Devil Inside My Mind

By Gaurav Nigam

I thought about taking my life for the 138th time today. No I am not making this up.
The words that you write last for your book are the one that are read first by your audience. Ironical. Such was my life.
Hi. I am Amit. This is the story of my life, a life lived through the tinted glasses of OCD – a weird disease where you can't shake off the strangest of thoughts. I have lived in alternative realities, been slapped in public for touching a woman's back to purify her, walked in a loop of the same 70 steps for over five hours to make sure my loved ones do not die. Things that are normal were never normal for me.
This is the story of my life… A life twisted by OCD… My journey from insanity to sanity, from the deepest dark wells to the pinnacles of success… From being the Patient to becoming the world-renowned doctor. This is my one and only story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9789352068418

Book preview

DEVIL INSIDE MY MIND

SOME JOURNEYS ARE JUST MEANT TO BE READ

GAURAV NIGAM

Notion Press

Old No. 38, New No. 6

McNichols Road, Chetpet

Chennai - 600 031

First Published by Notion Press 2016

Copyright © Gaurav Nigam 2016

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 978-93-5206-841-8

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The images illustrated inside have been drawn by hand and the reference for the same has been taken from Internet.

Dedicated

To

The Sake of Winning

Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Prologue

Introduction

1. From Dust to Quest

2. Losing My Touch by Winning Achiever’s Badge

3. A plan that just wouldn’t fail

4. Fear of Failure and a 30-Second Revelation

5. Prisoner of War of Words

6. When Fear of Needle Pierced Me

7. Strange Strokes

8. Homesick for Bhutan Without Even Visiting It

9. Pursuit of Correlation Turns Tonic

10. Madness in Munich

11. Music Can Harmonise Insanity

12. The Creative Corner

13. Time When it Rains in Heaven

14. Journey from God-Fearing to God-Loving

15. The End and a New Beginning

Acknowledgement

Writing a book was not as easy as I thought it would be. It’s not only about creating intelligibility out of the randomness you experience; it’s not only about choosing what you love; it’s not only about integrating loss and gain through one’s prism of experiences. It’s about giving your life a sense of identity.

And for all those moments when I wanted to postpone it, I always had optimism in me to go that extra mile.

I would like to express my gratitude to all those people who saw me through this book; to all those who provided support, talked things over, read, wrote, offered comments, allowed me to quote their remarks and assisted in the editing, proofreading and design.

I would like to start by thanking the Almighty God for showing me the path, my ancestors for showering countless blessings on me and my soul for giving me the courage to do this.

I am ever so grateful to my parents for teaching me the rights and wrongs in life, and to my extended family for having the patience in me.

I am thankful to Mansi, who has taken huge shots of caffeine with me while working late at the editing table.

Di, Guds and Pinks - my three musketeers - for being such insightful first editors, for all those storming session over dinner and for helping me unravel so many story lines.

Bhai, for whom I have no words.

Alok, Manish and Uday without whose support this was just a joke. Ah, at least, they think that!

Kashish who made a zillion designs for the cover just to edit a photograph that I clicked at Starbucks, Vasant Kunj with my iPhone.

Thank you to all my readers who will unlock their mental suitcases to come on an insightful voyage with me. Without you, I would not be here now, writing these words.

Last and not least: I’m eternally grateful to that one person who didn’t allow me to mention his name.

Prologue

Page 17, from my friend’s diary.

If there was one night that I could never ever forget, even if I desperately wanted to, it was the night of October 17 th , 2008. Half naked, sozzled and staggering in my walk, I could barely stand straight. As I walked alone along the highway 78, Greenwich Venue, I looked up to the dark velvet skies and I felt as if nature was playing its tricks on me. Did the clouds get a new coat of dark black? Were the celestial bodies hiding away from my glance that night? Why were the winds around so torturous to the lonesome soul that drowned itself in the gloomy void? I didn’t have an answer to any of these questions.

I could feel the winds tear through my skin and penetrate my soul. I could feel my soul weeping that night. I felt the vacuum. Powerless, lost, in disdain, I felt worthless for a while. The only tag along on this lonesome journey being my bottle of wine - a green glass bottle with gently sloping shoulders.

I staggered my broken self across the pleated tarmac of the highway, which seemed to stare at me with wide eyes; a pair I couldn’t fathom was seeing what. While I continually heard the gushing sound of passing cars, motor vehicles and trucks, the lights beamed and flashed on my misty wet eyes. Even as the high-powered truck lights were bathing my eyes and blurring my senses, the Do Not Cross Me yellow trailing line whipped me back to reality, each time my foot treaded over. That line was warning me of consequences I could face should I dare cross it. That yellow line was a mistress, keeping me in check.

Amidst all this also, I was audaciously bold. I once again looked up at the dark black sky, which seemed to play peek-a-boo. I stood still wondering what was going on. Confusion and apathy reigned over my senses. I felt as though a million voices were talking in my head and the bottle in hand was not to be blamed.

I blamed myself. I stuttered ahead and continued to blame myself in the quest to end my life for the 138th time.

Introduction

While growing up as kids, we constantly bicker and rant, a nd sometimes end up fighting over the smallest of things. As time passes by, we tend to stock those memories and laugh it out over a drink someday . Nostalgic as it sounds; there comes a time when such moments are relived only to bring in a new addition an unexpected streak of immense sadness to the current state of being.

It is rather more disappointing than strange, when your closest friend tells you about something they have been silently suffering from. An illness of the mind we may have possibly heard and read about, but couldn’t imagine would strike one of our own. It was for the very first time that I witnessed the feeling of constant suffering and helplessness in the eyes of my friend. He poured his soul out to me, over a drink of single malt one evening.

While the dusky magenta sky danced in all her splendour that evening, it was a moment that laid its strong foundation in my mind. We parked ourselves at the countryside café of Hahndorf Village, acknowledged as Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement, where the discovery of an overactive voyage began. As the chunks of ice clinked into my half glass of single malt, my friend and I bonded over the childhood sagas we left behind. Memories of being kids, of playing around the neighbourhoods where we lived, of growing up and talking about love and life, and every little fight that we may have had. While the winds blew awry, the translucent liquor in our glasses played catalyst. As we unpeeled each other’s life happenings, the dark night sky watched us talk. The floodgates of the dam in my friend’s eyes slowly began to break loose. Soon I was assured that my friend’s words were darker than