Also Attending Were Those Listed On The Meeting Attendance Sheet, Which Is Attached: Fill & Download for Free

Warning #1: Long answer. 2900 words. Read later if you are busy, or skip if you are not interested.Warning #2: Contains some graphic images of dog, cat and snake meat which some of you may not like to see.The question is “What is it like for an Indian to visit South Korea”Answer: Depends on the Indian, not on South Korea.For me it was a fascinating, novel experience. I am recounting below what it was for me only, and not generalizing on how it will be for any other Indian.This is merely a travelogue with some impressions. Memories are not fresh. This was about 24 years ago. There is no useful information for those interested in knowing more about the country. Skip reading if you have more expectations.This was my first trip abroad, and it opened up a whole new world and exposed me to the glories of the Far East.For too long, we Indians have been dazzled by the west. Going to “phoren” conjures visions of London, Paris, Switzerland, USA, Dubai, etc. for most common middle class Indians. Somehow, middle class Indians don’t seem to think that other countries are ‘phoren’ and don’t attach glamour to travels to the East of the globe.It was 1993. I was a senior Structural Engineer and group leader in my Company.We were privileged to be associated with an Off Shore oil platform project and the fabrication contract for the platform had been awarded to Samsung Heavy Industries, in South Korea. They were massive steel structures involving 4 platforms, each with about 3000 tonnes of steel. The platforms were being fabricated and assembled and then towed by a barge all the way from Korea to the Arabian sea just off the coast of Mumbai and erected in position. The client was ONGC, India.By rotation, my colleagues and I were sent there to monitor the progress of the work, interpret the drawings, make modfications and advise in case of difficulties, oversee the fabrication, expedite progress, inspect the finished structure and give a report to our client. We acted as on site representatives of the client.The contractor (Samsung Heavy Industries) was carrying out the works at their ship building yards at Geoje, an island off the southern coast. It is marked by the red spot in this map from Google Maps. The nearest airport was Busan.I travelled via Kolkata, Bangkok, and landed in the capital Seoul and later took a local flight to Busan in the South and then travelled by road to the island that was linked to the main land by a road bridge.Samsung had hired an apartment for us which I shared with other colleagues from other disciplines. They provided us to and fro transport every day from our apartment to the project site. We cooked our own food and had carried with us some provisions and spices and we bought locally available vegetables, fruits, rice, flour, eggs and milk and survived.This was the apartment building we lived in.If you watch closely you can see me and my colleague standing in the balcony on the lower floor.Here is a close-up view. I am on the left. My hair used to be black then.Below is a view of the smaller apartment blocks in our neighborhood as viewed from our balcony. Cars were parked in the street. There were no garages where we lived.Does it look any different from what we see in India?Below is how our drawing room looked. You can see me watching TVBy the way, that bottle is not mine. I did not drink any of its contents. I had a tough time convincing my wife after my return when she saw this picture.Below is a picture of me in our kitchen.Below is a picture of me and my colleague boarding the Samsung Bus to go to the project site.This was the project site. You can see the structural elements under fabrication.Below is the superstructure of the offshore platform that was being fabricated.Below is a picture of me standing on the helipad of one of the platforms with the other platforms in the background.Below is another picture of me posing for picture while on duty.Below you can see me with a ship in the background, that was almost finished.I am on the extreme right. With me are my colleagues who handled Electrical and Mechanical engineering. I was the structural engineer.Life was monotonous. We had a hurried breakfast, rushed to the bus pick up point to catch the bus in time, and got dropped back home in the evening.Two of the biggest problems for us were language and food.There was no time given to us to pick up even the basics of the Korean language and since we knew we would stay just for 3 months, we had no incentive to put in any effort to learn. Besides, in the office, we were given the services of an interpreter. But this nice charming young girl wasn’t too good at English. Since no one else knew better English, she stood out from the rest and was attached to us for the duration of the project. My experience with her was that she easily translated my English into Korean for the benefit of the Korean staff there but struggled to translate their Korean sentences into understandable English for me. She would often pull out a dictionary which she carried with her always.I once asked her, who lived in some seemingly sparsely inhabited islands surrounding our island. She struggled for some time, flipped some pages in her dictionary and finally came out with ‘poor fish-catch-men’. She meant poor fishermen.I was her favourite. No wonder. She latched on to me so that she could learn English from me. “How do you speak English so fast?” she would often ask admiringly and would look at me with eyes filled with wonder when I spoke fluently with the Americans and Britishers in project meetings while her Korean colleagues struggled to communicate in English and let out their words slowly one at a time. She was fascinated to find me not overawed by these white skinned westerners!At my request she prepared and typed out a list of words and expressions in English and Korean side by side and gave us a copy. These words were ‘what is the price?’ Where ? How much. What? Good morning. Thank you. Rice, Milk, Sugar, bread, Eggs, etc, 1, 2, 3, … up to 10, followed by 20, 30 … up to 100. Sunday, Monday…, Here, there, up, down, near, far etc.In the markets, streets, and shops, and other public places, no one spoke English. We used sign language and gesticulated, and when convenient, we would fish out this sheet of paper our interpreter had given us, and point to the English word and the Korean would read the Korean word written alongside and understand. At the vegetable market we would point to the vegetable we wanted and the vendor would enter the price on the calculator and show us the display.The currency was the Korean Won, and I remember one US dollar was about 700 to 800 Won at that time and it fluctuated daily. Our company gave us an allowance of 36 US dollars per day to live on. We could manage comfortably on this amount and also pay the rent for the apartment.For a vegetarian like me, food was a major problem. I just could not eat in any restaurant on a daily basis. The food in restaurants was ‘ultra non veg’. In India, the non veg guys usually prefer to eat vegetarian animals that feed on grass except perhaps for chicken. Except in Kerala and the Northeastern states they don’t eat beef. But here even non vegetarian animals are part of the diet. Fish and sea food was common. Everything smelt of garlic. They did not use oil. They cooked in sauce. Parties were frequent. At the drop of a hat, they would announce a party and invite us to join them. The occasions could be anything. Someone’s girl friend’s birthday, was one such occasion where I was persuaded to attend. My non veg friends had a great time, eating dog and cat meat while I munched on vegetable salad and helped myself to more ice cream. They had prepared something that looked like biryani and I decided to eat that till I realized that the attractive red pieces that looked like kismis or tuti frutti, were actually pork pieces.Image Source: Home - The Schizo ChefI would spend several minutes picking them out and putting them in my friends plate and then eat the rest.At a restaurant I once ordered noodles and took great pains to explain to the waiter and the manager that I was a pure vegetarian. He did not understand what that meant. I asked him for a sheet of paper, drew the outline of fish and crossed it out with an X .He understood that I don’t want to eat fish. I then proceeded to draw a crude sketch of a hen, a cow, a goat, a dog a cat, a snake and crossed them out one by one. He grinned at me and nodded that he had understood.What he brought me was a huge bowl of some noodles in sauce. It was delicious and I had downed half of it when another even more fanatic ultra vegetarian friend dining with me asked what some strange pieces floating in the gravy were. I told him to relax and eat it and assured him that while specifying our dietary restrictions to the manager, I had eliminated all the edible animals, birds and fish in the animal kingdom and that, whatever it was, it was purely vegetarian. My pakka vegetarian friend was not convinced and wanted me to take the bowl to the manager and ask what they were. I had already eaten some of them and they had tasted like the flesh of a tender coconut. To keep my friend satisfied, I went to the counter with the bowl of noodles and, pointing to those unfamiliar pieces, asked the manager what they were. The manager smiled cheerfully and fished out the same sheet of paper I had scribbled on a while ago and drew a baby octopus. He then pointed to the tentacles and gestured with his fingers imitating a cut with scissors, indicating that the items were cut pieces of the tentacles of a baby octopus. I had not drawn that so he had not technically defaulted.I merely sighed and muttered ‘Siva Siva’ under my breath and went back to the table and told my friend ‘rehne de, yaar, use mat kha’. (Leave it alone, bro. Don’t eat it.) He demanded to know what they were. I did not want him to retch and throw up there. I kept it a secret from him till we were well out of restaurant and for the next few days he never let me forget how badly I had blundered and let him down! He never trusted me again when we occasionally ate at restaurants.Our Korean colleagues were really amused with our vegetarian habits. One of them frankly asked ‘How do you manage to stay alive if you don’t eat?’ I told him about our grains fruits, and vegetables but they did not consider that as proper nutritious food at all.During some festival days, a Korean friend took us around all the local tourist spots. I loved the Buddhist temples he took us to. They were spotlessly clean and they maintained total silence. The atmosphere was truly conducive to meditation unlike our religious places here in India.Christian churches were common. Western missionaries have been very active. More than half of the population (54 percent? not sure) have already been converted to Christianity. The rest (43%?, not sure) were Buddhists and the balance were the rest. I did not see any mosque there during my stay.In Seoul and Busan (the two major cities I visited) I could see a large number of Americans. The small towns looked like any small town in USA except that the sign boards were in Korean. I saw a large number of American soldiers on the streets of Seoul. I hesitated to ask why. We had been cautioned not to discuss politics.Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, LG were everywhere making anything and everything, just like the brand name Tata in India.I had an opportunity to travel by the Metro in Seoul and it is an awesome city. I visited the stadium where the Seoul Olympics had been held. It was superb. Better than any stadium in India.Roads were of international standards and far superior to anything we have here in India.The internet was unknown at that time but I understand they have the fastest internet in the world now. Cell phones were not invented then but I saw many Koreans sporting pagers and having them strapped to their belts. It was a novelty for us. I could not watch TV in our apartment. They did not telecast any English language channel. I watched Korean TV and understood whatever I could from the visuals. I would usually tune in to the news. There was absolutely nothing about India ever reported. The hottest news in India at that time was about Harshad Mehta having paid Rs 1 crore as bribe to PM Narasimha Rao. Nothing was mentioned about this.I visited large malls in Busan and Seoul and since there were no malls anywhere in India at that time, it was a novel experience. I spent a lot with the surplus dollars from our daily allowance. I had to. If I brought them back to India, I would not be allowed to keep it and the company would have taken it back.The people were friendly and would bow deeply when they greeted us. I did not experience any racism or xenophobia.I learned to say Annyeonghaseyo, which is the Korean equivalent of Namaste and gamsahaminda for Thank you.I had learned a few more words and expressions but have now totally forgotten them.Other customs that I was unfamiliar with were their dining practices.Unlike sitting around a dining table, like us these days in the cities or on the ground sitting cross legged like we do in the villages, they sat on the ground on a carpet around a low centre table.The food and language differences prevented me from getting closer to the Samsung engineers socially, but there were one or two with whom, after more than a month of daily association, I could begin to talk about non technical subjects. I also chatted a lot with our lady interpreter. She was fascinated about only two things in India. One was Bollywood dances and other was our caste system. Our notoriety on this Indian division of society, had already preceded us. She hardly realized it was impolite to ask someone’s caste and whenever she saw or was introduced to an Indian, she would look at me and ask if he belonged to 1? or 2? or 3? or 4?You can guess what she meant. She could not pronounce the caste names but had understood the hierarchy. I tried telling her it was not polite to ask but she was insistent. Not that her behaviour towards them was different if the person introduced to her was No. 4, instead of a number 1, but her curiosity was uncontrollable.We had been strictly warned not to discuss politics with anyone and we avoided it totally. But social issues were discussed late during my stay after the ice was broken. The few who could talk better English, finally opened out to me. The one thing they were sore about was the Westerner’s revulsion to their eating habits and the criticism they faced. I often saw graffiti (in English) on the walls of their toilets and urinals where insulting messages in English, were written about their food habits by foreigners.One of them, in a heart to heart discussion, explained that their food habits needed no defending and said that if westerners can eat sheep, goats, cows, what’s the big deal about eating dogs cats and snakes too. All were animals. Who was entitled to say which animal is food and which is not. Either eat any animal that is edible or, if you choose to be a vegetarian, don’t eat any animal.WARNING : POSSIBLY UNPLEASANT PICTURES BELOW. STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE.I nodded my head in sympathy but still could not quite enjoy sights like these in the markets. You need to get used to them. This is snake flesh. I saw plenty of these hanging from the ceiling in the markets much like the carcass of goats are hung from our mutton shops.Image source: Home | Daily Mail OnlineYou can see the snake being cut.Image source: YouTubeBelow are some pictures of dogs and dog meat.Image source: askchange.com, and animal http://guardians.usImage source: Latest Vegan News - Plant Based News - Vegan News, Conscious Living & More and Home | Daily Mail OnlineDisclaimer: These are merely representative. They are not pictures of what I saw in Korea but I did see something similar. Dog and cat meat are consumed in many far eastern Asian countries and these pictures may not be from Korea.I was most unwilling to discuss these sights with my Korean friends.I know how drastic cultural differences can be and it is pointless debating customs which we have lived with for centuries but can never explain satisfactorily to foreigners.I too have faced queries from foreigners who are appalled at some of our Hindu customs. Their favourite question to me is about our caste system and one foreigner once pointed to pictures of Vishnu reclining with a snake hood protecting him, Shiva with a snake coiled around his neck, a picture of Ganesha and Hanuman and told me: “Don’t tell me you people worship not just cows but also elephants and monkeys and also put snakes around the necks of your gods?” He also pointed to a picture of Goddess Durga and Kali with a protruding tongue and asked me to explain. I politely declined. For one thing, I was not competent to do so. And secondly I knew he could not be convinced.There are several more experiences I had but this post has already become too long. I will stop here. You can ask questions on this post in the comments section and I will try to answer them if I can.GV

Bangalore in the early eighties?Sigh!Where should I begin?Okay, here you go. I am writing randomly whatever thoughts and memories flood my nostalgic mind.In the early eighties, I was a young man in my early thirties, a qualified structural design engineer, specialising in the design of steel structures in Industrial buildings, and working for a leading consultancy organisation in Bangalore.Transport in Bangalore:======================The excellent network of bus routes you see today, including Volvos etc, did not exist.You depended on the BTS buses (BMRTC buses were called BTS buses those days. BTS stood for Bangalore Transport Services)Japanese motorcyles were not available. They came during the nineties after the great economic liberalisation introduced by the Narasimha Rao/Man Mohan Singh Combination. Only Ambassadors and Premier Padminis (earlier called Fiats) dominated the roads. The 800cc Maruti came later. Autorickshaws were the only means for private transport but they were not allowed to seat more than two passengers. This was later relaxed to three. The ubiquitous horse drawn Jatkaas around city market, Malleswaram and Chamarajpet and Basavanagudi had just been withdrawn. No cycle rickshaws existed here as in Delhi.New Scooters were available only at a premium price. Vespa and Lambretta were popular. You had to wait for years to book and get a new one.So scooters had a fancy second hand price (More than the new one)Vijay scooter came later. Kinetic Honda made an appearance in the mid eighties and attracted a lot of attention due to the battery operated self starter and the gearless transmission.I used to ride a Yezdi motorcyle (250 cc two stroke engine) that gave me 29 to 30 kms per litre of petrol. I used to get a conveyance allowance of Rs 60 per month. Not bad! Petrol cost only Rs 3.11 per litre when I bought my motor cycle.Those who valued economy, chose the Rajdoot (175 cc, two stroke engine) that gave 40 kms per litre and started rather easily with just one light kick. The Yezdi wallas had to kick harder