Timeless

 A few days back when I was cleaning up my personal email inbox, one particular email caught my attention. It was from my esteemed former colleague Jerry Rosenblum, who is now enjoying his retired life. Jerry and I do not communicate often—in fact last time we communicated was during the early months of COVID in 2020, when both Jerry and I were giving pro bono advice virtually to under-resourced entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneurs’ Legal Advising Clinic (ELAC) organized by the Santa Clara University School of Law. But Jerry has a unique email address that is hard to forget, and I checked that the email indeed came from Jerry’s legitimate address.

The subject line of the email was “Save the Date.” The body of the email contained the familiar-looking envelope from Punchbowl, saying “You are Invited” and a link to open the invitation for details. Looked innocuous, but something told me that this could be a spam—all the years of corporate cybersecurity training on how not to do stupid mistakes seems to have created some instincts—and I wrote to Jerry, “Is this a spam email originating from your email address? Even if it is, at least it gives me a chance to say hello to you.” Jerry is famous for biking all around Los Altos and Palo Alto. So I added, “Hope you are still biking,”

Jerry’s reply came promptly. “Mita, you are exactly right. It is a spam email. Hope you are doing well.  I am still going on group bike rides twice a week.”

Hearing from him assured me that he is doing alright and we decided to meet for coffee in Palo Alto. I did not know how old Jerry actually is. But given the fact that he had incorporated Applied Materials (AMAT) as a young lawyer back in 1967, my guess was that he must be in his late eighties. I know he has practiced actively at my former law firm till he was eighty. That is one good thing about being a lawyer. You can keep practicing as long as you are cognitively sharp. In the silicon valley tech culture plagued by ageism, this almost seems to be a welcome anomaly. I was curious to see if Jerry would come to Palo Alto on his bike.

He indeed biked all the way from Los Altos to Palo Alto, when we met at a nice café (“The Farm,” managed by one of our tennis friends) last Friday afternoon. Jerry was there exactly at 4 pm. He greeted me and my partner Ravi warmly. Ravi has worked at Applied Materials for more than thirty years and was eager to meet the lawyer who had incorporated AMAT. Conversation flowed freely, as all three of us are semiconductor history nerds. At some point Jerry reminded himself that he would have to leave soon because he would have to cook dinner for himself and his ailing wife, who is also close to 90. I was speechless. Completely awestruck. I am in my fifties and sometimes I feel like I am getting too old. And here is this evergreen accomplished lawyer, who knew and/or worked with the silicon valley semiconductor giants like Robert Noyce (founder of Intel), Jerry Sanders (founder of AMD), Jim Morgan (former CEO of AMAT), and Dan Maydan (president emeritus of AMAT), still living a normal domestic life at the ripe young age of 91! Meeting with Jerry gave me a whole new perspective—age is what you make of it.

And surprisingly Jerry is not the only legendary nonagenarian that I had the good fortune of meeting recently. Two weekends back Ravi and I went to Oakland to visit Ravi’s PhD advisor Adam Heller, 93, and his lovely wife Ilana, 91. Adam advised Ravi at the University of Texas at Austin in the nineties, but they have never lost touch, thanks to Ilana’s flawless management of their lives split between Austin and Oakland. Adam’s story is a true example of how fundamental science conducted at a university laboratory eventually transcends to a life-saving medical device that is a thundering commercial success. Therasense, the company that Adam co-founded with his son and which later got acquired by Abbott Laboratories, gave the world FreeStyle Libre, which is now the best-selling continuous glucose monitor available in the market. As a patent attorney, it was my absolute delight to talk about the technology behind the product, its evolution, its commercialization challenges, and the legal battle over patent rights.

And while Adam is impressive, Ilana is equally impressive in her own way. I have never met a 91 year old woman who is as sprightly as Ilana. She even baked a cake for us and shared stories from her life devoted to service as the cohesive force of the Heller family.

Meeting with Jerry, Adam and Ilana in the last two gorgeous spring weekends has taught me what it means to be timeless. As I start my journey as a partner at my new law firm, I could not have asked for more inspiration than witnessing these three extraordinary human beings living meaningful and productive lives on their own terms into their nineties. I feel immensely thankful for the connections that I have made along my professional and personal journeys.

Habit

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”― Mahatma Gandhi

It was a rather short grocery list. Just the basics. Egg, milk, bread, fruits, Greek yogurt, cheese, avocado, Gatorade. Took me less than 10 minutes to pick up the items from the store shelves, pay at the self-checkout kiosk and come back to the parking lot. But where is my car? I have quite a strong visual memory. I totally remembered that I parked within the first few spots along the alley that is directly aligned with the main door of the grocery store. But absolutely no sign of any Tesla in those spots. Not even in the corresponding spots in the adjacent parallel alleys. I started to get a bit nervous within. Is my memory completely failing me to remember where I parked just 10 minutes ago? Then as the muffled sound of something playing in the car audio inside a locked car nearby wafted towards me, I suddenly realized that I was driving a rental car today, as my Tesla is getting some work done. I was lucky that s soon as I came close enough to the rental car, my phone was connected via Bluetooth to the rental car’s audio system and started playing the audiobook ("The Worlds I See" by Fei-Fei Li) that I was listening to while driving towards the grocery store. The familiar sound of the audiobook rescued me from the embarrassment of not being able to locate my car.

I was looking at the right spot, but looking for the “wrong” car.

This is a prime illustration of what habit does to you. Your brain takes a passive role and “automaticity” takes over. In my case, for the last five-plus years, the reflexive action is to look for my Tesla. I think we all have habits, many of which make us more efficient, amuse us, or at the very least, not harmful to us.

Take for example, my habit for the last one and a half years to start my day with solving multiple word puzzles. It started small during the COVID time with solving Wordle. I used to solve Wordle at a random time of the day whenever I had a down time and if I remembered about Wordle. Eventually solving wordle became part of my morning routine. And I added more and more word games to that routine, thanks to being part of a word-game-enthusiast friend community. At some point it has become a set of six (sometimes seven) word games that I would solve before even leaving the bed. Sometimes that would pose a problem, as it would interfere with the limited time I have to get ready in the morning to go to office, now that we are again working from office. So even though solving word games is not necessarily a bad habit,---in fact some would say it is good habit as it kickstarts my brain every morning--I consciously made a decision to break the habit of having to solve all of the word games at a stretch every morning. I just wanted to prove to myself that I am flexible enough to not be a “slave” to my own habit, irrespective of whether that is a good, a bad or a harmless neutral habit. The point is to break the cycle of dependency.

