and if I can get my god-forbidden, bed-ridden ,on a death roll laptop working in just over an hour with just a knife and a 5 year old CD , U can do almost everything in life. Just follow the JUGAAD way.

P.S.: Too much of B school essays can do this to you :D
P.P.s: Goldspot rocks.. Its been so long since i have heard such great muzik.

Where is my Totem

Lately I have observed a new thing about me: I have started trying too hard. I dont know how or why but somewhere down the road, I changed. Maybe it was my subconscious attempt to overcome or even compensate for BP but even after it was gone, my habit of trying too hard remained. Even writing, that to a certain extent came to me naturally , became more of a mechanical process. I have started taking everything too seriously.....

I think we all need our "Totems" and constantly keep on re-discovering them (For the unenlightened ones who are too busy to watch the masterpieces by the likes of Christopher Nolan or Tarantino , please watch Inception :). Totem is that "something stable" in your life that keeps it real. It could be anything from family to feeling passionately about something. I used to think that a Totem has a lot to do with that adrenaline rush or those moments when you feel the ultimate high but now i feel that its role is more continuous than that. Your Totem is not really something that you will feel when you jump out of a plane or after winning an almost impossible-to-win match. More than its presence , i think you can feel its absence. For instance not playing TT for long or not reading something inspiring in a long time, gives me this feeling that something is not right or something is missing. The feeling is different from not being a part of the routine that you were used to. Routines change and we adapt but the absence of Totem will ensure that you are unable to adapt. Its like a Superhero's sidekick that the Superhero can't do away with.

In a way, the reason i have been trying too hard is to find more Totems in my life and that process has impacted almost everything i do. However ,I feel that this makes it worse. You cannot find something like that by searching it like a Gollum and calling it "my precious" , you gotta let it come to you. That's the only way. As cheezy as it may sound , its "a lot like love", You gotta let it find you (I am as Original as they come and YES, I have been watching a lot of romcoms lately).

Breathe , relax , chill. Taking everything too seriously is only gonna destroy the journey and by my experiences , its ALWAYS the journey that counts in the end.

Finally Bell's Palsy doesn't Bother me anymore :)

I wrote these entries long back, after being diagnosed with Bell's Palsy . Today i feel i m finally comfortable putting it here. Hopefully it will give someone strength to go through it someday.

--------------------------

It all started two days back , December 1^st 2010, Day1: There is a weird sensation on my tongue and I simply can’t move my nose to the left side of my face. After a few hours I realized that my lips were also drooling. The whole day I was under the impression that I might have eaten something and it’s an allergy because of that.

Day2: I woke up feeling even worse. Whatever little facial movement I had yesterday was gone. Still sure that it was just a minor allergy, I went to a doctor. After a minute of examining me, he simply told me that I had facial nerve paralysis, better known as Bell ’s palsy.”

I am 25 and have lived a healthy life for the major part of my life. A term like paralysis was enough to put me on panic mode. By the evening of day two , the severity of the paralysis was getting more and more evident. I was not even able to completely close my left eye and while smiling only one side of my face moved , making me look like Two-face from Batman. I had a few hours before my visit to a neurologist. So i ended up on internet and wikipedia.

The closest anything that came to my symptoms was Bell's Palsy. Everything matched. The statistics said that 1 in 65 can get this , but i just couldn't believe something like this would happen to me. But now i know better.The neurologist , as expected , told me that i had Bell s palsy and gave me a course of steroids (For ref:Wysolone-10 40mgx3,30mgx3,20mgx3,10mgx3 and 5mgx3 with vitamins).

Today is day 3 ,I know this will stay with me for sometime and the situation is getting worse. I am starting this blog to make a journal of these days , for anyone else in same situation and for myself to read someday later.

I am realizing today that everything we take for granted, is a privilege. After losing my smile , literally , I know the value of being able to smile.

--------------------Day6

When all this started , I was sure that it is temporary. It cant happen to me for long. Today is day 6 and i am starting to accept it. I guess acceptance is the 1st step towards a good recovery or at least getting over it.