and more often to get it started. But the chaps say they loved the noise made by the Yezdi and had contempt for the sputter that Rajdoots produced. Most young motor cyclists had contempt for scooter riders and called them "effeminate". But most motorcyclists later switched over to scooters after getting married and having kids and becoming more mature in their thinking!I had bought a brand new Yezdi motor cycle from Haji and Sons at St Marks Road for Rs 6250/- (on the road price) in 1976 and sold it in 1984 for Rs 7000/-We envied the guys who went around on a Bullet. Other than Policemen and the house building contractors (also called "Bullet Maistries") very few ordinary young men rode a Bullet.It was expensive and the mileage was low.In 1983-84, I finally bought a second hand Bullet, just for prestige, not utility. I paid 8000/- and it was cheap because my brother who was emigrating, sold it to me at a discounted price under pressure from my mother. I sold it a year later for just Rs 10,000/- and it was a distress sale because I needed the money urgently. I inserted an ad in Deccan Herald and the day the ad appeared, right at 7 am in the morning, there stood a Bullet Maistry, outside my door with a thousand rupees in cash, and who offered it to me telling me not to sell it to anyone else and promising to bring the rest of the money before noon.The market price was at least 12000/- for a five year old Bullet that had already covered over 60,000 km.Real Estate:===========Banashankari, JP Nagar, and Indiranagar were developing localities. All these Hallis, Sandras, and Puras did not exist and they all remained villages, struggling to cope with modernisation. To be considered as living in a good locality, it needed to be some "Nagar" planned by the BDA.Multi-storied residential apartment complexes could be counted one one's fingers. The few that existed were all commercial. Unity Buildings at JC Road near the town hall was a prestigious landmark, till it was eclipsed by the Public Utility building on MG Road and later by the LIC building near the GPO.People never thought of buying an apartment. That was considered a Bombay life style. Malleswaram started the apartment boom sometime in the nineties. Large sites with owners dead and whose children had emigrated were sold to developers and a new trend started in the nineties and the old sprawling mansions with Mangalore tiled roofs were demolished to make way for Apartments.Till the eighties, people here liked to buy a small plot and build a house of their own. Most middle class homeowners bought a 30'x40' plot and built a small two bedroom, hall and kitchen house. Some put up a stair case outside the house, adjacent to the compound wall and built an upstairs portion usually for letting it out.Many of these houses did not have overhead tanks. Water pressure was sufficient to reach the first floor. BWSSB was doing a great job, supplying Kaveri Water to thirsty Bangalore when the Tippagondanahalli reservoir was found inadequate to meet the city's needs. The overhead tanks came later.Those with better resources opted for 60'x40' sites and built a larger house with a garage too.We had contempt for apartments. We could afford to do so. Plots were available and all locals (Kannadigas) and also outsiders who had lived here for 5 to 10 years were eligible to apply for and be granted a house site at greatly subsidized rates. Land acquisition problems did not exist. Farmers were glad to offer their lands to BDA and litigation was rare. They could see the city expanding towards their fields. They were growing old. Their children did not show interest in agriculture. They saw wisdom in selling when the prices were attractive and they could get in a lump sum much more than what agriculture yielded. Besides many were also given some plots of land after the development, as part of the deal, which they hatched for a few years and sold for much greater prices.In 1978, I had progressed sufficiently in my career to be able to afford to rent an independent house with a sit out, hall , two bedroom, kitchen, and single bathroom and toilet with an attached garage located on a 60'x40' plot in Jayanagar 7th block for Rs 450/- as monthly rent. The house could have fetched more if it had been better planned and if it had had a mosaic floor instead of the commonly used redoxide cement floor. A stair case from the sit out lead us to an open terrace.I lived happily there for 5 years and the rents increased from 450/- to 700/- when I finally vacated it. In 1984, I bought a site from the BDA at an auction in JP Nagar and built my own house. I spent Rs 5 lakhs totally(including the site value) on a two storied house with all modern amenities and finishings and with a built area of 1900 sq feet. HDFC financed a portion of it and the interest rate was 14 percent.Shopping:Malls did not exist. Most of us went to MG road and Commercial Street for fancy shopping and combined the shopping experience with an ice cream treat at Lake View or had our "tindi" at India Coffee house and watched a movie at Plaza, or Galaxy or Rex. You never needed to know Kannada in this part of Bangalore. The middle class locals went to shops around the Majestic area, Chickpet , Balepet. For daily needs the vegetable vendors brought them to our homes, pushing their carts and shouting out the prices of the individual vegetables. In South Bangalore where I have lived all along, those who had a fridge, went to Gandhi Bazaar for vegetables till the Jayanagar shopping complex was finally completed. Large families or groups of families who had cars would go directly to City Market and buy more at better prices and share the purchases.While Nandini Milk was popular, many families with elderly members, who were living with their adult children were not too happy with milk in plastic satchets and chose to get their milk from milkmen who brought the cow to their gates and milked it in their presence. You don't see that happening now.In 1974 when I landed in Bangalore the Jayanagar shopping complex was under construction. The Janata bazaar there (and also the one at Kempegowda Road) were the nearest we had that resembled a department store and it was a novelty for housewives with their kids when they could walk into a shop and explore the shelves, with a trolley and pick up what they wanted. But queues at the payment counter were long. They did not have modern methods of scanning bar codes and preparing and printing bills and of course no credit cards existed so the experience was not so pleasant. The vast majority still patronised the usual "Ganesha Stores" or "Manjunatha Stores" or "Raghavendra Stores" around street corners and each locality had at least one with these standard shop names. Their only competitors were the Muslim Malayalees from Kerala who set up their own chain (popularly called Kaaka shops) and you could identify them easily from the "secular" names displayed on the boards.Usually "National Stores", "Royal Stores" "Simla Stores" etc,Restaurants:None of today's Darhshinis, and Saagars existed. Eating houses were much lesser in numbers. The really famous ones had very modest interiors and were usually called "Bhavans" like Udupi Bhavan, Gopalkrishna Bhavan etc. The Kamaths, and Pais dominated and they monopolised the Grade II eating houses. Their only competition came from the chain of Janatha Hotels all over the city which served the same stuff at prices less than Kamat and Pai restaurants.Some modest and cramped eating houses had established reputations that they frankly did not quite deserve. I never understood why Vidyarthi Bhavan at Gandhi Bazaar and MTR near Lalbag north gate was hyped up so much. I have visited both and at MTR, after those experiences that taxed my patience, I swore never to visit them again. I had no grouse against quality. I admit the stuff they served was superlative and rich in "tuppa" (Ghee) and they served divine coffee in silver tumblers. The coffee might get cold but not the silver cups!But the waiting time to get a seat was killing. It would take more than half an hour sometimes to get a place to sit. What was more irritating was that as I sat enjoying my masala dosa with an appetite aggravated by the long wait, another customer would be waiting right behind my chair and also holding it with one hand as if to say, "This seat is reserved for me and I am going to sit on it as soon as this fellow gets up". While eating I could feel this waiting customer's glare on my back wondering how long I am going to continue sitting and why I was not hurrying up.Half the pleasure of eating out was lost due to these experiences.Theatres and entertainment.Multiplexes did not exist. We had superb movie theatres with great audio at Galaxy, Nartaki, Santosh, Rex, Lido etc and also cheap ones for desi films that did not need all the sophistication.I remember being greatly impressed by the Sound system in the movie McKenna's Gold which I saw at Galaxy.Majestic area had about 21 theatres, (I think) and most of them have been demolished.TV was introduced around 1980 in Bangalore, years after Delhi and Mumbai. There was just one channel in Black and white, and the programs started around 5 pm and the transmission was in Kannada till 8:30 pm. The Kannada news was read out at 7:30 pm. After 8:30 pm, all the regional centers around the country hooked up with Doordarshan Delhi and the programs were in Hindi and English. This caused considerable heartburn in Non Hindi speaking states.TV was free. We had a crude looking antenna on our roof tops that received the signals. DVDs, VCRs, and cable television did not exist. The