Never Stop Believing

my name is deep senger

i live in seattle and work for microsoft

as a matter of routine i went for a

morning jog followed by yoga

then i had a call with my team which

develops enterprise level apps

this is the citizen development team i

created

and i really feel proud of

sounds like the story of a typical

i.t nerd who graduated from indian

institute of technology

and landed in the u.s to live his

terabyte size dream

right full disclosure i am not

an alumnus of revered iit

what if i tell you that just a few years

back i was

lying in an icu bed with doctors

patching up

different parts of the body they

said that i would be bedridden for life

hanging between life and death i can

assure you

that app creation was probably nowhere

on my agenda

in fact i had not even worked on a

computer

till i was in my 30s

everyone faces different challenges

through their lives

i would have loved to talk about some

folks who i

idolize but i have been asked to share

my own story

so here i am sharing my learning journey

with you

after high school i was selected for

national defense academy

that’s for training before becoming an

officer in the armed forces

within a few years this tiny frame

joined the elite special forces

life in special forces as many of you

are aware

is extremely adventurous but along with

the

thrills and adventures come

prerequisites

the ability to condition your mind body

to handle the thrills

spills and challenges this is where

the learnings from my mom deeply

ingrained in my mind helped

when faced with any challenge invoke the

hanuman in you

realize and awaken your hidden potential

will not be easy just try harder

one more push-up one more setup

one more punch no matter the size of the

opponent

or magnitude of the challenge let me

narrate

one incident while i was training in the

academy

after seeing a documentary on platform

diving i wanted to win a gold medal

and that too in an upcoming competition

three months later

one could argue that it was a perfectly

natural and reasonable aspiration

after all i was physically fit

i was on the gymnastics team and i could

do a somersault

across a wooden horse very easily but

there was a small little problem a teeny

weeny problem

i didn’t know how to swim no wait

maybe i should be more specific here

the problem was not that i couldn’t swim

the problem was

that i was a dead sinker

like a stone thrown in water

i clearly remember the day when

we were taken to the pool for our first

swimming class

all dead sinkers like me they were

thrown

actually thrown into the water i had

never entered a swimming pool before

that day

much less learn swimming i still

remember the panic

as i tried to keep my head above water

splashing water with my hands

while the body weight pulling me down

it felt like an eternity

once i had drunk enough water i actually

started drowning

but i was keeping my eyes wide

open i was looking for something finally

i saw one end of the bamboo pole

it was thrust into the pool so that

i could hold on to it and the lifeguard

who was holding the other end of the

pole pulled me out as i hung on for

their life

a deep sense of relief filled me

when i closed that pole the contrast

between the overwhelming fear

and the sense of calm once i spotted the

pole

is so memorable that i can feel the pole

pressing into my palm

as i speak right now i learned the

importance of

what i can now call the magic wand

coming back to my dream after enough

deliberation

i approached the swim instructor and

asked him

to teach me diving much

as i expected him to he didn’t laugh in

my face

instead he asked me to perform a single

flip into the water

as a test i looked at him and asked

how i was going to get out of the water

he simply smiled

and pointed to the side there lay

the bamboo pole the magic

wand and then i knew i would be

okay i must have done well in that one

dive

as i was immediately asked to join the

diving team

and then started the rigorous practice

with one instructor always standing by

with the magic wand

and i have to tell you nothing had

changed

nothing had changed the fact that i

still couldn’t swim

the fear didn’t go away the fear never

went away

not a single time i trained for the next

three months

but i always had a deep underlying

knowledge that

it would be all right because the magic

wand would be there to fish me out

if i need it it wasn’t easy perfect

dives eluded me for quite some time

i belly flopped back flopped countless

number of times

had my breath knocked out with every

incorrect entry in the water every

inch of skin on the body was sore

but i knew that the pain was temporary

i was lucky to get the right support

system my swimming instructor

that’s him in the center and i am on the

side

he was crazy enough to give me a chance

he wasn’t seeing a dead sinker in me he

was seeing a potential diver

and of course the magic wand which

gave me that confidence to dare i did

finally win the gold medal

possibly the first non-swimmer to win

that middle in that competition

but what i cherished most

was the journey leading up to it the

learnings

of life were just beginning

fast forward to 1998 the first time

i had gotten seriously injured in combat

during a firefight i took multiple

bullets which punctured my intestine and

abdomen

dogs they just stitched me up with a

colostomy bag and a urinary bag

i won’t bother you with the unpleasant

details of these bags

but suffice to say that it alters

the way you live on daily basis and not

in the right way

doctors introduced me to another soldier

in the hospital

with similar kind of injuries they

wanted

me to see how he was taking care of his

colostomy

in the hospital for more than a year

more than a year i wanted to recover

and quickly one year was too

long i somehow