The biggest problem is the eye. Always keeps on getting watery and strained. I am applying regular eye drops but they dnt help much after a while. I can only move my left cheek a little , all other sensation in the left side of my face is now gone :(

I think its all about keeping a positive mindset.
I once used to say this often ; "Look at the bright side"

This too has a bright side.With all the time , now I can finally get around scoring 780 in gmat and get my mba over with.

-------------


Day9

Is it too weird to be so excited when you are down with Bell's Palsy?

I feel very happy today simply because of all the wonderful people out there , esp at this fb community

I have always been a big advocate of social networking but never before yesterday did i realize how important it really is. Sometimes , all we are looking for is a small push or just someone , who has been in a similar situation , to say that "it's gonna be allright".To read their stories and to share their pain is a very moving experience and I highly recommend it. Infact , I think its highly addictive.

Also do check out these videos (Video1 & Video2) . They are a strong testament to what human spirit is all about and the most important thing i got from them is HOPE.

Which brings me to the first line of this post. Is it too weird to be so excited when you are down with Bell's Palsy? - I am excited because i am full of hope. I know its going to be alright and i can't wait :) . I am , like so many others , grateful to Bell's Palsy , for it is the strongest reminder i have ever got about how important it is to take care of yourself and how unexpected life is.

As cliched as it may sound , i do believe in those forward mails that come in your inbox sometimes. Something like - " Go out live , jump , dance , do one thing that scares u , try , challenge , fight , win , lose , cry , laugh , laugh till you cry , make mistakes." Do any of it or all of it but dont stop from anything just because you got BP.

Updates:
There is a little pain that has started creeping in near my ear and cheek bones. From others experience , i read that it happens to quite a few of us. Still, i am planning to get a second opinion on how things are progressing. The infamous eye twitching is here now. It's kinda irritating but the bright side says that if it goes on like this , atleast I can use this as an excuse to wink at cute girls :)

Another thing i discovered is the Power of Bubble gum. Chew any gum at least a day and it ll do the massage for you even while you are at work.

Take care of yourself :)

---------------------
Day 13,End of Steroids

had held the image of being these super scary and harmful medicines in my mind. After researching heavily into it , the image has only gotten stronger. Of course they get rid of the problem but prolonged usage of steroids have such scary side effects that its just better to avoid them if possible. Today , as i took the last tablet of my prescribed dosage , i was really glad that my course of steroids is done for now. I will continue to take vitamin supplements esp V B12. since they really beneficial for the nerves without much harmful effect.

Update :

Things always go worse before they get better

I think my rock bottom in terms of the nerve damage has been hit and slow signs of recovery are on the way. There is some sensation back on parts of my tongue and there is slight ,very limited , movement in my left cheek. If only there was a solution to this supersonic hearing , i would be in bliss :p .Though on the bright side , I can always gear up as a superhero who specializes in eavesdropping by his left ear :)

I am actually surprised how less this bothers me now. In fact not only has there been no affect on my schedule , but i have also become more focused towards my life goals. There were a few things that i had been procrastinating for a very long period of time and now due to Bells Palsy , I think i am going to do better than i would ve originally.

Keep Good :)

-----------------------------
Day33

Haven't posted here in a while and not a lot has happened either.
After consulting with another neurologist , i decided to go for physiotherapy and electric simulation. It aint as scary as it sounds.Kind of fun actually. Slowly and slowly i do feel there is some change but it still aint enough to be quantifiable. The research data seems to be inconclusive to decide whether it will help or not but I still thought of giving it a shot. Maybe i just wanted to feel that i am trying to get it right and not just accepting this and moving on.

Eye is still a pain but kind of getting used to now. The pain behind the ear and cheek bones , is gone. Maybe the nerves are recovering or maybe not. Hopefully something quantifiable will happen soon :)
Cheerz

----------------

Today

Looking back , the only regret i have from my treatment is the electric simulation. Dont Go for it.There is a lot of synkinesis or residual effect left on me but thats on very few things and hardly bothers me anymore. Everything else is awesome in the lala land :)

My bundle of Sunshine

is here :D

I wonder how different i would or rather should feel now..Will definitely look back at this time smday.

End of Jinxed Year???

After a very long time today i thought , "I could get used to this life". Things are finally starting to look bright , could this finally be the end of my Jinxed year?

The very best last message ...

AWESOME