Ramayana and Mahabharata were telecast by Doordarshan and the streets used to be empty during the telecast and the only other time this happened was when India and Pakistan were playing a cricket Match.Dr Rajkumar was a stalwart who dominated Kannada Cinema. Vishnu Vardhan and the Nag brothers (Late Shankar Nag and Anant Nag also had their own following. Lokesh and Srinath were not so popular. Puttana Kanagal,GV Iyer and others were legendary and Aarti was the leading actress if I remember right.Electronics:Personal computers, laptops, tablets, cell phones etc DID NOT EXIST!Having a landline phone on your table with a direct line, in the office and not having to go through the switch board and having an extension number was a prestigious perquisite for senior executives only. STD calls were rare and expensive. Bosses locked up their phones fearing "misuse" by their subordinates. Even these bosses were required to maintain a register logging all their STD calls and recording the date, time and duration. Imagine if you youngsters were required to do all this today!You will never realise the value of these blessings. Old timers like me have had the rare privilege of being productive professionals who managed to get a lot of work done without these aids and slowly adapted to these modern devices and gadgets and learned to use them. Heck, during the first few years I did all my design calculations using a slide rule. Calculators came later.I was better off than most of my colleagues. I was a computer literate fellow, having learned the new subject called Fortran Programming while doing my engineering studies and I was among the handful of engineers in my organisation who could write a few lines of code to solve simple programming problems. But minicomputers, PCs, did not exist and we used the IBM 360 mainframe computer at Indian Institute of Science. I used to ride my motor cycle all the way from KR Circle (where my office was located) to IISc campus and punch the cards there and submit my deck of cards for processing. I would come back next day to collect my output. Any mistake of even one byte, in the code or in the data would render our effort and trip fruitless and I would have re-punch those cards and resubmit, and return the next day. IISc maintained a queue system for jobs submitted by their customers. They rented out computer time to us. All jobs that could be processed in less than two minutes were called Quick. Those that took more than two minutes but less than 10 minutes were called "Express" jobs and those that took longer were called "Jumbo". Even longer jobs were scheduled during the night shift.Jobs that take a fraction of second today, to process, used to take 5 to 10 minutes those days and sometimes even half an hour.We punched our code and data on cards, and fed them into the card reader of the mainframe computer to get printed output. It was only later that the VDU terminal was invented in the early eighties and soon it rendered obsolete punched card or paper tape input. It also obviated the need for printing the output and we would print on fast line printers only if the output seen on the VDU terminal appeared okay. Terminals displayed in black and white only. Only text and numbers, not images. It was a novel thing those days and the highlight was the introduction of remote processing where the inputs would be received from VDUs and keyboards located at the customer's premises and the processing would be done at IISc's DEC System 10, using modems and telephone lines. The speeds were nothing to boast about but those days we had not known what "broad band" or any band was and any speed was impressive as it saved us a trip to IISc.Slowly minicomputers invaded Bangalore but they were primitive compared to today's laptops. We had 8" floppy disks, (360K capacity) followed by storage mediums for PCs viz 5 1/4" disks with 360 Kilo bytes capacity followed by 3 1/2" floppy disks with 1.44 Mb storage capacity.Just as cars and mobile phones are being advertised today, the eighties saw the advent of the first personal computers in Bangalore and the computer culture spread here faster than at other cities. HCL and Wipro were the main contenders for the top slot and Siva PCs made by Sterling Computers at Chennai (sorry, Madras as it was called those days) who sold the Siva brand of computers, Eiko, Uptron etc offered cheaper competition. The machines were shockingly primitive with barely 64 K to 128K core memory. Our office paid Rs 80,000/- for the first HCL PC we bought. It was "state of the art", a PC-AT (Advanced technology, as it was called) and had a 'whopping" 40 Mb as hard disk storage space and a crude low resolution colour monitor and the memory was an "astonishing" 512K! There was no mouse those days. We used the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate and called up drop down menus using hot keys. Software developers boasted that their software was "user friendly" and "menu driven" in order to beat the competition.The One Mega barrier took some more years to breach and the Giga was simply not even known as a word! Project that price (Rs 80,000/- ) during the early eighties and see it's equivalent in today's prices and you will get an idea how special a computer was. No wonder these PCs were housed in special air conditioned rooms and in my company, the systems department would not allow any of us to enter the computer room with our shoes on. They were the high priests in charge of the machine and treated it as a deity kept in some sanctum sanctorum and would discourage us from using them thinking that we, the country bumpkins, would damage them. Most of us were computer illiterate any way and were easily bluffed into believing all the hype that they trotted out. With just basic knowledge of word processing, and spread-sheeting (using Word Star, and Lotus 123)and an ability to churn out a few lines of simple code in Basic, they posed as systems experts and impressed the top management with tables and reports neatly printed out on the noisy dot matrix printers in vogue then. Our office used these PCs more as glorified typewriters than as computing machines. Bosses were impressed by buzz words like Lotus, Dbase and Wordstar and I lost count of how many times I explained the difference between bit and byte to my boss. He never understood till his retirement!Needless to say, the Internet did not exist. I got introduced to it in the late nineties and my first internet connection at home used the telephone line and the download speed was 4k per second. It was useless for anything except for email without attachments.Other office equipment:The photo copying machine was still very primitive. Xerox was becoming famous. Just as any steel almirah was called a Godrej those days, any photo copy started to be called a Xerox copy. Before their advent, the copying technique had just been introduced and it used some kind of oil that smelt of a mixture of kerosene and machine oil. You had to expose the orginal several times once for each copy and keep the copy sandwiched between two glass sheets with micro fine carbon balls and allow the balls to roll over the sheet to produce a readable copy that smelt for a day of oil before the smell died out. It was a messy affair.More popular was the stencil that could be used instead of plain paper and mounted on the roller of a standard typewriter and then mounted on a "cyclostyling" machine (The Americans called this the mimeographing machine) to produce any number of copies.Telex was the mode of communication between offices for urgent messages. The messages were often received in garbled condition and important words and figures would be typed twice to ensure correct reading. Full stops and commas were written as (STOP) and (COMMA), Figures would be repeated in words and digits to avoid miscommunication.Most of the routine standard communication was in typed letters and posted using Snail mail. The common man used Telegrams for urgent communication. They paid by the word. So standard messages like "Reached safely", "Congratulations" "Best wishes for a happy married life" , "May heaven's choicest blessings be showered on the young couple" etc were given code numbers and these numbers could be quoted to save on expense.The fax machine came much later and create a sensation. Today emails make even faxes look primitive.Routine letters were typed on Manual typewriters (later on electric typewriters) using carbon paper for copies and sent by post or special company couriers for large companies. College Boys and girls during the admission season would be frantically going around looking for "gazzetted officers" who were important because they had the power to "attest" a copy of their mark lists and certificates which were painstakingly typed out. A batallion of typists sat under trees near the Passport office, Registrar's office and other Government departments, typing out documents for customers.Games and socialising:Children played games.They were physically active. Video games were unknown.We, adults, went out and met friends and relatives at their homes and entertained them during return visits. There was no "social media" like Twitter, or Facebook. We spread rumours and indulged in Gossip the old fashioned way using our tongues and hearing gossip with our ears. We laughed cried, joked and quarreled directly not using a computer screen and the internet! TV and internet that has now replaced all live human interaction did not exist. A movie was a special treat to be looked forward to and talked about for days afterwards. A visit to a circus or zoo was a super special treat