Focus Wellness

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 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...

 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...

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...

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...