Focus Wellness

Posts

Tea Truths

After a recent flu, I found myself having a dislike for tea. I was surprised because tea had always been my favorite. Homeopathy selects medicines based on many individual traits, and I looked up in my repertory for a medicine that had an aversion to tea. I had it, and it relieved me of the flu very fast. But in the next few weeks, I saw another peculiar thing happening to me. I wasn’t enjoying the tea I made. I was weak after recovering from the flu. I wanted something to brighten me up. But tea from my regular tea shops was as tasty as before, maybe more. I was bemused. Curiosity made me a bit restless. Darjeeling tea made with grass-fed cow milk boiled in water drawn from the well boiled with utmost care did not taste as sweet as the ones from the shops. I started my thought journey from the hills, where the tea was plucked, to the sink, where I washed my teacup. Voila, in a matter of seconds, I found it! The tea, sugar, milk, cups, teapot, and my poor old stove were not ...

A Tale of Two Mangalores

The fishy smell from the bamboo baskets hit my nose at the edge of the railway platform. My friend said fishing is one of the leading businesses in Mangalore. It is a port city. I nodded, smiling at my childhood memories of Vizag Port and the morning fish smell wafting through the balconies of our home in Maharanipeta. We were in the town of Golli Bajji for two days. That evening, we downed Ideals chocolate daddies and carrot halwa soaked in ice cream. Later, a literary stroll inside the Sapna book house. That night was reserved for a national meeting, and in a loo break, my eye caught a neon. It was an uptown place. I took a peek inside to see the nightlife in Mangalore. The place was a reflection of the affluence in that city. Rich spirits adorned the shelves, cocktails costing the earth spewed on the oaks and the chairs by people who made statements of fashion houses from across the globe. The rain-soaked morning was lazy, but I didn't want to miss my morning ...

Families Should

It was a referred case, and so I had to be double careful. Covid had changed all norms of consultations. Over the phone, they said few problems, and as the patient couldn't come to my clinic, the father and son duo decided to come over for a detailed talk. It was a case of cerebral degeneration. They had lost hope with many systems of medicines and came to me as a last resort in Homeopathy. Spending a huge chunk of their life in a state in India away from their hometown for their livelihood they came down to their place with a lot of dreams after retirement. The mother was the one who was affected and so the whole family was shattered. At this stage, I too knew that only conservative management of the most distressing symptoms would be the only solution. But that was not the actual problem before me. The mother was an excellent homemaker and a great cook churning out mouth-watering dishes to the whole family even on ordinary days. She would throw in her best during family occasion...

SleepWell

The mother of the twin teens felt the gravity of my stern look. But she was helpless. She tried umpteen times to make them sleep separately, But they sneaked back into her bed. The father used to come home only on fortnights. So she was bringing up the kids. After a hard laboured day, she had to sacrifice her comforts even though the home they lived in had enough rooms to accommodate another family. Once your child crosses twelve, they are budding adults; a very critical time for personality development. In my clinical practice, I've come across many well-to-do families where all of them sleep in the same room even after their kids have crossed their teens. This is trending in many Indian families abroad too. It is understandable if the home had fewer rooms but in all my cases there were enough and more. It is a truth that as a parent we never forget the first look on our kids when they were born and given into our hands. A wonderful sight to cherish, but as parents, we sho...

Dining Table Tales

The guests are arriving at any moment, and it's a situation room in the kitchen. The mother is worried about the dishes that have come off the stove. Will they lose their taste when cold? And of those on the stove becoming too much cooked? The father burns a lot of helping the mother. The kids are not much concerned. They are on a spree having a gala time with intermittent snacks and no one to supervise them with both parents busy in the kitchen. It's time to dress the dining table. The buck gets passed among the members, and those who win the raffle get to do one big task of clearing and cleaning it. From kid's crayons to the grocery shopping, this piece of furniture has the scars of all the things that come and go in the family. When exam time comes, the dining table becomes the study. The kids may have exclusive study tables. But this is where the strict parent spreads out all the texts and pesters the kids to score more marks. Then eating and studying go hand in hand t...

The ONLY Way

It was another usual. This time the grandfather was the one who brought his 14-year-old grandson with the usual complaints. He eats nothing and is addicted to gadgets. This covid era has been a fertile period for such issues. Kids just got more engrossed with these gadgets as their schools shifted from real to virtual canvases. Earlier, they had a tablet or a mobile to take an eye off their books and relax to play a game. Now the school itself relocated to the tablet and, parents are unsure whether it's the learning or the playing that's happening at any time. There is no rarity of such kids, be it in my clinical practice or my friends' circle. No gender difference too. Almost on a daily average, I come across a complaint of gadget addiction. Unlike most harmful substances that are addictive, these are at times handy and have thus become a part of our lives. I summoned the mother of the 14-year-old. There was nothing in store as a surprise. A homemaker mother, having to tir...