for the children. Drama had a market and a willing audience.Classical music during Ramanavami was looked forward to.You had asked me about the area near Pallavi talkies, Banashankari and Cubbon park.The present Kempegowda tower there did not exist. The large dome built by L&T housing the indoor stadium did not exist.The direction of traffic movement was totally different. Nrupathunga Road was two way, and so was District office road.Banashankari induced fear! So far away! I thought it was a forest area before I saw it for the first time and felt charmed by the ups and downs and the views of the landscape. The Banashankari temple attracted crowds on certain days and the Kanakapura Road and Bannerghata road was used by us for driving our motorcyles at high speeds for continuous long stretches to recharge our batteries in the motorcycles! Hardly any traffic existed on these roads once you left Jayanagar and rode further south.I could reach Bannerghata National park in twenty minutes from my house in JP Nagar.Cubbon park had practically no encroachments. All roads were two way . None of the entrances was blocked. The Seshadri Memorial library was always full of readers. My kids enjoyed the toy train ride and we often visited Bal Bhavan for attending the programs there. I wonder if any modern kid goes there now.The above is just a limited list of topics that I have chosen to write about.The list of topics I have not written here is even larger but I know your patience is limited and before you run out of it let me stopI thank Chetan Achar who asked me to answer this question.Feel free to ask me anything else you are curious about in the comments section and I will do my best to answer.RegardsGV

Note: this post is very long.My most profound memory was in the winter of 1969. I was four years old. I recall walking in the heavy rain, on my way to play in the mud fields. Suddenly, a thought popped inside my head. It said, “you will not live a normal life.” At the tender age of 4, I had no clue what that revelation meant. It wasn’t until a few decades later did I fully realize that my life would be anything but normal. In fact, my life ended up being a cross between the Twilight Zone and a horror movie.My living nightmare began sometime in the spring of 2013. After binge drinking for four straight days in the Philippines, I woke up and was immediately in a state of disbelief. I looked down and noticed my stomach was as swollen as an 8 month pregnant woman. I was dumbfounded. I blurted out loud, “how can I possibly gain so much weight overnight?” I lifted my bed sheets and noticed several craters on my thighs. A mixture of blood and pus oozed out and ran down my legs. What’s going on here?I rushed to the restroom to clean up the mess. Next, I urinated. The color was rusty looking, a mixture of orange and dark brown. While washing my hands, I glanced in the mirror and gasped. The whites of my eyes and my entire skin was as yellow as a Crayola crayon.I panicked. I knew I had a major medical problem.I immediately rushed to the ER. The nurse drew blood. Next, the technicians performed an MRI and an ultrasound. About an hour later, the doctor sat beside me and regretfully informed me that I’m in the last stage of liver disease-which is liver cirrhosis. He also informed me there is no cure. I immediately begged the doctor, “please tell me I can still drink, please don’t say no!” He bluntly replied, “yes, you can still drink. But if you do, you won’t live longer than three months.”I instantly went into shock. Someone please tell me that I’m dreaming. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life without alcohol. The possibility of death didn’t phase me. My immediate concern was how to get through one day without drinking, let alone remaining sober for the rest of my life.My doctor informed me that he needed to drain the fluid buildup from my abdomen. He inserted a thin plastic tube inside my stomach and sucked out about 9 liters of a fluid that resembled beer. During the procedure, my mind raced for a solution that would allow me to continue drinking. I found none. I felt extremely frustrated. I never battled a problem that had no solution. I felt as though I was sentenced to life in prison without parole, in solitary confinement.Liver cirrhosis is a nasty, relentless, barbarically painful disease with no mercy whatsoever! As you will see, my condition was more severe than others with this disease.As I lay on the hospital bed, I finally realized that the decades of alcohol and drug abuse suddenly caught up with me. It’s time to suffer the consequences. Man up. My instincts told me there’s no way I was getting out of this jam unscathed. Without a doubt, my sentence was going to be extremely long and intensely painful.During my next doctor’s visit, he told me that he strongly recommends I take the next flight back home. He informed me that the Philippines is a developing country and isn’t equipped with advanced medical technology like the U.S. He said if I stayed, I’ll surely die.So, I purchased a ticket for the next flight back home. Prior to departing, I shuffled to the nearest bar. It was July 18th, 2013, my birthday. I told myself this day would be the last time my lips touched a bottle of alcohol. Deja Vu. I’ve said these words countless times before. However, this time was different. My life was in jeopardy.Once inside, I sat alone. I had no desire to speak to anyone. I needed to mourn. I recall being devoid of any emotion. I was wearing a poker face. I gazed at the patrons in the bar. Most of them were laughing and having a good time. However, for some strange reason, their lips were moving, but their voices were silent. The entire bar seemed muted.My mind suddenly focused on something i rarely thought about…death. If I wanted to live, I knew that i must stop drinking. As pathetic as this may seem, a huge part of me didn’t want to stop, even though I knew I would die.However, when confronted with death, my survival instincts kicked in. I refused to die. At 48 years of age, I never had a girlfriend. I never had a family of my own. No, death is unacceptable. This is not how my life is supposed to end.As I gazed at the bartender, I began to reminisce about the first time I took a sip of alcohol. I was five years old-Budweiser in a can. I recall being instantly attracted to the bitter taste and aroma of the beer. To me, drinking alcohol felt as natural as eating a meal when hungry.I recalled the 13 times I got arrested for drug and alcohol related offenses. I remembered getting hooked on heavy drugs, such as PCP, LSD, crack cocaine, heroin, speedballs, and later, meth. For me, alcohol was a stepping stone to using heavy drugs. I finally realized that I have an addictive personality. I don’t know how to live sober.According to https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-use-disorders/genetics-alcohol-use-disorders,alcoholism is genetic. Certain individuals are born with a biological predisposition to alcoholism. My grandfather passed out and was found dead in the gutter from choking on his own vomit.As I sat alone in the bar, I recalled getting my skull bashed in the middle of the street by five gang bangers from south-central L.A., because of alcohol. I remember unsuccessful attempts at committing suicide caused by chronic depression, because of alcohol. I recollected the endless problems I suffered, because of alcohol.And now I am dying, because of alcohol.For the first time in my life, I felt truly helpless. Is this how my life ends? A hopeless alcoholic that spent most of his life in a drunken stupor? I imagined a small crowd of mourners at my funeral, shaking their heads and muttering, “such a waste of life… I pity his poor mother.”Suddenly, a thought popped in my mind. It was a passage to the first step of recovery stated in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I vaguely recalled someone mentioning this step many years ago at an A.A. meeting I was forced to attend: I admitted I was powerless over alcohol—that my life had become unmanageable. I never put much thought to the importance of that principle, until now. This statement-this crucial piece of information described my present situation perfectly. I suddenly realized I hit rock bottom. I finally accepted defeat. Game over Joe.So, I glared at the empty beer bottle in front of me. Tears started to stream down my face. It was finally time to say goodbye to a dreadful habit that I desperately needed and clung onto for the past 35 years. I needed alcohol as much as I need air to breathe.I’m furious, but I don’t know who to blame. I strongly crave alcohol. I miss the taste, the smell, and most of all, the feeling of being drunk. It numbs my mind. It makes me forget. It temporarily diminishes my childhood trauma-if only for one day. Being in a stupor is where I’m most comfortable. Sadly, I’d much rather lock myself in my room and guzzle a 12-pack than go on a world cruise.Drugs and alcohol are my escape from reality. When I’m drunk, I’m lost in a world of fantasy. Every traumatic memory I ever experienced miraculously vanished.Alcohol is my best friend. A substitute for a girlfriend. A replacement for a father who never acknowledged or accepted my birth, or existence. A father who locked me in my room like a prisoner throughout my childhood so I couldn’t witness him performing unspeakable acts upon my younger sister.About age 8, I recall my mother bringing my meals to my room because my father couldn’t stand the sight of my face. His nostrils would flare, and his eyes would bulge whenever I dared to glance at him. I feared this stranger in