Focus Wellness

 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 ...

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...

 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...

Doctor, may I hold your hand? As it was not one for a handshake, this request did intrigue me. Before granting his wish, I felt I needed to know the reason. The quest of finding it led to an unfurling of that boys bringing up. The youngest to two elder siblings and, with his father an expatriate, he grew up amid three women; two sisters and a doting mother. During the consultation, he disclosed to me that he never felt attracted to women. He wanted to live with a man whom he could choose when it was time. The parents who accompanied him for a later session were hell-bent on not allowing such a marriage as their religion never allowed it. They couldn't bear the shame inflicted by society. Delving deep into his mind, he revealed the reason why he couldn't accept a woman as his life partner. He had never seen his daddy love his mommy, and they would always quarrel in front of him whenever his father came on leave to live with them. The revelations of the parents were furthermore s...

"It is too cold!" calls my wife when my kid son joins me in my morning walks. December mornings are pretty cool at my rustic home. Our pet dachshund Rana has his share of morning exercise along with us. Both of them are too playful, and I have to keep a watchful eye, or else they might pull each other's leg on my blind eye. Occasionally they go to the backyard, and suddenly there is silence. I call out both names with no response. On hurrying my pace, I get to see either the dachshund bathed in the cold tap water; the poor one grabbed by the collar with no chance of escape.  Or else both of them rolling in the mud. That silence is a sure sign that they are up to some mischief. Most episodes of the silence of a kid are a sure escapade to mischief. There is an initial moment of anxiety for the parent. It transforms into a (dis)heartening sight of a Picasso on the Teflon coated drawing-room wall.  Silence has an array of emotions. It is haunting when we lose someone in the f...

The father and son are one example; the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law being another. It may be due to my never-ending fascination for planes and fighter jets that I feel that the struggle between these two resemble dogfights. Yes, a dogfight is close air-to-air combat. One aircraft is already airborne and thinks it is the master of the skies. In comes, the friendly, but the already airborne one's radar detects it as an enemy. Alas! Dogfight ensues until one has to fall. The Mig 29 father has been the breadwinner of the family all the while. His Sukhoi son grows up, marries, gives two grandchildren for the family to cradle and play. Both have their roles to play in defending the family. But in the mental combat for mastery of the family skies, both their radars get locked as enemies. The same is for the C 130 J Super Hercules (mother-in-law). She has been master of the kitchen skies and can't even think of an Apache Helicopter coming into her space to test its airworthiness ...