I am not that big into New Year’s resolution. Except 2018 when I decided to start playing tennis to reverse diabetes. Every other year I loosely tell myself that maybe this year I’d finally stop chewing my fingernails, but I don’t take that seriously at all, and inevitably I fail. But I think this year I silently took the resolution of “not playing all the word games at once” seriously enough. I am still playing my most favorite games almost every day—Connections, Wordle and Spelling Bee. And I play those first thing in the morning. But the others (i.e., Waffle, Squareword, Mini Crossword and Wordiply) I play at random times of the day whenever I can fit them in and if I remember to play.

Let me see how long this “resolution” lasts. A marketing study showed that the third Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year. It even has a name—“Blue Monday”. Apparently around this time “the major-lifestyle-modifying New Year’s resolutions almost always end in failure.” (Is ‘Blue Monday’ really the most depressing day of the year?). Well, I am writing this blog past the “Blue Monday” (which was January 15 this year), and my “resolution” is still going strong. Maybe the secret is to not make “major” lifestyle modifications, but trick yourself into achieving a major result eventually by starting with a “minor” habit change.

Renaissance

“Don’t mess with Texas.”

We spotted the road sign right after our car crossed the New Mexico border and entered Texas near El Paso. We still had nine-plus hours to drive through the unknown wilderness of West Texas to reach our final destination, Austin. But the clever anti-littering sign instantly put us at ease. Texas definitely has a sense of humor! (I later looked up and found that the slogan is a registered trademark owned by the Texas Department of Transportation.)

It was ‘Day Four’ of our four-nights-five-days exclusive mother-son road trip from Cupertino, California to Austin, Texas. My son Jyotishko (I refer to him as J in this blog) is starting his college life at the University of Texas at Austin this Fall. Though the campus is close to downtown Austin and students can totally manage to live without a car, we thought it made no sense to keep his Mini Cooper sitting idle at Cupertino. Of course we could have shipped the car to Austin and fly ourselves there, but I always had this dream of super-long road trips when my son is old enough to drive. And what could have been a better opportunity than this! We had 1750 miles to cover! So with equal amounts of trepidation and hope of adventure in mind, we packed all the stuff that J was going to need in college in the car, and hit the road the day after he turned eighteen. We knew we would be crossing the deserts of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in the peak of summer in August, where temperature hovers steadily above 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. We knew the car has a small tank (11.6 gallon capacity) and we might not find gas stations for long stretches during our journey. So we packed 4 gallons of spare gas and plenty of water in the trunk. We downloaded offline maps and packed dry fruits and nuts for survival. The packing itself made me feel like Clint Eastwood! I could almost hear the famous soundtrack of “Good, Bad and Ugly” in my head, which was apparently the inspiration behind the background score of the timeless Bollywood Classic “Sholay.”

Our plan was to not drive too long each day to exhaust ourselves. After all the main purpose was to extend the farewell. After the first day of driving went smoothly and we landed at this iconic Wigwam Motel (the motivation behind the “Cozy Cone Motel” in the Disney classic movie “Cars”) along the historic Route 66 at San Bernardino, California, we realized that six-to-seven hours of driving was not too strenuous and we could add some detours to our itinerary. So on the second day, we added Joshua Tree National Park on our way to Phoenix, Arizona. Once we entered the park, J was so energized that he went rock climbing at high noon! “There could not have been a better transition to adulthood than this!” he exclaimed, dripping in sweat, but with the widest smile on his face! We could not believe when we saw 114 degrees Fahrenheit on our car dashboard at one point, and our little Mini was still giving us 32.5 miles per gallon with AC on full blast and carrying a full load of passengers and luggage. Cars are just amazing! They give you this little cocoon of safety with its own microclimate and musical immersion while still carrying you towards your destination.

By the second day, we became more ambitious. In addition to the detour plans, we added another daily goal—we decided to eat something for dinner each day that represents the local cuisine. J is a foodie and cooks well himself. So tasting local food (not necessarily fancy food) along the way was all but natural. At Phoenix, we tried “Fry Bread”, a Native Indian dish, and totally enjoyed it. Conveniently for us, right in front of the eatery, two brothers were selling Native Indian jewelry. I bought silver earrings with Hopi designs. J bought a seed bracelet with Navajo Indian designs---apparently a good luck charm. We knew it might be just a sales pitch, but when you travel, this willing suspension of rationality feels so liberating.

J decided to drive the whole time. I offered to share the driving, but first time I sat on the driver’s seat, we realized that we would have to adjust the seat position back and forth every time we switch driver. The car was so optimally packed that moving seat position would create imbalance and the packed stuff, some of them fragile (like J’s computer monitor), may be damaged. So we reached an agreement-- if J would feel too tired to concentrate on the road, only then we would switch driver. Turned out that eight-ish hours on the wheel was no big deal for an eighteen year old kid who loves driving. “You want the bragging rights to truthfully say that you drove all the way, right?” I said with a mind-reader’s confidence. “Yes,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Plus the driver gets to choose the music. Ha ha.” That was the mood the whole time. The more the road trip progressed, the more carefree we started feeling. It was not a parent-child equation anymore. We were just two buddies on a shared mission. Each time we were coming close to crossing a state line, I would be ready with my camera to take a picture of a big road sign, and J would move to the right lane and slow down as much as possible to make it easy for me to take the shot. Our album is full of pictures showing “Welcome to Arizona”, “Welcome to New Mexico,” “You are leaving New Mexico,” “Edge of Texas” etc. Since J was driving the whole time, I kept myself occupied by taking pictures of local vegetation and using Google Lens to identify them and sharing the knowledge with J. We became quite the experts on xerophytes---the desert plants that need little water.