front of me. It wasn’t until years later that my sister informed me the reason that my father locked me in my room is because he didn’t want me to catch him in the act and call the police.As a child, I used to sneak out of my room and lay down in the hallway to watch T.V. while the rest of my family watched from the living room. At best, I felt deprived. At worst, I felt sub-human. I had no self-esteem.I knew once I stopped drinking, I’d no longer be able to mask my pain. I’ll be forced to confront my demons head on. There will be nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. I knew it would require a tremendous amount of courage to fight back, instead of flee.In addition, I had another problem. How would I possibly adjust to sober living? Alcohol and drugs were the only thing i knew. What would I do every day? Most important, how would I react to the psychological and physical cravings? I had just about every cause for alcoholism. I knew I had a massive uphill battle.Before boarding the plane back to the US, an airline rep took one look at my face and was startled. She said I resembled one of the characters from an old horror film she saw, Dawn of the Dead.She immediately sent me to get checked out by the airline physician. She said for security reasons, the airline must ensure I was healthy enough to endure a 15- hour flight. I was frightened because I remembered what the doctor told me about the lack of medical technology in the Philippines. Somehow, I managed to persuade her that I wasn’t a risk.When I returned to the U.S., my condition worsened. For the next three years, I suffered the following problems: nausea; dizziness; vomiting; flu-like symptoms; anemia; insomnia; swollen feet, ankles and calves; Hepatitis C; type 2 diabetes; kidney failure; several abdominal infections; two hernias; gallstones; whole body itching; permanent loss of body hair (except scalp, armpit and facial hair); a constant metallic taste in my mouth; jaundice; sluggishness; bruises on my arms and legs; craters in my cheek bones and neck; burning nerve pain in my feet and ankles; swollen, burning lips; excruciating abdominal pain; severe weight loss (I went from 235 lbs. to 136 lbs.); swollen belly; uncontrollable bowel movements; diarrhea; anxiety; paranoia; massive hallucinations so intense that I fell into a coma three times; brain damage; muscle atrophy; severe leg, feet and ankle cramps; extreme fatigue; shortness of breath; and sharp “stabbing” pains all over my body. I never imagined such a dreadful disease existed with so many symptoms and so much pain!Imagine having all of these symptoms for three years straight. Imagine having only one of these symptoms, such as the flu for 3 continuous years. After a few months, I could no longer stand the pain. I wanted out.On three different occasions, I begged my doctors to permanently put me under. They stared at me with a somber look on their faces, said nothing, turned around and walked away. I cursed them to end the suffering. However, there was nothing the doctors nor anyone else could do. If a liver is more than 75% impaired, the damage is irreversible and irreparable. A liver and kidney transplant was my only option- if I was lucky enough to receive one, and if I was fortunate enough to be alive when the organs are delivered.Unfortunately, there was no guarantee I would be gifted new organs. According to the American Liver Foundation (The Facts About Liver Transplant: Survival Rates, Statistics, and More), there are approximately 16,500 people in the US on the waiting list. However, only about 8,000 liver transplants are performed each year. As a result, thousands of people die waiting for a transplant. Remember, I not only needed a liver, but a kidney as well.Another amazing fact about the liver is that it has over 500 functions. No wonder I had so many problems.I recall never feeling warm. I was anemic. Even during the summer, I would wear a tee shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, two sweaters, a jacket and wrap myself with a heated terry cloth blanket. No matter how many clothes I wore, I felt like my bones were locked inside my freezer. The chill was relentless and refused to go away.Liver cirrhosis may also cause mass confusion. Often, my mind was in La La land. There were many instances when I couldn’t recall my name, who I was, where I was, or what year it was. Every time I went berserk, the EMT’s asked me what year it is and who is the current president of the U.S. I usually replied, “1948. Bill Clinton. That’s my final answer!”My hallucinations were caused by a condition known as Hepatic Encephalopathy (Clinical Features of Hepatic Encephalopathy). This state of mind occurs when the liver loses its capacity to filter toxins from the bloodstream. As a result, massive amounts of poisons flowed through my blood and into my brain. This phenomenon caused me to become delirious and instantly transform into a madman. At higher toxicity levels, coma and even death may occur.In late 2013, I had the scare of my life. At the time, I was living alone in the Philippines. My muscles were so weak, I couldn’t get out of bed for four days. Consequently, I couldn’t get to the fridge for water. I kept screaming for someone to help me. Because the walls were made of cinder block, I was met with silence.Since my parents hadn’t heard from me, they were worried and called the local Red Cross in Long Beach, CA. The Long Beach office contacted the Manila, Philippine branch for assistance.Suddenly, I heard my front door burst open. A doctor, nurse, a Red Cross volunteer and my landlord appeared at my bedside. I was briefly examined, then rushed to the ER. I hadn’t drunk water for four days. I was so dizzy, my bedroom was spinning in circles. The ER doctor informed me that a human can go without water for about 4–5 days max. If it wasn’t for my parents and the Red Cross’s quick response in coordinating my rescue, I may not be alive today.During my three year waiting period for new organs, I had to endure barbaric pain cold-turkey. The doctors refused to give me morphine or any other mind altering pain meds. They gave me two reasons why. One, my liver was so damaged, they were afraid I would die since opiates damage the liver. Two, they knew I was an addict. No need for further explanation. I was prescribed only small doses of Ibuprofen, which did nothing to alleviate my pain.In December 2013, my kidneys started to fail. They were attempting to help my liver flush out the toxins. But the help was done in vain. It was simply an overload. As a result, I was put on dialysis. My blood was cleaned via machine 3x a week for two and a half years.In addition, my body failed to eliminate urine. As a result, i didn’t urinate for about 15 months. All the fluids I drank remained in my abdomen. This fluid retention is known as Ascites (Ascites - Liver and Gallbladder Disorders - Merck Manuals Consumer Version).Every 9–10 days my stomach swelled like a balloon. As a result, my abdominal organs would suffocate from the weight of the fluid. Consequently, I experienced massive abdominal pain. It felt like an elephant stomped on my stomach over and over and refused to let up. Every 10 days or so, I made a trip to the ER to get the fluid drained.In addition, I suffered a constant shortness of breath due to fluid retention. I recall keeping my mouth wide open. I constantly gasped for air until my jaws ached. I felt like a fish out of water.Ascites is a catch 22. If I drank fluids, I suffered massive abdominal pain. If I didn’t drink fluids, I would dehydrate.My most painful experience was after my liver and kidney transplant. My surgery took about 17 hours. As a result, hundreds of jagged shaped blood clots roamed through my veins and ended up settling at the tip of my penis. The nurses had to extract them. Not only was I dripping blood everywhere, it stung when I urinated.For the next 14 days, every two hours around the clock, the nurses removed the blood clots via a mechanical pump. A plastic tube the diameter of a drinking straw was attached to the pump. The nurse shoved the tube inside my penis and sucked out the blood clots. My eyes bulged and my face turned beet red. The pain was so excruciating, I thought I would faint.I shoved a small cloth towel in my mouth praying it would reduce the pain. I bit down so hard, I actually made holes in the towels. You have no idea how sensitive the inside of a penis is. Shoving a tube inside a penis feels like ripping off a finger nail and repeatedly stabbing the top of the skin with a sharp knife!I repeatedly screamed, “what the hell did you get yourself into!?” If this isn’t hell, I don’t know what is.Financially speaking, I lost everything. I made a small fortune just prior to the mortgage meltdown of 2008 as a real estate broker and lost it all. I was forced to move to the ghetto because of loss of income and astronomical medical expenses (1.8M and counting).One day, prior to my transplant, my stepfather visited me. He suddenly collapsed right in front of the nursing station from a heart attack. The doctors said it was probably from all the stress. The doctors kept telling my parents I probably wouldn’t make it, so I’m sure that was a contributing factor.I felt so helpless. I didn’t know if my step-father or myself would survive. I was terrified at the thought of who would take care of my mother if either of us passed. She is old and there are just the three of us. Shortly after I was diagnosed with cirrhosis, my stepfather quit his job and didn’t work for 4 years. He stopped working to help my mother care for me.Since my mother is old, my stepfather