Namaste. Welcome to the official website of Ashok Rajamani, a new kind of Indian American writer, poet, and artist.
In 2000, at the age of 25, a mighty surprise came his way: due to an undetected birth defect that had been lurking in his brain, he suffered a sudden, near-fatal, massive cerebral hemorrhage.
At his brother's wedding.
Though surviving, he's been left with lifelong bisected blindness, epilepsy, distorted hearing, erratic transient amnesia, metal staples in his brain, and ultimately, a carved skull courtesy of open brain surgery. The final consequence of his body's very own 9-11? An irreverent and decidedly unconventional memoir about a day that exploded not only his brain, but the world around him.
It's called "THE DAY MY BRAIN EXPLODED."
This is the home of all things explosive.
Now a proud brain injury rights advocate, Ashok is a regular host for Brain Injury Radio and Subject Matter Expert for The Brain Injury Association of America.
He belongs to the Authors Guild, New York Writers Coalition, Asian American Writers Workshop, South Asian Journalists Association, and is a nationally recognized poet in Poets & Writers Literary Organization's Directory of American Poets.
His work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Scholars & Rogues, South Asian Review, Danse Macabre, and 3:AM Magazine. (See left column and publications page for complete list of credits.) His art has been submitted to many venues as well, including Exit Art, a leading New York cultural center.
A self-acknowledged Hindu hick, Ashok grew up in a town near a cornfield in Illinois, before fleeing to The Big Apple at the age of 17, where he's lived ever since.
He is a Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of New York University, where he received his degree in Journalism. He attended Columbia University for advanced cultural studies.
His turn-ons include: Kathy Bates in Misery. His turn-offs include: tomato chunks.
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Publisher:
ALGONQUIN BOOKS, A DIVISION OF
WORKMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
225 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
phone: 212-254-5900
fax: 212-254-8098
www.algonquin.com
time bomb: ashok, age 3
