From nonprescription allergy relief to yoga, Ashok Wahi finds new ways to solve old problems.
By: Emily Craighead
Ashok Wahi spent his childhood taking things apart.
For his fifth birthday, Mr. Wahi’s aunt gave him a toy airplane, which he promptly dismantled beyond repair.
His mother was furious, but the young Mr. Wahi replied simply, "I just wanted to see how it flies."
Now, at 55, Mr. Wahi’s life revolves around putting things together.
An engineer by training, Mr. Wahi also lists inventor and author as qualifications on his resume.
When he isn’t busy with his engineering consulting firm, Princeton Design Group, Mr. Wahi, a Polhemus Drive resident, oversees Trutek Corp., the company he founded in 1995 to develop and market his inventions.
"The inventions side grew up out of necessity," said Mr. Wahi, sitting in his Somerville office Jan. 21.
NasalGuard first created that necessity.
Described in brochures as an "allergen screen topical gel," NasalGuard began as Mr. Wahi’s solution to his daughter Aikta’s cat allergy.
"I didn’t want her to take a drug-related product because they all have side effects," he said.
Rather than turn to readily available medical remedies, Mr. Wahi turned to physics.
An electrostatic field shielding a person’s nose, Mr. Wahi predicted, would prevent pet dander, mold spores, or other airborne allergens from entering the body and causing watery eyes and a runny nose or worse.
"You can look at counteracting them or you can look at avoiding these allergens in the first place," Mr. Wahi said.
The gel, which rubs into the skin like hand lotion, is patented, and although NasalGuard has not undergone extensive clinical testing, Mr. Wahi has numerous anecdotal examples of his product’s success.
"The first test was my daughter and she’s been my control my ‘guinea pig,’" he said.
Trutek Corp. is also in the final stages of refining an enhanced version of NasalGuard to capture and kill the airborne viruses that cause the flu.
Mr. Wahi’s genius is not in his knowledge or even in his skill, but in his awareness of even the slightest problems of daily life and his determination to find a simple solution.
"When Ashok is faced with a problem most people either solve the problem and go on or go around the problem but Ashok solves the problem and then patents it," said 55-year-old Phil Galli of Deer Run Hill, vice president of Princeton Design Group.
That’s how Mr. Wahi created Autma, a home-telephone privacy system, for which Mr. Galli, who previously worked at AT&T Corp., is the primary developer.
"Although (Mr. Wahi) doesn’t have any electrical engineering skills or experience with chemistry or pharmaceuticals, his mechanical engineering and operations research background led him to find viable solutions," Mr. Galli said. "Then when you get down to this, he finds people smarter than he is in that area."
Working with other experts, Mr. Wahi seeks to solve problems that are not necessarily his own.
Mr. Wahi has never smoked, nor is he an avid golfer, but he has written self-help books about both.
Originally from New Delhi, Mr. Wahi has practiced yoga for 20 years and in this ritual he found techniques to ease the stress of quitting smoking. The yoga exercises include stretching punctuated by deliberate breathing techniques.
"We made (smokers) addicted to the breath, which they need to live anyway," Mr. Wahi said of his yoga program.
In another book, Mr. Wahi introduces similar strategies to help golfers perfect their game.
"I’m narrowing it down from 4,000 exercises developed over 2,000 years to techniques that can be used in specific situations," he said.
Mr. Wahi also recently co-wrote a novel, "The Vital Breath," a love story entwined with concepts of yoga and reincarnation, set in the 19th century in the Indian state of Kashmir and in 21st century New York City.
With these scientific, literary and spiritual accomplishments to his name, Mr. Wahi would certainly fit the profile of a Renaissance man, but he sees himself differently.
"People have said that but I’d rather consider finding commonality in problems rather than being a Renaissance man," Mr. Wahi said.
That common strand, he said, is creative thinking to solve problems from the seemingly simple to the complex.
"I want to be known as an engineer, inventor and writer on the professional side, and also for helping people with small, cost-effective solutions," Mr. Wahi said.
Mr. Wahi’s mother at least, can rest assured her son has moved on from taking things apart to putting them together to find new answers.
"Her response now is that whatever I broke and turned bad was only in her house, but it was so I could fix everything for everyone else," Mr. Wahi said.
Mr. Wahi said he has plenty of ideas for future inventions tucked away, but for now he will focus on making NasalGuard, Autma and The Vital Breath successful.