The 1750 miles distance between Cupertino and Austin became 1900-plus miles with the addition Joshua Tree National Park in California on Day Two, Saguaro National Park in Arizona on Day Three, and White Sands National Park in New Mexico on Day Four. I never ever imagined hitting three national parks in three days, that too with impromptu planning. But it felt completely normal. Each national park was totally worth the visit—they were unique in their own ways. We tasted the ruby red prickly pear cactus fruits at Saguaro National Park. I hummed a song while J kept driving through the myriad varieties of cacti on both sides of the road, some as tall as an Oak tree. We deliberately did not follow the signs while hiking on the all-pervasive white sands at the eponymous national park, embracing the risk of getting lost in the desert, but confident in our heart that we wouldn’t get lost. J forgot his sunglasses in the car during the hike on the sand. I had mine on. So we kept time-sharing my sunglasses to save ourselves from being blinded by the glare from the white sands. It reminded me of the recent adventure on the glaciers at the Jasper National Park in Canada two months back. It was the exact same scenario. J forgot his sunglasses that time too. The whiteness of the glacier was blinding and mama had to share her sunglasses with the kiddo. As they say, you share when you care—from the glacier at the Canadian Rockies to the white sands in New Mexico.

Our last two stops en route to Austin were cities that we have never heard of before--Las Cruces at New Mexico and Ozona at Texas. Both are in the middle of nowhere and provided excellent opportunities for stargazing, as there was very little light pollution when we drove just a few miles outside of the city limits (guided by an app that shows the geographical light map for stargazers) around 10 pm after dinner. I do not have the power of words to be able to express how it felt to witness millions of stars and the contours of the faraway galaxies in the pitch-black ambience with the chorus of nocturnal creatures—owls, insects and frogs—as the background music. It’s a cliché, but looking at the stars makes you realize what a minuscule part you are in this vast universe, and how meaningless it is to be bogged down by your mundane existential crises. J said, in the tone of an epiphany, that whatever little worry he had about the upcoming changes in his life, completely vanished in those powerful peaceful moments of stargazing.

By mid-day on Day Five we reached Austin. Once we were close enough to Austin, we thought there was no point in carrying the spare gas anymore. So we stopped at a random spot by the roadside and J was emptying the gas cans into the tank. From a distance it did look like our car had stalled. Within 10 minutes, two good Samaritans, one after another, came by with their pickup trucks and offered to help. I thanked them and assured them that we were totally fine. Our hearts were filled with gratitude at the large-heartedness of the Texans. We couldn’t have felt more welcome. Once at Austin, the first thing we did was to give the Mini Cooper a premium carwash to celebrate the feat of the “little engine that could”--sustaining a 1900 mile journey with aplomb! The rest was all streamlined. Unloading, moving into J’s new apartment, setting up his room, meeting his roommate and his family, going to Target to buy the essentials that we did not pack in the car---everything got done like clockwork. Glitch-free. We celebrated J and his roommate’s joint birthdays at a fancy Indian restaurant that evening.

This was the longest road trip of my life! Definitely a “bucket list” item. I never imagined checking off three bucket list items in two months---trip to Peru to visit Machu Picchu in early July, the longest road trip of my life in mid-August and attending a Beyonce concert on August 30. At this rate, I need to augment and expand my bucket list. 

I think this summer I am reborn. I kept thinking about what to name this blog. Who knew that Texas girl Beyonce’s “Renaissance” world tour would provide the perfect title for my first blog of 2023. Here’s to “empty-nesting” in style!

Half Century amidst Centuries Old

Another year is coming to an end. With it, another decade of my life is coming to an end. My fiftieth birthday is just a few days away. I am not a planner. I did not quite chalk out what are the milestones I need to hit by the time I become fifty. But I think everyone has an inner sense of whether they are more or less hitting the mark or falling far behind. I must say I am pleasantly surprised to discover that even after spending five decades on earth, even after knowing up close and personal what loss is, even after having a brush with serious threat to health, I can look forward to the upcoming chapter as a yet-unknown adventure, which might be even better than what I have experienced thus far.

In 2022, the world has largely come out of its shell after two years of COVID closure. It was a struggle initially to re-embrace the post-pandemic "normalcy". The unexpected perks of pandemic--if you survived it--were precious. During the pandemic, you had the license to bathe in nostalgia. You had to learn how to look inwards rather than looking for stimulus outside. You felt good about reaching out without hesitation. You had the urge to share and the world had the time to listen. I remember I wrote so much in 2020! It slowed down in 2021, and quite unbelievably it almost stopped in 2022. This is only my second blog this year. I guess as everyone learnt to adjust to the pandemic, even objectively blog-worthy topics remained unchronicled. So here's my last-ditch attempt to capture "a moment of high" before 2022 fleets by.

Yesterday when I was scaling the steps of the Ranakpur Jain temple near Udaipur in the Western State of Rajasthan in India, a sudden jolt of emotion hit me. I am not that religious, but I silently shed tears of joy to be able to witness and soak in the intricacy and splendor of fifteenth century marble sculpting that showcases ancient India. 

That moment made me realize that personally the happiest achievement for me in 2022 is to get a handle on my health. After the rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis in May 2021, I was shaken to my core and struggled to envision a future full of physical freedom. Thanks to the relentless believers in my support system, some quiet and some vocal, now I find myself playing tennis and traveling continents. Inside the Ranakpur temple, yesterday I found my mind dreaming of scaling Machu Picchu to see the Inca citadel in Peru sometime in near future. I have harbored that dream since my childhood since I read about it in the Adventures of Tintin comic books. But I am a realist and since the scare last year, I couldn't give myself permission to dream of big travels until I could prove it to myself that my body is ready for the rigor. And I think I am ready.

India does this to my soul every time I visit. I feel proud to have been born here. I feel overjoyed when my son also feels the vibes of India. Yes it is dusty and overcrowded, but it is also authentic, pragmatic and gives one a huge sense on continuity---from the ancient grandeur to the modern ambition. I am fortunate to be able to step into a new chapter of my life while visiting India with family.

The name of this blog is "Detritus." The word itself evokes the image of ruins and in my mind it signifies emergence from the ruins too. While visiting the centuries old ruins of the Chittorgarh fort, two hours from Udaipur, I kept thinking how apt the lyrics of that famous song from the movie "Guide" (1965) are--"Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai" (thematically translates to "My soul has awakened again.") The song was picturized at Chittorgarh. Art imitates life and life imitates art in the detritus of Rajasthan!!

