The Day My Brain Exploded Read online

  THE DAY MY BRAIN EXPLODED

  Ashok Rajamani

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2013

  For my mother, Sheila Rajamani,

  the strongest person I know

  “Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

  This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

  —Lewis Carroll

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

  That I exist is a perpetual surprise

  which is life.

  —Rabindranath Tagore

  Stray Birds, 1916

  Oh my God!

  —Charo

  VH1’s The Surreal Life, 2003

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue: 2011

  Cum and Precum: 2000, 1983

  Aftermath: 2003–2004

  Peanut Curry: 1974

  The Day My Brain Exploded: 2000 (I)

  Nonbloody Events of the Day: 2000 (II)

  Grudge Match: Krisnha v. Jesus: 1974–1989

  The Incarceration, Part One: 2000 (III)

  Not The First Time in Jail: 1989–1992

  The Incarceration, Part Two: 2000 (IV)

  Formatting Ashok Version 2.0: 2000 (V)

  Jeepers Creepers, Where’d You Get Those Peepers: 2000 (VI)

  AVM Wha . . . ?: 2000 (VII)

  Drunk with Success: 1992–2000

  Big Apple Core: 2000–2001

  Time to Bloom: 2001

  Just When You Thought the Worst Was Over: 2002

  I Sing the Body Electric: 2002–Present

  Through the Looking Glass: 2003–Present

  Hermit Spiral: 2004

  Lazarusness: 2004–Present

  Brain Karma: 1974–___

  No Pity Required, Just Fresh Breath: Present (I)

  Becoming How the Brain Became: Present (II)

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  IT HAS BEEN SAID that all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest person to insanity. There’s some truth to this. But the saying is not totally correct.

  A bad day, to put it mildly, happened to me over a decade ago: my brain exploded. This was a detonation that affected not only my brain, but how I perceived the world around me. Yet it never reduced me to complete lunacy. Rather, it introduced me to a strength within, complete with the perseverance and dedication to live once again. I have my parents to thank for these qualities; not only did they raise me to be resilient, but also to be proud: proud of my cultural heritage, proud of my family, and proud of myself and my achievements. Fortunately, I got a strong intellect from them as well, along with a determination to succeed. All of that has kept me resolute as I struggled through the events you will learn about in this memoir.

  Strength and determination are what I needed to overcome the effects of that day. It also took humor, in part anyway, to diffuse the anger and pain that I felt at what fate had handed me.

  I believe that the worst part of this ongoing experience is happily behind me, and that I have a shiny new life to look forward to. True, what I went through was terrible, and true, I wasn’t always patient with those around me. But I realize now, looking back, I am one of the luckiest people alive, and in telling my story I am hoping to give a voice to others who were not so fortunate.

  Every day, dozens of people suffer from brain injury; many die, and many who live are able to function only at the mercy of devoted caregivers. I, on the other hand, now live on my own, moving among the rest of the world as though there was nothing truly wrong. Able also to write this book so that those who have suffered brain injury can, along with their caregivers, see how important it is to not give up. As I say, I am one of the lucky ones, and so I will spend the rest of this life I have been given in trying to make a difference.

  But with a sense of humor, of course; I still cherish my sanity.

  Prologue: 2011

  My calloused brown feet are hurting, aching in fact, here in Manhattan. I’ve just returned from a beginner’s basic yoga class this afternoon, having walked all the way from that Upper East Side “Eastern Spiritual Center” back to my apartment downtown. It’s a nearly seventy-minute walk, in this August, grade-A city scorcher. I’ve become malodorous and soaked with sweat. Being the vain fool that I am, today I chose to wear my weighty black leather shoes with the three-inch heels, rather than a practical pair of sneakers, or even flip-flops. On this boiling summer day, why did I want to add those extra inches of height to my mediocre five foot eight frame? Especially when I had to remove the shoes and be barefoot as soon as class began anyway? Maybe I just wanted to look tall when I entered the center so I could flirt with the instructor.

  Before getting into my apartment, I had to walk up six flights of stairs in my elevatorless building. This doesn’t make matters any better.

  So here I am, wet, smelly, and tired. Turning on the AC to full force and picking up my best buddy, the remote control, off the sofa, I click to find a station worthy of my sticky summer viewing.

  Now, I must admit, these days, I’m a proud member of geek central. Meaning that my cable television is usually set to two types of programming: news channels with some shows featuring child predators, and science channels.

  I decide to watch some nondescript science network. All I see is a black screen with lights flashing in it, set to the beat of some innocuous, gloomy orchestral music. I’ve just missed the title credits, so I don’t know the exact name of the show, but based on the ominous music, I surmise it’s one of those random programs about the history of the universe. As soon as I hear a deep, sedate voiceover, I realize I’m right. Not sure if I’m listening to James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman or the guy who does the Geico ads. I think it’s Morgan. The voice explains that, while there are many ideas about how the world was created, this show will be about science’s most accepted theory: the Big Bang Theory. And though this theory has many different angles, Morgan continues, the show will focus on only one thesis—the concept that the Big Bang Theory revolves around one word:

  Explosion.

