I’m lying there staring at the smoke alarm. The two blinking red lights are the only indication that time is in fact, moving. I move around my head gingerly to see if there is any movement. My neck is stiff but I can move my head to one side. I feel my face and my neck. Phew, no tubes. I take a gulp and my throat works like it is supposed to. I let out a little “eeeee” to check if I still have my voice. Affirmative. This means the surgery went well.

But hold on. I think I’m jumping the gun a bit here. Let’s go back to November 2021. I was on my usual morning bike ride and I stopped for coffee and banana cake. And I collapsed. Just lost consciousness. I woke up to a crowd surrounding me and a policeman splashing water on my face. My friend Gogo supported me up and I got hold of my bearings. And then I started passing out again. I’m not even 30, with no known comorbidities and here I am losing consciousness twice in under a minute. Gogo rushed me back home and we rushed to my eye doctor.

Why eye doctor you ask? Well, it’s a long story but the gist is this- I was being treated for Idiopathic Intercranial Hypertension for a while. This is a condition where the pressure in the brain increases to a point where the afflicted can go blind. It’s not an eye popping kind of blind, more like years of “oh god am I going blind” till the answer is one day yes. Oh and it also causes ringing in the ears, nausea and headaches. I was lucky to not have any major symptoms, but I was nevertheless put on Diamox. On the bright side, I could claim that I had mountaineer blood.

A week after I was taken off the Diamox for good, I collapsed. So naturally the ophthalmologist was the first port of call. You know, correlation and causation. But apparently my collapsing had nothing to do with brain pressure. Thus began the wild goose chase. An MRI revealed that there was a lesion in my neck, which was blocking flow of blood. You mean to tell me that I was operating on low blood flow for years? I would be truly unstoppable with full blood flow.

Most doctors I met were convinced that the lesion was something called a Schwannoma, a benign tumor which is nothing to worry about. Kinda like a harmless friend who lives in your neck. To ascertain it was indeed a Schwannoma, my case was reviewed by something called a “Tumor board”. Possibly the most depressing board in the world, the Tumor board is a board of doctors who get together and discuss cases and come to treatment decisions. The board concluded that it was a Schwannoma, the good one. Despite the very eminent board concluding that it was the good one, the fact is that we cannot accurately diagnose tumors with scans. Experts can just make educated guesses based on appearance.

The failsafe method of diagnosing tumors is a biopsy. One of the many doctors we had consulted during the tumor pilgrimage had used the ‘c’ word which had begun to weigh rather heavily on us. So we decided to perform a biopsy to know for sure if I had capitalism. We decided to go for a CT guided needle biopsy. On the appointed day, the neuroradiologist would plunge a needle into my neck to extract a sample of the offender while being guided by CT scan. The caveat- I had to stay completely still because the slightest movement could send the needle where it’s not supposed to be causing serious damage. I finally had my bond torture moment.

Interestingly, the patients are not informed about the potential complications of a procedure till the last minute. This might be in the best interests of the patient, because knowing about the complications might lead to the patient backing out from a necessary procedure. However, learning about the complications just before means that the patient goes into the procedure playing out all the possible ‘what if’ scenarios. To the doctor’s credit, the procedure was textbook perfect and we got what we needed to determine if I had something dangerous.

The next few days were spent thinking about everything but the results of the biopsy. And then the news came. I definitely did not have a Schwannoma. What I did have was something called a ‘chondroid chordoma’ which is a slow growing, dangerous and rare tumor. Google it if you like. On the plus side, my fears of being mediocre were unfounded now that I had a special tumor. Now what? Well the good thing is that now we had a clear path ahead. Common consensus was that the tumor had to be removed. Since it was still early stages, removing the tumor now meant a good long term prognosis.

It was time to pick the A team. The team that could go in and perform the extraction without causing any damage. How does one choose a surgeon? Is instinct good enough? After weighing different options and a lot of research, we narrowed down on a team of two neurosurgeons with great Google ratings. Now the ball was out of my court and all I had to do was prepare for my surgery. How does one prepare for brain surgery? For me, it was doing things which made me happy. In the days leading up to the surgery, I spent time with family, friends and my partner. I ate good food, listened to music and cycled.