Spring Cleaning

Sometimes spring cleaning starts at 6 pm on a Friday afternoon when you realize that you have met your monthly client-billable goal (I am a patent lawyer) and work will not have to spill into your weekend. Sometimes you feel so light after throwing away all the garbage that were covering the floor of your home office for the last two years, that you feel like writing a blog---the first one of this year.

 

For some reason, today I am in a nostalgic mood. The nostalgia triggered when I took a bite into the perfectly ripened loquats plucked from the neighborhood tree while walking the dog. This year’s spring has been delayed. I can tell because the loquats were ripened much earlier in Spring 2020 when we were first learning to work from home. Between me, my husband and our son, the poor dog used to have to walk miles during the day, because none of us is a smoker, but we needed the proverbial “smoking break” to de-stress, and dog walking was our excuse to get some fresh air in the middle of the day.

 

The transition to work from home was not easy for me. I was the type who would drive to work five days a week even when others were uncomfortable going to office with the COVID news spreading gradually in February-March 2020 time frame. My excuses were varied-- “I get to listen to my audiobooks if I drive to work,” “I need hard copies to effectively read a reference and the office printer is so much faster than my home printer!” “I can close the door of the office room and protect myself from the spread of virus,” “If it were that bad, then the Government would mandate office closure.” Well, eventually the Government did, and in a fit of panic, I carried a lot of work materials, mostly stacks of printed references for my various patent cases, to home, thinking I would not be able to print that many pages at home. They took up a good part of the floor in my home office. Luckily I was the first one to occupy the room set up as home office, so my husband reluctantly but graciously set up his home office in the guest room across the corridor. His “office” always looked cleaner than mine. He was already mostly paperless. But I guess I am different. It takes a pandemic to finally transform me into a true paperless person. Always loved the trees. Now I get to walk the walk.

 

Still, not adding new printed material is not the same as having the “courage” to decide to throw the existing printed materials away. My attitude was that if I had decided to print them at some point, they must have been important, and how can I throw away important stuff? What if I need them again in future? So let them sit on my floor. And sit they did for two years. Mostly untouched. Radiating the intangible perceived gravitas of “important enough not to throw away.”

 

It must be the perfection of the loquat that instantly took me back to the dog walk days of March 2020 and epiphany struck—now that we are required to go to office three or more days a week, am I going to carry all those materials back to office again to repopulate the shelves? The answer was clear as daylight. And by the end of the day I can again see the hardwood floor of my home office. Cleaner office. Lighter soul. And a blog after six months. Triple crown to start the weekend on the right note. What can be better!

From Patent to Diet--My Wonderful Journey with WANDA

 

Almost exactly three years back, in a windy Fall afternoon much like today (minus the work-from-home component of course), my boss Marina Portnova asked me if I was interested to take up a pro bono project. She was approached by Jeanne Curtis, the inaugural Director of the Cardozo/GooglePatent Diversity Project at the Cardozo Law School. I was fairly new to the firm at that point after a long stint at my previous firm, and pondered if I should do more client-billable work to establish myself as a profitable associate at my new workplace, or take up the pro bono work, which historically almost always proved to be more soul-satisfying. The debate was short-lived once I saw the profile of the potential pro bono client, Tambra Raye Stevenson. Working with more female inventors has been my life-long mission in an effort to leveling the playing field in my professional world involving patents, where only 12% of the inventors were female according to 2018 data. Well, Tambra not only fit that bill, but added more flavor to that, because her invention was not one of the high-tech devices and algorithms that I deal with day in and day out with my silicon valley clients. She invented a talking doll to inspire people to eat better! I realized this will be a unique experience for me, and told my boss that I was in!

Little did I know at that time that during the course of working with Tambra I will embark on my own nutritional journey, and terms like “anti-inflammatory diet”, “dietetics” etc. would be part of my own vocabulary. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me roll back to October-November 2018 timeframe. 

I had my first Skype meeting (Zoom was still not ubiquitous then) with Tambra in early November, 2018. She was based in Washington DC. Naturally my ice-breaker conversation involved mentioning the fact that my American journey began in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area when I joined University of Maryland as a graduate student, and then later started my career in patent law at a law firm in Washington DC. I had to explain to Tambra that we need to file a “design patent” to secure the intellectual property rights on the “looks” of the doll, rather than securing rights to the “utility” of the doll. The social “utility” of acting as a recognizable mascot to spread a positive message about better eating is not good enough from a patent law perspective. So over the next few meetings, Tambra and I collaborated to procure drawings that convey how the doll was going to look like. The doll already had a name—little WANDA, a very clever play on the acronym “Women (and girls) Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics and Agriculture.” Tambra did a great job explaining that Wanda was like “Dora the Explorer” who focuses on reminding children of African American descent to count on the treasure trove of ancestral knowledge about what nutrition is anthropologically optimal for them based on the genetic makeup of the diaspora. Tambra’s own daughter Ruby was the inspiration behind Wanda’s look—the twinkle in her eye, the way she dressed and the way she wore her hair.

Being an immigrant myself, who comes from India, a country that offers its own rich culture and deep ancestral knowledge about food, Tambra’s nutrition activism really resonated with me. And I was thrilled that finally my professional qualification as a patent attorney was giving me the chance to work with a very atypical client with a unique social vision. My then-secretary Gloria also joined in the enthusiasm. We finalized the drawings and the description and filed the patent application in March on 2019. As normal in any patent application, you submit the application and wait for the patent office to get back to you with either a rejection or an acceptance in one or more years.

With Tambra’s application, the first “rejection” from the patent office came in summer 2020. By that time the world had changed due to COVID. Everyone was dealing with stress and immunity-boosting nutrition became paramount. We had every motivation to respond to the “rejection.” We co-opted our trusted draftsman Darryl to tweak the drawings of the doll to overcome the patent Examiner’s rejections. But in a few months, the application got rejected again for the second time. This time I called up the patent Examiner, and she very patiently guided me through the additional modifications that I needed to introduce to the drawings.