didn’t want her to be my sole caregiver. I was a handful, to put it mildly. It took around the clock supervision to care for me. I would constantly scream in the middle of the night from either scorching pain, cramps or hallucinations of death and mayhem.Speaking of hallucinations, they were absolutely bizarre. They’re worse than nightmares. Unlike a nightmare, you’re awake during a hallucination. In my mind, it didn’t feel real, it was real.My hallucinations felt similar to a bad PCP trip. Initially, I felt light-headed. Mass confusion would shortly follow. Soon after, my eyes became fixated on an object, usually the wall in front of me. The texture of the walls suddenly began to float like drifting clouds. I knew what was coming next.Every time I hallucinated, I became temporarily blind. My parents would hover over me and suddenly, they faded to black. I could hear them shouting at me, but I couldn’t see them. It seemed like they were a million miles away. Soon after, my brain felt like it was fried. I could actually hear the sizzle sound traveling around in my brain. It reminded me of the old commercial with the eggs in the frying pan, “this is your brain on drugs.” I would get down on my hands and knees and began to aimlessly crawl everywhere. One time I crawled outside and ended up in the middle of the street. Cars honked, but didn’t stop to help. Welcome to the ghetto.Shortly after, I would mumble incomprehensible words. My house and everything inside it felt like it was shrinking. I felt claustrophobic. I believed my house was trying to swallow me whole.In order to fight back, I usually became defiant. I shouted obscenities. I bashed picture frames. I kicked down our Christmas tree, ornaments flew everywhere. Finally, my mind completely vanished and I fell unconscious. Back to the ER-again.Every time my toxin level skyrocketed, I had a horrendously bad trip. One elder ER doctor that treated me told my mother he never seen a patient with such a high toxin level. He said that normal ammonia levels are between 15–45. My toxin level that day was 503!In the winter of 2015, my hallucinations increased in occurrence and intensity. Due to my failing organs, my ammonia levels were through the roof. Both organs were on their last leg. There are five organs responsible for eliminating toxins, and the liver and kidney do most of the work.I don’t remember the vast majority of my hallucinations, but I do recall a handful.Once when I was laying in the hospital bed, I heard a constant hissing sound deep inside the walls. Inside my warped mind, I was convinced that the hospital walls was infested with snakes. I looked around, but didn’t see any nurses. I couldn’t understand why the hospital staff wasn’t doing anything about it.I began to feel claustrophobic. It felt as though the hospital was shrinking. I knew any minute the snakes were going to burst through the drywall and swarm me. I panicked. Since nobody else was doing anything about it, I knew I had to get rid of them.So, I pulled out all the wires, tubes and the IV needle in my arm, grabbed my walker and wobbled down to the cafeteria. Next, I headed to the back of the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife and began cutting out the hospital walls. I was on a mission. Pieces of drywall were flying everywhere. People stared at me as though I had lost my mind. Security rushed and tackled me. I ended up in restraints- one of 17 times during a three-year period.Another time, I believed my sitting nurse was an alien trying to kidnap me and take me to a distant planet. This guy was intimidating. He was muscular, about 6′3′’, 270 lbs. He constantly glared at me. I saw a syringe in his left hand filled with what I believed to be poison. I could see clear liquid drops splattering on the tile floor.My “kidnapper” had an identical twin brother positioned parallel, about five feet to his left. He was also grasping a poison-filled syringe. They somehow managed to communicate to each other not through words, but via thoughts. It was the silent communication that terrified me. I wanted to run, but my muscles were paralyzed.Neither of them ever spoke a single word. They both were stoic. They constantly glanced at each other, then glared back at me. I sensed they were discussing which one was going to put me under. It was freaking me out.I screamed so violently. Nurses rushed in my room. I bit everything and anyone within reach. Security and hospital staff had to restrain me. Without fail, about 30 minutes later the tranquilizer they injected into my veins wore off and I found myself strapped to the bed frame with a rubber ball in my mouth.Another time, I was convinced that several of my male nurses were posing as DEA agents. In my warped mind, they were working an undercover sting. The upper brass dispatched the agents to the hospital to arrest me. The DEA suspected me of assisting the Colombians by developing strategic drug smuggling routes to the U.S.As I glanced at the waiting room television, I witnessed DEA agents running through the hospital infrastructure with German Shepherds in tow, trying to find me. Also, the “DEA agents’’ surrounding me wouldn’t stop staring at me. I kept screaming, “why do you have to disguise yourself in nursing uniforms? Just arrest me if that’s what you’re here to do!”Paranoia had kicked in. Ironically, I looked for the biggest nurse I could find. I waited until he wasn’t looking. Then, like a hungry tiger hunting for prey, I crouched behind him and pounced. I held him in a headlock. Then, I tilted my upper body backwards and slammed him to the ground. I told him if he moved I would kill him.Next, I stripped off my hospital gown. I wrapped it around his neck and proceeded to choke him. The intake nurse at the front desk frantically called security. When they arrived, I threatened them to back off. I said I would choke the “DEA agent” to death if they got too close. They took one look at my face and froze.I recall feeling like an absolute madman. I was in a rage. My eyes bulged and I started hissing. My veins popped out and my facial expression looked like Charles Manson’s when he was pissed off. I remember possessing this enormous amount of strength. I had no idea where it came from. I was cursing at everyone. It was me vs. the world, kill or be killed.Why was everyone out to get me? What could I have possibly done wrong to deserve this? Why am i going insane? My toxin levels were through the roof.I recall the presence of doctors, nurses and hospital staff in the background. For the most part, the doctors appeared calm. However, a few of the nurses became hysterical. Security was ranting on their walkie talkies. About 6–7 minutes later, a handful of cops stormed through the hospital doors. They immediately ordered me to release the “DEA agent.” I refused, so they pulled out stun guns.I kept hearing a doctor asking the police not to shoot. He informed them of my condition. Soon after, my hallucination began to wear off. I slowly loosened my stranglehold on the nurse. Next, the cops ordered the poor nurse to slowly walk away from me. Then, the police started barking orders. They told me to turn around and kneel down. After that, they ordered me to place my hands behind my head, and to interweave my fingers. Finally, they cautiously approached me and proceeded to handcuff me.Two security guards and a technician arrived with a gurney. They lifted me up. The police immediately uncuffed me and re-cuffed both my wrists to the side bars, one arm at a time. The guards wheeled me to the ER. A few minutes later, a nurse injected me with a sedative. I immediately felt very relaxed and drowsy. Once again, I woke up strapped to my bed.On a lighter note, there was one hilarious account while I was hallucinating. At home, I was in the restroom for a very long time. When I came out, my mother said, “Who the heck were you talking to?” I paused, then replied, “Calvin.” She said, “Calvin who?” I said, “Calvin Klein.”Here’s what happened. When I was on the toilet, I was staring at my underwear, which was down to my ankles. The name Calvin Klein was embroidered along the waistline. Apparently, I thought my underwear was the famous designer in the flesh! So, I’m sitting there, having a one-way conversation with my boxers. Don’t ask me the topic of “our” conversation. I have no idea.In the summer of 2015, my toxin levels were so high, I fell into a coma three times. The longest period was 23 days. About the 20th day, my doctors advised my parents to “get things in order.” They didn’t think I would make it. They feared my toxin levels were so high that if I awoke from the coma, I may suffer severe brain damage. The doctors also warned my parents that I may remain in a vegetative state. Therefore, the hospital called hospice and arranged for them to speak to my parents about my living arrangements for my final days.My mother was furious. She fumed and told both hospice and my doctors that no matter what, she was not giving up. She said there will be no plugs pulled. There will be no hospice or caregivers. My mother has always been fiercely protective of me.Shortly after being diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, I told my mother if I was ever in a situation where I couldn’t make a life or death decision on my own, I didn’t want the doctors to pull the plug, no matter how much pain I was in or how hopeless my condition. I should have died several times during my youth, but somehow managed to live. Because of that, I strongly believe in miracles.When I awoke from my 23-day coma, I had no idea where I was. I felt as though I just returned from