Why I Write on Health and Fitness

Why do I write on Health and Fitness? Because it earns me a lot of money? Or because it gets me raving comments from the readers?

The real reason is I like the topics I am writing on. Many of the diseases I have written about are those that many of my family members or friends and near and dear ones suffer from. That fills my head with many questions and I go about looking for information on those topics. When my head buzzes with all the information, I put them in writing, and I find writing consolidates my learning.

I have no pretense about ‘knowing it all’. We had no text books back in  early 1960’s when I studied in Delhi Tamil Education Association (DTEA) school. Our teacher would write a few question and answers on the blackboard and we would have to copy it into our notebooks and learn them by heart! Sounds very inadequate as a means of learning, but that is how it was.

I felt keenly even then that the ‘knowledge’ imparted in my school was very sketchy compared to many better schools, so I sought to supplement it with good books whenever I chanced upon them. Even though the subject I chose for my secondary education did not include Biology, I made sure I read all the prescribed books and much, much, more on the subject.

How I got Interested in Home Remedies

I got my first baby in 1974. As all new mothers do, I used to feel very distressed when the baby cried in the evenings as they generally do. Those were days when I looked upon doctors’ words as gospel. The doctor told me to give the baby Piptal / Spasmindon drops whenever the child cried; other medicines were similarly prescribed to be given for diarrhea or fever. Later, I read in a magazine that certain components in Piptal/Spasmindon drops could affect the infants’ nervous system. Not only did the doctor fail to warn me about it, he told me so casually to give it whenever the child cried!!

My second child had weak digestion and used to have frequent diarrhea. Like all mothers, I didn’t want my child to lose weight because of loose motion, so I would give the prescribed medicine, without ever diluting the milk even when its digestion had been weakened. I failed to recognize even when the stools were white. Slowly this led to the baby’s liver to get weakened. On my friend’s advice, I stopped all the other medicines and gave the child Liv 52 drops, an ayurvedic medicine, and slowly the baby recovered fully.