While Tambra’s patent application was going through its back-and-forth with the patent office, my own story was changing significantly. In early May 2021, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes joint inflammation and excruciating pain if not managed properly. Before the formal diagnosis, I had been suffering with body aches and pain since late summer 2020. I just didn’t know what was causing it. Once diagnosed, on top of medication and physiotherapy, I was advised to take a closer look at my diet, because it is known that certain types of food cause inflammation. At that point, an angel of a friend, Vinita Madhani, connected me with Dr. Avinash Saoji, an India-based doctor of Naturopathy, who conducts nutritional boot-camps to reverse diabetes and other so-called “lifestyle based” diseases that to a large extent are caused by the type of food that we consume, including too much reliance on processed foods. With a lot of skepticism, I joined the program. Dr. Saoji told me at the beginning that though the program was designed for diabetes reversal, it has been proven to benefit arthritis patients as well. For ten weeks, I had to give up on a lot—no dairy, no tea/coffee, no white rice, no regular wheat-based bakery items, no non-vegetarian food, no sugar, no processed food, and no oil!! My first question was, then what is left to eat? But Dr. Saoji and his team at his non-profit organization Prayas, gave us enough ideas and recipes to survive within the stringent constraints of the diet. And lo and behold, around the sixth week, my diabetes, for which I have been taking medication for the last five years, was miraculously reversed! And my arthritic pain was also perceptibly reduced!

In a spectacular coincidence, in another few weeks, Tambra’s patent application was allowed by the Examiner---our latest tweaks in the drawings did the trick! Our lives, mine and my client’s, got connected forever! I became a proud warrior who beat diabetes (and managed arthritis to a large extent) through better eating, and Tambra became a proud owner of her very first patent on a doll that talks about better eating! The patent officially issued as US Patent D931,387 right around her birthday! I could not have given her a better birthday gift!

This journey has been one of the major highlights of my sixteen-year-long career as a patent practitioner. Thank you Tambra for being an integral part of my story when my professional life tangled, in the most welcome way, with my personal life. Wish you all the success with WANDA’s mission, and I am glad to be a little part of your journey.

500 days! Delta Variant and the Delta Variation in Lifestyle

I have blogged to commemorate the completion of 100, 200, 300, and 400 days from the official start of shelter-in-place in California in March, 2020. So it is only fitting that I complete the series with a blog post on the 500th day too, which is just round the corner--July 29 to be precise. But that is a weekday and I am in the mood to write now. Just me and my laptop enjoying the sun in the late-ish part of Sunday--with the dog taking a siesta next to me--before another work week starts.

A lot has happened since my last blog in late May. At that point I was barely coming out of the worst health scare of my life, being diagnosed with autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis). The rheumatologist got me started on Methotrexate, a low dose chemo treatment, commonly used as an immunosuppressant. He told me that it would take 4-5 weeks before the medicine starts showing its effect, and that proved to be true. I have been feeling much better since the beginning of July. In fact, though there were some trepidations, I felt like I was fit enough to take a long-ish family road trip to Santa Barbara to enjoy the July 4th fireworks on the beach! And it was totally worth it! It became the slightly-belated but perfect celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary.

The improvement in health can be attributed to a combination of factors. Of course the medicine has a huge role. But I have also incorporated some variations in lifestyle, including cutting down on tennis significantly and introducing yoga to my regimen. But the most significant lifestyle change is enrolling in a 10-week-long nutritional bootcamp and switching to an anti-inflammatory diet. There are lots and lots of restrictions in the diet, but nothing motivates me like results. Though the bootcamp is targeted to reversing diabetes, I was told it would help me with my arthritis too, and that is exactly what has happened. I am half-way done with the program and have been off of the diabetes medication for a whole week now. The joint pain is much less, to the extent that I can now sleep through the night without getting up in the middle of the night because of leg cramps, play tennis (doubles) for 2 hours in the weekend, and spend regular hours at work without crashing down in the middle of the day due to fatigue.

Speaking of work, I have to say I feel for the management. Our firm management put so much effort to encourage the employees to come back to work under a hybrid model, where you are "encouraged" work from the office two or more days each week if you are vaccinated and not otherwise "immuno-compromised". Though I am now technically an immuno-compromised employee, I am doing well enough to go to office two days a week. There was gourmet catered food, that could be customized to suit your food restrictions. For the first time in my life, I became a "fancy" eater and selected gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan entrees, and they were still delicious! It was really nice to spend time in person with our summer mentees. But then with the emergence of the delta variant of the coronavirus, the management had to backtrack a little, and had to grant the employees the option to work fully remotely all five days a week. So from tomorrow onwards, I will work fully remotely again, at least most of the weeks until the policy changes.

One of the perks of working from home is to be able to watch how your son spends his time throughout the day. It has been thrilling to observe a responsible young man emerging out of my little boy, who is going to turn sixteen in a few weeks. He has utilized the flexibility of summer to get done with the prerequisites of getting a driver's license. Now I am enjoying being chauffeured around, as he fulfills his 50-hours of supervised driving requirement. He is also vaccinated now, and has been hanging out with other vaccinated friends in the local playground. I don't have to worry about his social isolation any longer.

All in all, I have to say--and my family totally agrees--that I seem to have mostly got my mojo back. I badly needed that, because I was not sure what to do with the person that I was two and a half months back, who was not only physically suffering, but was also scared to the core thinking that the life that she knew before the autoimmune diagnosis would never come back. Well, I can say it has not come back 100%, but I am OK with that. I still think this was the universe's conspiracy to make me take a closer look at myself and re-prioritize things, including being more careful about what I eat. The journey of self-discovery continues.

Overachiever

When three different people, who are not related to each other, independently use the same word--"Overachiever"--in a span of five days, then you know the water broke, and you are going to give birth to a blog. The name of the blog baby was already chosen for you. You just have to write it out.

Last Friday we were joking about who has the most number of tennis injuries in our tennis circle. And turns out that my three--right knee, right wrist and left knee--might be at the top, earning me the dubious title of "overachiever" from my funny buddy Mallika. Then on Monday, my chiropractor Kimmy, who has become more of a friend than a physical therapist, used the exact same term when I told her that I have developed a new injury--the wrist--since my last visit in March. Well, two persons saying the same thing can be a coincidence. But three? On Tuesday, my eye doctor, Dr. Rodgin also chose to use the same term when I told him that now he has to do not only the diabetic eye exam, but also has to check for possible signs of inflammation in the eye. 