  Morgan’s voice continues to boom. The Big Bang, he explains, was a mammoth explosion that happened billions of years ago, and it all began as a bursting of a primeval fireball. Just listening to that opening sentence of the program leaves me spellbound, so I think I’ll be viewing this take on the Big Bang. But even though the theory is not definitively proven, it rings absolutely true to me.

  That’s simply because, as sweat-drenched and as exhausted as I might feel at this moment, I can understand a primary truth: it only takes a solitary, single, massive explosion to create a completely new universe.

  Cum and Precum: 2000, 1983

  Wedding Day Orgasm 2000

  Perverted. Masturbating on your older brother’s wedding day is perverted, isn’t it? Well then, call me a perv. Because that’s what I was doing, in my hotel room, a few hours before the ceremony.

  March 17, 2000. Twenty-five years old.

  The day before, I had flown from New York City to Washington, D.C., where my older brother, Prakash, and his fiancée, Karmen, lived, and were to marry. At the time of my spontaneous onanism, the rest of my family was out, playing tourists. My brother Prakash was in the room next to mine, preparing for his big day.

  Now, people practice the art of self-love at various times and for just as many reasons. They might be feeling randy or simply utterly bored. In my case, it was the latter. Weddings don’t make me feel amorous. And so, I prepared myself for a little diversion. I hadn’t yet changed into my forma
l wedding suit; I was wearing an outfit appropriate for a jerk-off: a ratty eighties Def Leppard tour T-shirt. Nothing else. I set myself to the task, watching my progress in the big mirror over the dresser.

  As my solo act came to its usual splashy end, I felt a sudden, massive pop inside my head.

  I had jerked off innumerable times before, but this orgasm was different; this orgasm was unnatural.

  Something was wrong, horribly wrong.

  I felt a fierce explosion in my head.

  In a mere instant, the equivalent of an atomic bomb had been detonated within my skull. Between my ears. Behind my eyeballs.

  My brain had become Hiroshima.

  I suddenly could see nothing as the bomb blasted. It was as if a blindfold, making the world darker than a moonless, starless night, had been tightly bound around my head. Oh my god, I thought. I’m fucking blind! That’s what the explosion was. Those rumors about jerking off were right. Had my palms also become hairy?

  Within a second, however, my sight had returned, albeit faintly. Everything was hazy, as if enveloped by fog. Caught between fear and confusion, I fell to the faded hardwood floor, straining to look at the pseudo-crystal chandelier above my head.

  I felt as weak as a baby, but not a baby entering this world—rather, one leaving it. My head was filled with unimaginable pain; my universe was slowly leaving me. Strange how the body knows what it knows. I knew I was going to die. So my survival instinct took over, and with the little strength and vision I had, I was able to locate the hotel phone. I clawed at the receiver, thrust it to my ear and painfully pushed “0.” I croaked out a plea for an ambulance.

  “We’re right next door to the hospital,” the hotel operator chirped, as if she were merely telling me where to find the nearest vending machine. “Is there anyone who could take you there? It would be quicker.”

  I gave her my last name, and she paged Prakash. When he answered the phone, I bet he was still fumbling with his cummerbund.

  Prakash rushed next door to my hotel room and discovered me on my bed. Surprisingly, despite the brain explosion, my sense of modesty had prevailed. Through the deadly haze and the pain and the panic, I had somehow been able to slip on my Hanes briefs. My brother found me horizontal on the bed, barely lucid, my arms crossed over my chest.

  It was an oddly regal pose. Prakash had now discovered his baby brother cast as a dying pharaoh atop a hotel sarcophagus, a seemingly doomed king headed somewhere other than the River Styx, wearing nothing but an eighties metal T-shirt and a pair of tighty-whiteys.

  Library Lesson 1983

  The library’s carpet may have dampened the noise in the room, but it also dampened the spirit. This place was depressing.

  The school, named Avon, like the cosmetics line, had a library that consisted of barely one floor and featured five large Rolodexes of index cards, too few to even employ the Dewey decimal system. Since this was the early eighties, there were no computers, but only five Rolodexes? Was that really all the books we needed to read?

  I was eight then, and wore big black glasses that probably accounted for one quarter of my entire body mass. Otherwise I was a small, scrawny, sienna-hued skeleton of a third grader.

  When I entered the book-lined space, I frowned, not because of the perennially stale odor, but because the musty brown shag transformed the library into a space that was not just uninviting, but menacing.

  The shelves themselves were disjointed, with gray steel mixing with burgundy wood. There was a sense of chaos and quiet gloom about the room. But still, it was my favorite place.

  I came there every day, when we had recess from one to two in the afternoon. I never entered the playground. The idea of forced recreation didn’t appeal to me.

  One chilly afternoon in 1983, as I was choosing my own adventure in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, six of my classmates barged in, ruddy from their play. Two were girls, the rest boys.

  I put my book down on the plastic table at which I was seated, and watched them swarm in.

  “Hey Ashok!” Jack boomed, pronouncing my name with alarming accuracy.

