Focus Wellness

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...

From the mundane brown and beige uniform, it was an entry to a world of colours when we went for the school tour to Ooty, Bangalore, and Mysore. Even though we pulled out the best from our closets, something was missing. College, too, was no exception. An Armani or the local footpath t-shirt didn't make a difference as the white apron over it cloaked the colours beneath it. We couldn't go beyond a point to showcase our fashion tastes. We had a code. Few teachers used to scold us if we didn't dress up to the dignity of our profession. School and college tours were a break and a breather from the hectic schedules. And we had to look like romantics as tours was the time when most cupids struck. So we had to add to what was missing to complete the effect. The addition was mostly a borrow or an authoritative steal from mother, elder sibling or cousins, sometimes even friends. I remember borrowing my cousin's floral shirt for the school tour. That pattern was a rave in those ...

As I was receiving his symptoms, he said that I spoke good Hindi. Hearing his comment made me laugh deep down in my heart. Setting up my practice after graduation, I had a lot of immigrant labourers as patients; poor them were finding it hard to meet a doctor with whom they could communicate their symptoms effectively. They were so happy seeing a doctor who could "fluently" speak with them in Hindi.  At school, I never understood a single word of what my Hindi teacher taught. It wasn't her fault at all. I was a hundred percent dyslexic when it came to Hindi. Not a single word entered my head nor, would anything come out from my mouth. She used to cane and coax me a lot with total futile results. I barfed out what I had somehow pushed into my grey matter on to the answer sheets and barely managed to pass. Later, my graduation days in English literature was where I met Bollywood through DDLJ and Rangeela, and lo, I was learning Hindi through the language of love in the film...

Without an iota of doubt, you should say that 2020 was a great year. You just witnessed a year that will go down in history books as one of the greatest faced by humans ever since recorded. There have been wars and pandemics before covid 19. But this one got faced by a generation, especially millennials, who had never encountered such things. Yesterday, few were forwarding memes with the apprehension of even using 'happy' to wish the new year. 2020 was, indeed, a great year where new normals got established. Every single human being on this earth got affected, even the remotest humans living on isolated islands. This pandemic has taught us some great lessons. Of them, the most significant I feel is we should not think much of our future. Just think of how we can survive the present. That will bring peace of mind. And whenever you look back, don't forget to say wow! 2020, you made me strong.  And from me, it is a happy new year to all of you.

The multitude of colours on a croton plant makes it an ornamental one for the garden. Shades of green, yellow, and red make them a sight to behold. They do have an occasional flower, but their leaves themselves are colourful to our garden. In the picture, you can see the croton with green and yellow leaves. The green is due to chlorophyll, which is the food manufacturing pigment of the plant. Yellow and red are due to the presence of different plant pigments called carotenoids. These cannot manufacture food, but that does not mean they are unimportant for the plant. They support the process of photosynthesis. And though they appear trivial, they are a very integral part. The same we can see in many families, both nuclear and joint. The greens are the ones who work to provide food for the family. The yellows and reds don't manufacture food but aid in the whole process that sustains the plant. The greens, at some point in their life, think that they are the only ones toiling. But is ...

"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 ...