Yes, seems like the term "overachiever" is trending in my life, and for apt reason too--as my immunity system is apparently on a campaign for overachievement, making excess antibodies. I have very recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a form of autoimmune disease that results in joint inflammation caused by an overactive immune system. Nobody knows what triggers it. It can hit people as young as in their 20s or 30s. It is a medical mystery that whoever solves is guaranteed to get a Nobel prize---according to my rheumatologist, Dr. Fischer. There are treatments and I am about to start my medication regime. That certainly is making me feel way more hopeful than when I first received the diagnosis that I have RA, and have to live with it for the rest of my life, as it is a chronic condition.

The journey leading to the diagnosis and post-diagnosis has been "uneven"--to put it lightly. You never know when it hits you.  Going back in time, I now know that I had symptoms since last August. Random pain and niggles moved around in my hands and legs, shoulder and back. I had frequent leg cramps and swelling. I attributed all of it to playing tennis too intensely to counter pandemic-related stress, and of course to the frailty of my middle-aged body. And I have been diligently going through treatment for what we thought was osteoarthritis (the more common type arthritis related to age) under the supervision of my illustrious sports medicine doctor, Dr. Lewis, who was a ranked tennis player herself. With a competent team of orthopedic doctor, physiotherapist and chiropractor (and a few visits to an acupuncturist too), I was confident that I would get better. But it just did not happen. I felt temporary relief periodically, but the knee injuries kept coming back, forcing me to stop playing tennis for a whole month. And then instead of improving, my condition became worse, as acute pain rippled through my whole body. I could barely walk with a badly swollen leg. Started losing clumps of hair.  Sleeping through the night became impossible. Working a full 9-10 hour day became super challenging, as I had to frequently take a break because of fatigue. And the lowest blow was when I could not get up from bed one morning and my hands became almost immobile. I called my primary care physician, Dr. Ademola, and told her that she needed to see me at once. That morning was really something! I had to ask for help from my husband to get up and to dress myself to go to the doctor.

Long story short, X-rays, MRIs and innumerable blood tests conclusively proved that I have rheumatoid arthritis--a disease that not only threatens my most beloved hobby--tennis, but also my livelihood, as I am an intellectual property attorney who has to write a lot every day. Not to mention my love for blogging and being active on the social media, which also involve a lot of typing. Thank God I have at least one hobby---singing---that does not depend on joint health.

Well, there is not much one can do but to accept the reality. I am learning to be kinder to myself, because at one point I was getting angry with my own body for "betraying me". The irony is that we have been taking immunity-boosting supplements to guard against COVID, and now I have to suppress my overactive immunity system by taking medicines!

As always, writing this blog is cathartic for me, and a step forward in the right direction to manage life with RA. I am truly blessed to have the most supportive family, a totally understanding workplace, amazing clients who are motivating me to get better soon because they need my service, and an unbelievable circle of friends and well-wishers, constantly keeping my soul nourished. I found out that ace tennis player Caroline Wozniacki was diagnosed with RA when she was at the top of her game. Reading her blog post about how this "invisible" disease affected her life, but how she has managed to take back control of her life, has truly inspired me. Though she retired from professional tennis, she is aspiring to be a sports commentator to remain attached with tennis.

I think vulnerability and imperfection give the overachievers a chance to reinvent themselves. I am certainly looking forward to reinventing myself. At the very least, RA has given me a perfect "ice breaker" topic of conversation. :-) I am sure there are more yet-undiscovered facets of RA that I will come across--like a treasure hunt. #GamifyRA!

400 Days! Vaccinated Now. But It is Far From Being Over

 I have significantly slowed down in my urge to chronicle the events during COVID. It's been going on for too long and many, like me, are desensitized to a certain extent. It has been 400+ days since we have been mostly staying at home and working from home. "New normal" is a cliched expression now. And thankfully the "new normal" is not looking too bad in the Bay area. Though it is different story in some other parts of the world, especially in India.

First, the better news. Both me and my husband are fully vaccinated now and are past the two weeks' buffer time post-vaccination. So theoretically, we are fully immunized now--at least 95% likely to not get sick from the coronavirus, if you believe the clinical trial statistics provided by Pfizer, the vaccine that we got. As of now, 28% of all Californians are fully vaccinated. There was that minor uneasiness when the news came out about one batch of possibly contaminated Johnson and Johnson vaccines. But that seems to be resolved by now. I have shared plenty of jokes with my friends and clients---"I am Pfizer girl," answered by "I am a Moderna woman." 

Meanwhile, the public schools have opened in a hybrid model. My son opted to exercise his "fully remote" learning option, because he has a good set up at home and is not uber-social anyway, but for a lot of students having the opportunity to go back to school was a blessing. Some of them really wanted to have human interaction. Some simply needed better infrastructure than what they have at home---"digital divide" is a real thing even in the silicon valley. Many extracurricular activities, including most of the sports activities resumed, giving the parents a little respite and the kids an avenue to channel their pent up energy. Professional sports leagues are allowing a limited number of sports fans to attend the games live. It is hard not to be hopeful.

But a big part of my sense of hopefulness also depends on what is going on in India, and unfortunately it is getting grimmer by the day. My own uncle (in his early sixties) and cousin sister's husband (in his forties) are right now hospitalized with COVID. Thankfully both of them are stable. But just a few hours back I heard from our school chat group that a batch-mate of mine has passed away in our hometown after suffering for almost a week. I went numb. Her name is--was--Madhumita too.

At least today is a Sunday. So even if I am distraught inside, I am fortunate to have family around. Husband is doing the taxes, son is finishing up his homework---all of this normalcy of a weekend matters hugely. And then there is sports. I lean heavily on sports when I have to process my grief. Playing tennis myself helps the most, but I am nursing a knee injury now, and cannot play. So I have to satisfy myself with watching tennis--and cricket too (the Indian Premier League cricket is going on now). 

Speaking of tennis and injury, I have this interesting hiccup-y relationship with tennis. I play and then I get periodically injured. It is a constant cycle. Part of me wished I were not good at tennis. Then I would not play intensely enough to get injured, especially when I am fully aware that I have a far-from-perfect knee situation (seen the MRIs--it is not pretty inside my knees.) But as it stands I improve in between successive injuries. So I don't quit. I just patiently wait for the injury to become a thing of the past so that I can resume playing again.

Just like the whole world is patiently waiting for this pandemic to be over so that people can resume life again.