And just like that, it was the week of. I went to the hospital to hand over my papers for insurance only to find that my fancy insurance wasn’t going to help because apparently tumors can wait. They told me this while trying to sell me a top up. It wasn’t the first time I felt nauseous that week. More bizarrely, another hospital called me to ask if I would consider having the surgery in their hospital instead. Creepy. Anyway, finances sorted thanks to office insurance, I was now finally ready to be opened up like a can of Heinz.

The day before. I checked into the hospital. They gave me a twin sharing room with what could only be a toy bed for the attendant. Maybe the attendants are supposed to be awake to pay attention to the patient. Genius. I broke the visiting hours rule much to the chagrin of hospital security. I know. I know. Rules make society more livable. But am I a criminal for wanting to spend time with my loved ones before a major surgery? They weren’t going to see me for an entire day after my surgery.

So the plan was this- I would go under for 12 hours while the doctors performed a very complicated surgery. I would enter knowing fully well that I might come out with a tube down my throat or a hole in my neck. “Theoretical risk to life“ said the consent form they made me and my dad sign. In the hours leading up to the surgery, I listened to music to pump me up. If you saw my playlist, you’d think I was about to enter a boxing ring. The Rocky theme song and Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive “ make for great surgery music by the way. I’m not a religious man but I chanted a mantra. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. Any Dune fans here?

Finally the nurse walked in and said the words, “Sir, OT”. I would like to say that I had some profound realisation as I was wheeled away, but no, it was mostly just fear. Raw unadulterated fear. To the hospitals credit, they did a really great job distracting me. I remember the anesthetist and his assistant talking to me about my facial hair and my tattoos while some people in scrubs ran around. I also remember a lot of beeping. Then I woke up in the ICU. Not sure what this says about me, but the first thing I asked was if my face was fine. It is my money maker after all. I had made it, face and faculties intact. I don’t remember much, except for seeing my loved ones and the excruciating boredom. I kept staring at the clock hoping that I could make the numbers move.

The next day I was in the ward. A model patient. As the next few days proved to me, the surgery was the easy part because I was asleep through it. You can’t vomit if you’re asleep, can you? The next few days were mostly filled with vomiting, trying to walk, vomiting, the doctors telling me to walk and me not being able to walk because vomiting. They put me on IV because everything I ate or drank left my body like I was trying to sell it insurance. But the doctor said I needed it. Just some good old light hearted body shaming. After four days of this, I begged my family to take me home.

As I write this lying in my bed, I feel much better. I’m eating again, walking and I’m back to work. Recovering from such surgeries can take months so I’m doing spectacularly. This is the best possible outcome. I didn’t just write 1500 words to talk about my experience. There’s a lesson to be learnt somewhere in here. Don’t trust insurance might be the main one. If you’re still here, want my Netflix password ? You can take away what you like, but for me the 10 Fast and Furious movies make sense now. It’s all about Family. My family has nursed me back to health like I’m a fragile little bird that has fallen off a tree. They have washed me, fed me and spent every waking (and sleeping ) moment with me. If you’re fortunate enough to have an amazing family like I do, hold them close.

Another thing I learnt from this experience was the importance of faith. Faith in gods, faith in science, faith in your employer, faith in something. So many people prayed for me. Mantras, duas, pujas, the whole arsenal. My kind neighbor even got me holy water from the mosque behind my house, which I drank dutifully for a week. With all this, how could I enter that operating theatre unblessed? As the kids say, I was too blessed to be stressed. I’m still not a religious man, but I have faith. Faith that everything will be alright in the end. At no point during this journey did I believe that something bad would happen to me. Like the watchman from 3 idiots, I told myself “All izz well”. How’s that for a happy ending?