got lucky there was a doctor a gi

specialist who coincidentally

happened to be admitted in the next room

i read up all medical literature he had

on this injury he explained the

importance of patients psychological

makeup

and how critical it was in

expediting the whole recovery process

well

this time i was much faster

in both identifying and then

purposefully grasping my magic wand

i took the friendly doctor’s advice

very seriously and much to the amazement

of the medical staff at the hospital

i was back with my troops within three

months

i started with the usual training and

some more

won’t call it the groundhog day but

i was back in combat zone in the thick

of action again

and as luck would have it i again got

injured

this time the damage being much much

more serious a series of heroic efforts

from a lot of heroes i know and some i

may never know

i managed to reach the hospital alive

army doctors they are not known for the

bedside manners

once in the hospital they congratulated

me for being alive

despite the loss of copious amount of

blood through the bullet-riddled hip

joint and the battle scar

chest they also told me that

i would never walk on my feet again

i had the same sinking feeling

of being thrown into the pool

i was 29 years old best of physical

condition

engaged soon to be married

and just getting into the thick of my

career with enough medals on my chest

to last me a lifetime and yet

paradoxically lying in a supine position

on a hospital bed being told i shall

never walk again

the pressure of future was pulling me

down

into the depths just as strongly

as the water in that swimming pool had

only this time the magic wand

was not in sight not as yet

i had my own dark moments moments of

despair

moments of hopelessness feeling

that i had lost everything

didn’t want to get into self-pity i

decided to leave the armed forces

and do mba from the best b-school

this despite army being only life

i had ever known or yearned for

i underwent multiple surgeries got

great set of doctors who reconstructed

the whole hip joint

even as i plunged myself into preparing

for my career transition

i kept my focus on my studies which also

helped me

keep my mind off the pain i put in all

the energy to clear cat

the common admission test that’s the

prerequisite to join the best b

schools of the country i had to relearn

my math

from grade 6 to grade 12 kept preparing

from the hospital bed where i lay

almost for one full year

got help from everyone around other

patients nursing staff

even the eighth grader son of my

physiotherapist

suddenly there appeared to be bamboo

groves growing

all over the place all magic wands

within the grasping distance it was not

an easy journey

but a hugely satisfying one

getting to the i am himself was one part

the more important part was how the

shift of the focus

to test preparation it changed the whole

perspective

after every surgery i used to be

thinking of the next

chapter to be completed rather than

thinking about the aches and pains

which are natural after every surgery it

personally helped me in the recovery

process

while at the hospital i started the

rigorous

physiotherapy and yoga which i continued

till late

i had appeared for cat on a wheelchair

by the time i joined my mba class i was

on two crutches

and then moved to one crutch thereafter

i kept working on it day in day out it

was a long journey

10 years post my mba i was able to throw

away

that crutch of mine and now i have

graduated to jogging

of course i do have occasional aches and

pains but

i attribute that to old age

having worked in five different

countries in different organizations

i realized that the template of life

never changes each time life

throws me into the proverbial pool a

helpful wand

appears from somewhere almost magically

be it a situation at work in managing

a difficult client or

at a personal level with self or with

any of our love advance

however for each of these incidents

where the magic wand worked there are

countless failures

incidents where i was not able to get to

the magic wand

but i have not stopped looking

for one in every situation every single

day

i moved to the u.s at an interesting

time

when the topic of racial divide is top

of mind for everyone

these issues they become even more

personal

when our near and dear ones they get

impacted

the situation needed a very different

kind of a magic wand

so as a family we decided to spend one

day

a week helping the needy

basically becoming a magic wand for

someone else in need

we started a non-profit food link

to feed the homeless when we approached

the homeless

we did not see if they were black or

white or asian

or latino we saw people

searching for their own magic wands

our focusing on this positive experience

was amazingly therapeutical

so we wanted others to experience it too

we moved this model online today we are

starting to work in three different

countries

and continuing to evolve the model which

still is

in a very very early stage

and we want it to be able to create more

magic wands

to reduce the disparity

i would be amiss if i do not narrate

another very personal incident before i

close

going back in time after my

second injury which i earlier spoke

about

i had called up my dhee then fiance jaya

i told her that she was free to break

our engagement

since i would be bedridden for life

she just spoke two sentences

what if this had happened after marriage

i am not breaking the engagement

that short conversation gave me a lot of

strength

i was always lucky to have a great set

of supporters and now

i got a life partner the magic wand for

life

today both of us keep discussing

how can we create magic wand for others

in need

i am deep singer in search of magic

wands

in every situation for self and for

others

thank you