300 Days! New Year. New Trouble. New Hope.

 

Pretty much everyone was happy to usher in 2021. COVID vaccines were being administered. Electoral college process was progressing. How can 2021 not be better than 2020?

The happy-ish mood continued on January 4, the first Monday of the new year. It also happened to be my birthday. Lots of lovely phone calls and text messages during the day helped fighting the ‘back-to-work-after-the-holidays’ blues. It was the perfect low-key birthday that I wanted, topped off with a socially distanced surprise visit by our family friends in the evening.

January 5 was OK too. Tuesday tennis in the evening. Georgia senate election reporting on TV. Everything was 'normal'!

Come January 6. Wednesday. I had a pretty significant zoom meeting scheduled with the entire engineering and marketing team of my new start-up client. So I was preparing without the distraction of emails and push alerts on my phone. But then one of my clients called and said “Can you believe what’s going on in the Capitol right now?” I had to take a look at CNN, and there went normalcy down the drain!

We are professionals. So I still conducted the crucial meeting with my new client team, and we all agreed that it is strangely comforting to have the impersonal immersion to immediate work on your plate when insanity happens in the real world and you cannot do anything about it right at that moment.

January 7 did restore people’s faith in democracy to a large extent, because lawmakers did their job rising above the turmoil. While 2020 caught us off-guard in the beginning, we are all much more resilient in 2021. We had to be--in order to survive. It is now 300 days since the first shelter-in-place order took effect on March 17, 2020. Close to 2 million people have fallen victim to COVID worldwide. Almost 375,000 people passed away in US alone. New strains of COVID have emerged to make us all a little worried about how effective the vaccines would be after all. But we march on. We laugh. We cry. We extend warmth and support to one another in the hope of better days to come.

And who knows, if some miracle happens, then by the time I write again to commemorate the 400 days---I have written to document 100 days, 200 days, and now 300 days---I might actually be vaccinated. No harm in being an optimist. :-)

Family

October is the festive season in India. You don’t have to be particularly religious to join in the exchange of good wishes between friends and family members all over the world on the day of “Vijaya Dashami,” which literally translates to “the tenth day of victory” and signifies victory of good over evil after nine days of hard-fought battle.

 

This year the celebrations were contained due the pandemic, but that was all the more reason to escalate the virtual exchange of greetings, because people are more connected to one another now to compensate for the social isolation. I am no exception. I was dispensing Vijaya Dashami wishes generously to my cousins in India---I come from a big and well-connected family, so lots of cousins, uncles, and aunts to wish---when my phone rang. It was one of my cousins. I was pretty sure she was calling me back to wish. But I was not at all prepared to hear the news that she shared. Apparently one of my other cousins, a thirty-something-year-old youngster, suffered a cerebral attack and needed brain surgery!

 

My heart sank. Not again! Four years ago, almost on the same date in late October, we lost another cousin and her son to a gruesome road accident. At least they did not suffer long—both passed away pretty much at the scene of the accident. This year has been more cruel. My father-in-law was struck by a motorbike and suffered severe brain damage. He was in the intensive care unit for two months before coming home, but never recovered. After four months of pain and suffering, he finally passed away in late August. We are still mourning his passing. Now we have another crisis!

 

Picturing my cousin under ventilation, his skull open for the surgery, made me feel nauseous. I forced myself to think of the recent happy memory, when he and I sang a karaoke duet—assisted by technology, i.e., we sang separately and then my cousin mixed the two tracks—he is a budding musician. As I often do when faced with a crisis, especially one where you cannot physically be present at the scene to be of any use, I distracted myself with work.

 

But work cannot be a substitute for the comfort that you get from human interaction. I totally cherished the unplanned moment when both my husband and I came downstairs from our home offices to microwave our lunch. We caught a glimpse of our son playing with the dog in the backyard—it was his lunch break too. Suddenly I was thankful for this far-from-normal circumstance that forced all of us to be at home on a normal workday.

 

I had tennis coaching scheduled in the afternoon that day. I considered skipping the lesson. But then I realized if I am looking for a distraction that is even more effective than work, that is most definitely tennis!

 

In the last two and half years, tennis not only brought fitness and pure joy to my world, but also created a whole new family for me. Family is who you shelter with when you have to weather a crisis. My tennis family (and a few other close friends who do not necessarily play tennis, but follow the game closely enough to chime in on tennis talk) has been essential to keep my soul nourished through this strange year, even when the courts were closed for two months, and since the reopening of the courts in mid-May. The collective sense of belonging with a common purpose—to me that is the definition of family!

 

Thankfully the latest update on my cousin’s condition is promising. The brain surgery was successful and he is regaining consciousness. I count my blessings that I have my families—here and in India—to draw strength from, and make the journey with my cousin as he embarks on the long road to recovery.

200-plus days! 200,000-plus dead! And a sick President!

 In the beginning of the lockdown, I used to journal at least one COVID-related event, observation or thought each day. And my Sunday afternoon ritual was to compile those daily entries into a weekly blog entry—almost John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight”-style.

 

Then writing every day seemed like an over-reaction to what became the new normal. And before I blink, another 100-plus days passed by without me blogging. I have a definitive way to tell. Because my last blog entry is titled, “100 Days!”

 

I was planning to write a blog on the 200^th day. I realize how you count the number of days is subjective. I started counting from March 17, when California officially went into “shelter-in-place” by Governor Newsom’s order. That makes October 2, 2020 the 200^th day by my count. But October 1, 2020 late night came with such a shock, that I needed a few more days to digest the happenings all around me before collecting my thoughts to write something.

 

The President, who never seriously took his own risk of becoming ill with COVID-19, finally was tested positive and had to be hospitalized because he had serious symptoms. While nobody wants the President to suffer and the country to fall into disarray, one can only hope that finally people learn to lament the 200,000-plus American lives (almost 210,000 by today's count)  that have been lost, and don’t claim a false victory over the fact that the models that predicted even higher death rates by this time have been proven wrong! Of course the death rate is lower because a large number of people took reasonable precautionary measures to keep themselves safe and keep others around them safe. 

 

Let’s just accept the fact that the country does have a sick President. It takes a special brand of hubris to go against medical experts’ suggestions and take a victory lap in a motorcade to ensure the “fans” that the President sprang back to health! I guess sometimes it is hard to miss even the dubious accolades when there is a chance of a superlative being legitimately added before your name---"No. 1 super-spreader” of the country!