If I were looking for words to describe a rite of passage, I would definitely not have chosen nausea and seasickness. But these are the best words to describe the ticking off of a bucket list item for me. It all began one hot early summer day in Puducherry. I was walking about looking for something to do when I saw a sign advertising scuba diving. I have always been curious about scuba, so on a whim, I (excuse the pun), took the dive. An hour later, I was squirming into the largest wet suit they had available, wondering if I should have taken a baking class instead.

Basic training , or pool training as the professionals call it, involves mastery of a few basic underwater maneuvers such as clearing your ears, removing water from your goggles and recovering your breathing apparatus. An hour later, I felt like Poseidon, ready to take the plunge! (Sorry)

Day two- the day of the dive. I woke up early and wandered the streets of Puducherry looking for a light breakfast. I wanted to prepare for a stomach churning boat ride so I sought out some idlis. Don’t think croissants would fare too well at sea. Idlis consumed, I set out to the dive office on foot, listening to some music to pump myself up. What do divers listen to? Black Sabbath I’d imagine. I settled for John Legend. The words "my head’s under water but I’m breathing fine" seemed comforting given the circumstances.

Before I knew it, I was at the dive agency, collecting my wetsuit. This time around, I managed to get into it with much less squirming. I then found myself wrestling with the decision of whether or not to have a coffee before my dive. Coffee being a diuretic, could complicate things in a wetsuit, but needing the bathroom is probably the least of your worries underwater, so I hit that espresso button on the coffee machine.

Caffeinated, I was ready for that much dreaded boat ride . The fact that they gave us all seasickness pills on the way out did very little to calm the nerves. After a zippy ride in a clown car, we arrived at the jetty where our boats were anchored. A little morale boosting and we set foot on a small motorboat, our Ark. The dive site was eight kilometres off shore, which meant a twenty five minute boat ride. What it really meant was twenty five minutes of 'Will I' or 'Won’t I' as I saw my co passengers succumbing to the chop, one gut wrenching hurl at a time. It took a lot of focus and clenching , but we finally reached the dive site, a bigger, even shakier boat with the contents of my stomach intact.

After making the precarious transfer from small boat to bigger boat, it was finally time to hit the water. Or so I thought. But turns out, a lot of scuba is just waiting. Waiting while you get to the dive site, waiting while they move what seems like a hundred tanks from one boat to the other and waiting for your turn to be strapped in and weighted up.

At last I was sitting on the edge of the boat, ready to roll backwards into the unknown. One false start later, where I almost fell off the boat, I was finally underwater. And it was sublime. Well, once I began to breathe regularly and figured out how to see underwater. My dive instructor guided me into the depths metre by metre while reminding me to equalise. That’s clearing your ears out, for you non-divers. Once your eyes become accustomed to waterworld, you begin to enjoy the marine life around you.

If I was David Attenborough, I’d tell you I saw so and so species , but I’m not , so I’ll have to settle with yellow fish, stripey fish, silver fish, blue fish, small fish and larger fish. Everything has a magical air down there, including the bubbles coming out of the regulators of divers below you. After posing for underwater photos which make me look way more proficient than I really am, it was finally time to return to terra firma. As I felt the golden rays of the sun get closer and closer, I thought to myself that life would never be the same again. And then I threw up.

As the salt water entered my mouth, I fought a losing battle against the bile exiting my mouth. And just like that, my thus far stoic stance was shattered. Blessed be my instructor, for he assured me that vomiting upon surfacing was completely normal. Fun fact- you can vomit into your regulator too. My now bruised ego was only further hurt when I realised that we had surfaced quite far away from the boat and my instructor couldn’t drag me to the boat by himself. It took two experienced divers and what felt like ten minutes of being yelled at to keep my head up before I finally climbed back on to the boat, terra not so firma.

