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