Pluto. I felt so peaceful. So relaxed. I grinned. Was I now in paradise? I glanced around the room. I searched for the lion that was supposed to be sitting next to the smiling child, just like the animated children’s bible i read when I was a kid in Catholic school.I sensed that I was gone for a long time. But I had no clue as to exactly where. In a slurred speech, I asked my sitting nurse where I was. He informed me I was at Keck Hospital of USC. Hmm. Why was I at a university? I slowly studied the room. It didn’t look like a classroom. I had no idea I was at a hospital.After my mind cleared, my transplant coordinator stormed into my room and informed me that I was immediately bumped up the transplant list from #247 to #2. According to my doctors, my failing kidney was a blessing in disguise. She told me since both vital organs were near death, I had a higher chance of dying than a patient with only one failed organ. Hence, the sudden jump to #2.About 6 days later, i was elevated to #1 on the transplant list. My nurse told me that any day I should be expecting new organs. I asked her, “how are they delivered?” She replied, “via helicopter.” She said there’s a landing pad on the rooftop of the hospital. Cool. I recall getting excited every time i heard the rumbling sound of an engine outside my window. I couldn’t wait to end my misery.A few days later, my nurse rushed into my room and told me she thinks the organs are on their way. She told me the doctor will call me soon to discuss the details. I found it odd that a physician would call a patient on the phone. I Never heard of that before.Sure enough, about 20 minutes later the doctor called. He told me that he and a couple of other doctors were at blah blah state prison. He said a 41-year-old male inmate just committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell. He informed me the prisoner was an organ donor. The doctor told me that the prison administrator gave them 15 minutes to visually inspect the organs. He told me they appeared to be fine.He asked me if I wanted them. Since I was in a state of mild confusion at the time, I said, “doctor, what would you do if you were in my shoes?” He paused briefly, then replied, “I would take them.” So I did.In retrospect, that was a stupid question. After all I been through, and the fact that the organs appeared to be fine, why wouldn’t I immediately say “yes!?” I just couldn’t think clearly at the time.Later, the doctors told me they had a difficult time deciding whom shall receive the organs. It was between me and the patient next door. The transplant team informed me they select the recipient with the greatest probability of surviving the operation. I was told I had slightly less than a 50% chance of surviving the surgery. My odds of survival were higher than the guy next door. My doctor said the other patient was sicker than me, hence the reason they chose me.Unfortunately, two days later the other patient died. I immediately felt guilty. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have felt guilty. However, because of my low odds of surviving the operation, my anxiety level was high prior to my operation. I started to feel very emotional.For about a year prior to my transplant, the strangest thing happened. Recurring thoughts kept flooding my mind. They kept urging me to share my story at AA, NA, and drug rehabs. Never in my life had I experienced persistent thoughts with no apparent ending. What am I supposed to make of this? What am I supposed to do?I spent many hours thinking about this and the only conclusion I could make is that God put those thoughts in my head. What other reason could it be? I hate public speaking, so these thoughts surely didn’t originate from me. So, I decided to make a unilateral covenant with God. I begged Him that if He let me survive the operation, I would spend the rest of my life sharing my testimony with addicts.On August 5, 2015, at approximately 11:00 am, I was wheeled into the OR for a liver and kidney transplant. I was gutted like a fish. I must admit, aside from the hallucinations, it was the scariest encounter I’ve ever endured. I never felt so helpless and alone in my life.I never forgot what I was up against- heads I survive, tails I die. My destiny was completely out of my hands. At this point, there was nothing my family, the priest I spoke with prior to my transplant, or the doctors could say or do to guarantee that I would survive. God would be the sole decider to choose my fate.Well, the surgery was a success. It took 17 hours. The only physical complication I had was chronic back pain that shot through my body whenever I moved. That was nothing compared to the myriad of complications I suffered with cirrhosis, so I’m not complaining. Upon leaving the hospital, I was prescribed 83 pills a day.After the transplant, I often wondered how I survived. Why did I get so lucky? Was God looking over me all this time? Was it His plan? What did I ever do for Him to deserve this outcome? For some strange reason, I felt guilty and relieved at the same time. I was flooded with gratitude.On July 18, 2018, I accomplished something I never imagined possible. I celebrated five years of sobriety from alcohol. It’s been an incredibly difficult, yet redeeming journey. Abandoning alcohol is and always will be my greatest challenge. Even today, it’s a daily struggle. Often, it feels like an insurmountable task.I crave alcohol about 5-7 times a day. When the intensity of the cravings becomes uncontrollable, I follow a ritual. No matter where I’m at, I immediately drop to my knees. I force myself to remember the worse nightmares I suffered when I was wasted.I start by recalling the thousands of times I was completely whacked out on crack cocaine. Every time I smoked crack, without fail, I became paranoid and delusional. By the wee hours of the morning, without failure, I believed my mother had passed earlier in the evening.I walked into her bedroom and nudged her shoulder to wake her. She wouldn’t move because she was a deep sleeper. Each time she didn’t move, I believed she died. I walked out of her bedroom and slumped down on my stomach just outside her door to mourn her “death.”Next, I force myself to remember the endless times I believed the police were going to arrest me for being high on crack. I was usually at my best friend’s house. After a few hours of smoking crack, I became paranoid. In my mind, I knew the cops were going to break down the door and storm me. So, I blocked all the doors and windows with furniture.I heard the helicopters circling above. There were also cops surrounding the house. They shouted into their bullhorn, ordering me to come out immediately. My mind would scramble for a place to hide. I always found shelter inside my friend’s mother’s closet. I hid during the middle of the night, while she slept.I dropped to my knees. Sweat suddenly poured down my face. I could hear the helicopters rumbling over the house. My auditory senses were so amplified, I could actually hear drops of sweat splattering from the bottom of my chin to the old, oak floors. I knew any minute the cops were going to bust the door down and take me to jail. They never came. I looked absolutely pathetic sitting there for hours with my tee shirt completely drenched in sweat.Last, I force myself to envision my own funeral. I witness the priest handing my mother the cross. I see it slip out of my mother’s trembling hands and hit the dirt. Suddenly, she screams hysterically. I see the deadness in her eyes. She looks like a shell of her former self.These are the nightmares that I must force myself to relive every time I crave alcohol. This is what I must do to stay sober each and every day. My cravings are relentless and never ending.Without a plan of action, I know the devil will roam around in my mind. He’ll be persuading me like he has a thousand times before to have one last drink- “c’mon, one drink won’t kill you.”I realize that every sober addict has his own method of staying clean. This is my method, the only one that keeps me from using.In retrospect, the old Joe always succumbed to temptation. He existed, but never lived. He was lost, but never found. That lifeless soul is no longer aimlessly roaming the earth. He is dead and gone.I’m not the same person anymore. I fully realize the consequences of alcohol and drug addiction. I understand that the higher i get, the harder I crash. I finally accept defeat. I know that addiction can and will overpower and destroy any human being, no matter how strong they are. Drugs and alcohol will ruthlessly humiliate an addict until they are left without an ounce of dignity.Addicts never satisfy their appetite for drugs. The more they use, the more they crave. I’ll be damned if I ever go down that route again. Although I will remain an addict until my final breath, I am fully prepared and willing to battle my demons till the end.Many people view alcohol as a cold refreshing drink that helps them unwind after a hard day’s work. However, I view alcohol as the devil’s piss. One of many tools he uses to deceive addicts into believing they are immune to death and destruction that’s caused by addiction. His schemes are very similar to novice swimmers believing the ocean is fine for a swim on a hot summer’s day, until the under-current swallows them whole. They never knew what drowned them, but now it’s too late…Sometime in 2015. My mind was always so disoriented. I had the mental capacity of a two year old.This is me, back to work in 2017 as a real estate broker & wholesaler. Still a little weak, but feeling a whole lot better and a whole lot happier :)