The reason I took up this book was just plain disbelief of what I read in its title. I was honestly, convinced that there was no way someone who suffered a stroke could have written four books, and been a visiting professor at the IIM, and all of that. So I took it up thinking, ‘let’s read it and see where the catch is, and how exactly I’ve been misled!’
Even as I read the prologue, I must accept, I read it with increasing scepticism. Because the author started off along the lines of, ‘I think I’m ordinary but people close to me think my story is extraordinary, and deserves to be told,; I thought I was in for another pretentious story of self-praise.
And it’s only fair that I accept; fault was all mine! The book was an eye-opener in more ways than one. Being inspired by another individual’s struggle with misery was one, but even in general, realizing how much the human body is capable of when truly pushed to its limit left me a lot more in awe of it than I was before.
Your story is really extraordinary, Sir! And it most definitely deserves to be told! I’m glad you did. And my hope now if that it gets read by as many people as possible; so they can cope better when they face something like this, or at least be sensitive to those who do.
The book, divided into 24 chapters, describes a step-wise recovery process with timelines for each; and the author’s comprehension of that stage of recovery. What it meant to him, and how much of a difference it made.
His doctor, Dr. Tang, Kainaz, his wife; Zarius, his son; his mother; his friends, as well as the employer companies of himself and his wife get due credit and mention as the author describes how each of them made a significant contribution to helping him recover as much as he has.
Beginning with understanding, moving on to expressing, finding graphs more understandable than words, finding his way around numbers, learning languages, getting back to driving, seizures and dealing with them, coping at work, succeeding, altering your lifestyle to do the best with what you’ve got, are some of the aspects dealt in individual chapters.
My personal favourites are two instances. Reading about the author’s moment with his wife, in the chapter titled ‘Returning Home and the Catharsis’ left me a little teary eyed. Also, the moment with the author’s son, when he goes home for a few hours as part of the treatment, was very touching. While the author rightly confesses to probably attributing too much importance to his son’s action; as a reader, I’d rather believe he isn’t.
What really works for me is the matter-of-fact description of small issues at the workplace like typing with one finger, not being able to differentiate numbers, etc.; which can only be understood completely by the one facing them.
Sachin Tendulkar, and the author’s obsession with him as well as cricket in general is interspersed throughout the book. While I am truly amazed at the passion, and also the way knowledge of Sachin’s scores helped the author comprehend numbers so much better, I didn’t enjoy the cricket bit as much. Similarly, while I did appreciate the author’s achievement in writing the article and the manuscript, I didn’t enjoy reading it in the book. But in all fairness, I think I should attribute that to the fact that I’m not a big cricket fan and for me, Sachin Tendulakr is at a 99.9 while Rahul Dravid is at a 100!
I liked how the author has tried to include scientific rationale inspite of not getting into too much detail; the last chapter of man vs. machine got a wee bit too long.
All in all, a great read. And though I was sceptical at the outset, by the time I got done reading I had changed my mind! This IS an extraordinary story of a extraordinary man. And I absolutely love how he ends his story by confirming how his stroke was really a stroke of luck! I wish I could look at life with a perspective like that all the time!
Sunshine Smiles! :)
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