100 Days!

#Day94sinceSIP

After more than three months, I finally went to my office today. The motivation was to avail the conference room big screen facility for an important client call. But I cannot deny that I was curious to test out if I am more productive at an office setting than at home. It was a weird experience to fill out a questionnaire about my level of healthiness in order to unblock access to my own office computer, and to roam around in the mostly-empty office wearing a mask! But the IT person/office facility manager was sure glad to have some human presence in the office.
The other unique thing that happened today was that I experienced my very first "video visit" with my doctor using an app. It was nothing serious, but wanted my doctor to check a slight swelling that I noticed around my ankle recently. I was curious to know whether it was a tennis/hiking injury that I overlooked. I was impressed by the efficacy of the app. I could send pictures of the ankle to the doctor ahead of the scheduled appointment and then we talked about the possible causes and a course of action to treat the swelling. My doctor has a 16-month-old baby at home. So she is glad at the opportunity to work from home. But she did notice that I was calling from my office and joked, "If I had an office as lovely as yours, then I would go there every day!" 🙂
It was really nice to be able to mix up all these social interactions to make the day more interesting than the typical stay-at-home-all-day-every-day routine. While the historic cultural and social changes are happening all around us, forcing us to process powerful stimulii one after another, the normalcy of sharing the mundane human experiences with fellow professionals was very very comforting.

#Day95sinceSIP 
COVID-19:The Great Equalizer—or the Grade Equalizer? Every student’s grades look the same! My son is loving this.



#Day98sinceSIP
Call me a dinosaur, but i never knew that finally setting up an IP phone at home (to replicate the office set up) would make me this happy! I am choosing to just accept the fact that going regularly to office is still a distant dream. Instead, employers are increasingly willing to invest in equivalent office equipment to be delivered to your home so that you are as productive from home as you are from the office.

#Day99sinceSIP
The day started with heart-breaking news for all tennis fans: ace tennis star Novak Djokovic has been tested positive for COVID-19 after the charity tennis tournament that he organized in Croatia. He took the risk to give the tennis pros and the fans of the world hope that things are going to come back to normalcy, but it massively backfired. 
As we all know, things that are the most dear to us are also our greatest weaknesses. I do not doubt Djokovic's heart was in the right place, but he probably should have been stricter in terms of enforcing safety protocols.
Well, we are all wiser in hindsight. All I can say is that I get why Novak and other players wanted to play. When I play, I forget that we are living through the most stressful episode of our lifetime. Pandemic, social isolation, racial tension, travel embargo, health crisis in family in India--everything gets blurred and you focus on that yellow projectile with 2.70 inch diameter coming at you--sometimes with a wicked spin--that you want to hit back to the other side of the net. Nothing cleanses your mind better! And when you add the unbridled joy of shared laughter, the happy sweat of burned calories, and the nostalgic ache of tired muscle to the equation, then it is a total win--even though nobody counted points or cared to remember who won the game, set or the match!


#100Days--June 24, 2020
Today marks the 100th day since the shelter-in-place took effect on March 17. Sadly, today is also the day Governor Newsom had to explicitly point finger at Californians for not behaving responsibly enough as number of new COVID cases spiked to record high of 7,149 new cases yesterday (https://www.sfchronicle.com/…/Newsom-pleads-with-California…). I guess there is no choice but to embrace the fact that we need to learn to co-exist with COVID. It is part of the ecosystem now. There will be many more dubious 100-day milestones for us to cross. As they say, it's a marathon, not a sprint. So let's just keep looking for our "happy" hour in the quarantine bingo that we are all playing now--willingly or not willingly.

Two Full Months Now...

Today is May 17, i.e. exactly two months since the shelter-in-place started. Just lining up the little Facebook posts from this week, my Sunday afternoon ritual for the last few weeks.

May 11: Day 56--Day 1 of Week 9

Engrossed in reading the Tesla lawsuit against the Alameda County word for word! #DinnerCanWait

My summary of the lawsuit: They hired a litigation powerhouse, so the complaint looks "sexy" with all kinds of constitutional due process grounds and all. But essentially they are saying Newsom's order makes sense, and Alameda's order is in conflict with Newson's order. So it should be preempted. I think Tesla might win this---may not on merit, but based on common sense political and economic sentiments.


May 12: Day 57--Day 2 of Week 9

Today, May 12, is Women in Mathematics Day, in celebration of Fields Medalist Maryam Mirzakhani's birthday.
https://www.facebook.com/awmmath/
The Association for Women in Mathematics offers free streaming of the documentary "Secrets of the Surface: the Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani," which examines her life and mathematical work . This is only available until May 15th. Fill out the form to receive your link.
https://lnkd.in/gCYc_EV
#WomenInMaths #May12 #May12

[Incidentally, today is also Florence Nightingle's birthday.]

#StayAtHomeIrregularDiaries
May 13: Day 58--Day 3 of week 9

Went to buy pet food today. There were significantly more cars on the road than two weeks back when we last visited the store. Customers were all wearing masks and maintaining social distance. Heard the most encouraging news from the owner of the store---a small 'mom and pop' establishment that we often go to. He said with reduced hours, he has been able to cut some operational cost, but has been able to earn roughly 80% of the revenue even during the SIP. Bless the pet owners and the staunch supporters of the local businesses!

#StayAtHomeIrregularDiaries

May 15: Day 60--Day 5 of Week 9

Morning post:

Signs of the time! Vending machines dispensing personal protective equipment!

Afternoon post:

Unexpected perks of the shelter-in-place. Tesla sent their servicepersons to my doorstep to replace a recalled part. Everything was done on my driveway. No struggle deciding how to manage having to take the car to the service station on a workday. WFH FTW! (Work from home for the win!)

May 16: Day 61--Day 6 of Week 9

Glad to have virtually met the founders and key players of Kolkata Foundation over a zoom call today--right from my backyard. Didnt matter if they were here in the Bay area or in New Jersey or the Washington DC metro area. Detailed Excel spreadsheets can be so motivational when you see the impact of your contribution and appreciate the hard work that goes on the ground to make it happen. https://www.kolkatafoundation.org/