Heading back to shore, I was overcome with exhaustion. I loaded up on biscuits and bananas, while barely managing to keep my eyes open. Turns out, the human body is so used to breathing through the nose that so much time breathing just through the mouth will put you to sleep. As the boat headed back to shore, I looked around at my fellow divers passed out from exhaustion and promised myself that I would complete my PADI certification so that I could dive deeper and for longer. In retrospect, I know this seems like a story about vomiting , but it’s really about encouraging people to push themselves to try new things. In the words of Anthony Bourdain, “your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

Every story must begin somewhere and this one begins with a book. I recently bought a photography book that rested on the back of my mind for 8 years. It now rests on my bookshelf. Don’t worry, this is not a book review. I don’t use Medium to show off how well read I am. That’s what Instagram is for.

This is a piece about a little cardboard box that came with the book. This box was a rudimentary ticket to another reality. The Google Cardboard viewer allows the user to experience the sights and sounds of the places where the photos were taken. Ofcourse, there are sleeker headsets in the market, but this is the first VR headset that I’ve ever owned.

I had only experienced VR once before, while “watching” a few minutes of jazz at the Grahamstown Arts Festival. It was an exhilarating, albeit disorienting experience.

My second encounter with VR has been eye opening. After visiting South Sudan and Siberia, I decided to watch some videos not associated with the book. Man, was it life changing. That little cardboard box allowed me to live out some of my childhood dreams.

One of those dreams was to be an astronaut. I am a huge history buff and one of my favourite topics is the Cold War Space Race. There’s something wildly interesting about the thought of two powerful nations competing to lay claim to the final frontier. There’s also the stuff about coups and invasions, but let’s not get distracted.

The VR viewer allowed me to place myself in the shoes or rather moon boots of an astronaut from the USSR about to launch into space from the Baikonur cosmodrome. For a brief moment in time, I got to experience what it’s like to go on a spacewalk. I must say, the blue marble looks stunning even if it’s been digitally recreated. I’m sure it doesn’t feel anything like a real spacewalk, but because I’m not a multimillionaire, this will have to do.

As someone working in the educational technology industry, VR is revelatory. A big part of my job is telling stories which can inspire and educate at the same time. Imagine being at the Battle of Plassey, instead of reading about it or hearing about it. Imagine sitting in on a session of the parliament or diving into the Mariana Trench.

There are ofcourse many practical considerations to keep in mind, such as production and technology costs, but the education technology industry is increasingly well funded. From a layman’s perspective, investing in changing the way students experience education seems worthwhile.

In my view, technology should not be exclusionary. The biggest challenge then is to ensure that technological advancements do not exacerbate the effects of the income gap. Perhaps we can take some inspiration from the cardboard box.

The potential of Kenyan startups has not gone unnoticed, with Kenyan startups clinching around $428.91 million in funding in 2019. Fintech and Agritech attracted the most investments, which has been the trend for several years. A budding entrepreneur looking to take off in the Kenyan startup space will find support from a variety of players offering everything from coworking spaces to incubation to investment. For example, Nailab is a business incubator that offers tech entrepreneurs business advice, training, mentorship, access to markets, partnerships and investors. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba group has chosen Nailab to run his Africa Netpreneur Prize, which will support African entrepreneurs working to solve Africa’s most pressing problems. Nailab is just one of the many incubators which entrepreneurs can turn to give wings to their dreams. Nairobi, the capital city also holds multiple competitions and conferences where entrepreneurs can interact with peers, industry leaders and compete for funding.

Though the outlook for Kenyan startups looks promising, there are some issues that need to be addressed so as to ensure a conducive environment. The 20th Edition of the World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update released in 2019 offers some insight into some of the challenges Kenya faces. According to the report, Kenya will only be able to keep up with the pace of global technological innovation if policies and regulations are put in place to support digital transformation. In addition, Kenya also faces a significant digital divide, with only 44 percent of urban population having access to the internet. The divide is even wider in rural areas, with only 17 percent of the population being connected. The situation is further exacerbated by poor digital literacy. Hence, if startups are to truly thrive in Kenya, some major policy interventions are the need of the hour. If you’re interested to know more about the startup ecosystem in Kenya, ventureburn has all the information you need.