  Jack was their leader, robust and blond, with skin the color of ketchup-meets-mayo. The other boys and girls all could have passed for his brothers and sisters, some with blond hair, some with brown, but all white, robust, and loud.

  Commander Jack barked to his supplicants.

  “Ashok is so brainy!”

  Huh?” I was confused, but thrilled. He thinks I’m smart!

  “I said you’re brainy,” he said and sneered at me.

  “Thanks, Jack!” I smiled, broadly displaying what would later become pre-orthodontia buckteeth.

  “That’s not a good thing, jerk.”

  “What are you talking about? My mom calls me brainy all the time! It means she thinks I’m smart!”

  “It means you’re too weak to do anything but study. It mean’s you’re worse than a wimp.”

  “Nuh-uh, you’re joking,” I said. “It doesn’t mean that!”

  “It means you’re not even cool enough to be a nerd or a geek!”

  His cohorts started laughing as he continued his harangue.

  “Every day you come here! Why don’t you go outside and play?”

  Renee giggled. “He’s too brainy to play house with the girls, even!”

  “No way,” I said. “I’m not like that!”

  “Brainy!” squealed Carl.

  “Brainy!” squealed Leslie.

  “Brainy!” squealed Rob.

  I felt helpless, and suddenly terribly ashamed.

  “Maybe he wets his bed, and pees when he plays!” said Leslie.

  “Leave me alone!” I yelled.

  I tried to defend myself. “I’m not even here to read! I just come to look at the covers!” It was a weak, weak defense, too weak to even be lame.

  They snickered and were joined by five more burly kids, running in from recess. Their taunts grew louder and louder.

  The mantra was awful.

  “Brainy!”

  It was such a harmless, ridiculous insult, but words, in the mouths of kids, mean something different. I had thought being brainy was a good thing, but it had become an insult and a taunt, upsetting enough to make me cry within a proverbial blink.

  My wonderful classroom teacher, Ms. Linds, ended the nightmare, entering the room after hearing the shouts and loud voices. In her late twenties and with shoulder-length auburn hair, she was a white Aussie transplant with a wonderful accent.

  This sweet lady told the kids that recess was over, and she forced them to leave. After I explained to her what happened, she touched my shoulders and affectionately embraced my head.

  She smelled of lavender.

  “Why are you crying you silly thing? They were only making fun because they’re jealous,” said Ms. Linds.

  She hugged me as my tears dried.

  “Now, give me a smile and let’s go back to class.”

  But still I felt ashamed, and no amount of cajoling would make my grimace go away.

  “Ashok, remember what I’m going to tell you.”

  Attempting to avoid her gaze, I surveyed my tiny hands, which were now wobbling restlessly upon my lap.

  “Are you listening? I said to remember this.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll remember,” I murmured, looking up at her through my smeared glasses.

  Ms. Linds’ eyes met mine.

  “Being brainy,” she said, “is never, ever, a bad thing.”

  As much as I adored her, I just didn’t believe her.

  Aftermath: 2003–2004

  Don’t compare apples to oranges. All of you are in different areas in life. Remember that. Different categories completely.”

  Kari, the moderator and social worker of the brain injury support group, was trying to give us a pep talk.

  “You need to understand that your lives changed after your brain injuries. Understand that point, and you won’t get jealous or hurt,” she continued.

 
It didn’t work. Out of the twenty attendees in the room, four, including me, were still morose, sad, and bitter. I was there because everyone—neurologists, therapists, counselors—told me to join a group as soon as I was released from the hospital. But it took almost four years for me to actually attend a meeting. I had never planned to go, but finally I was so lonely and depressed that I felt I had no choice. Most of all, I had become painfully envious of everyone around me. To live in the outside world again, I needed to cope with non-brain-injured folks, whom I called “norms” a la old-school carnival-freak patois. These norms, with their goddamn unscarred heads, were pissing me off. They would never understand what had happened to me.

  I was nervous that first day as I made it to room 10B in the Center for Disability, a run-down, twelve-story building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I had never before considered myself “disabled,” but now, as I begrudgingly accepted that possibility, I tried to prepare myself for my first meeting with my new peers.

  Twenty people, wearing resigned expressions, sat on cheap blue plastic folding chairs arranged in a circle. The dingy white walls, offset by blackened gray tiles on the floor, enclosed a room that was suffocating in stale air. On one wall hung a framed poster of a striped cat with a word-balloon over its head that said, “I meow, therefore I am.” I imagined Descartes’s reaction if he had seen this. He wouldn’t have just rolled over in his grave. No, he would have climbed out, purchased a Colt .45, and shot himself.

  Daunted but not deterred, I looked closer. All those in the circle displayed evidence of brain injury. Some had paralyzed legs, some were blind, some were deaf. Some were quadriplegic.

  My average frame looked downright Charles Atlasesque next to some of the weakened bodies I saw before me.

  This was one of the rare occasions when I didn’t wear my contact lenses, so my view was slightly obscured by the scratches on the thick lenses in my Buddy Holly frames.

  The glasses accentuated my fleshy nose while downsizing my large eyes, which were widening in horror as I took time to look closely at everyone gathered there.