Prevention is better than cure!

I remember in 7th standard - Jaswandi tai sitting in our living room and trying to convince me to continue with my Bharatnatyam dance class. I had decided at that time that I couldn't continue with my dance class. It was stressful, my legs used to pain and it used to take up my study time. Jaswandi tai was someone I used to lookup to in dance class and wanted to do the final dance - the "arangetram" like her. But the sense of giving up was so strong- I stopped going to dance class after 5 years of rigorous training which I had started in 2nd standard. CUT To Age 26!! I was going through an extremely rough phase in my life. I joined dance class again. Even though I was adamant in my childhood to leave the class there was feeling of incompleteness inside. I joined again only for my mental health. But with Teju tai cha over looking discipline and Grishma tai cha beautiful singing and guidance I got drawn again into the mesmerizing world of Bharatnatyam. It is not just dance ...

 Imagine, for 2 years living in your own world and not being in touch with reality. Making connections that are not really there. For you your behavior is justified. For others it might seem normal with just some increased irritability and anger issues as some changes. They might justify it in their own way for you. So no-one really knows what is happening, when in fact a disorder called schizophrenia is the backstage performer. Extremely hard to imagine!!! But its a true story for Maqsood (name changed) 21 years young guy from a small village in Partur taluka of Maharashtra. He was living like this in his own world for 2 years. It made him irritable and gave him anger issues. People around him thought he was just off with slightly different behavior from others. No one knows that a disorder like schizophrenia or psychosis or any mental health disorder exists in actuality. Its not everyday that an ASHA worker attends a workshop on general mental health where she actually understand...

My first blog was on Being a Community Medicine doctor. I expressed how difficult it was to explain my specialization to random aunties. It wasn't love at first sight - me choosing this branch. But accepting whatever came to me and falling in love with the subject as I explored all the nooks and crevices of this subject in detail. I found this subject as a very useful tool to provide medical services to the community at large. I said in that blog what's in a name? What is the need to call it community medicine and not Preventive and Social Medicine.  But applying this subject and the learnings for more than two and a half years (well not that much of an experience timewise)  I have realized that community medicine is actually a better name.  PSM makes people focus just on the preventive aspect. But Community Medicine is just more than prevention of a disease. Prevention is an important part - YES!  But there are a lot of things which go unnoticed by general public or...

  No No No...... This is not a book review by Leo Tolstoy. I haven't got much around to even start reading it. It would take a lot of motivation for doing that. Its a blog on friendship. Its been a long time since I wrote anything. I am currently working on this brilliant project on mental health while I am staying in Aurangabad. And I am in Aurangabad for the first time in my life. I don't have any friends or relatives here, which is kind of a relief but it does get lonely sometimes. But I do get my work done. So its been a month and I already feel at home here.  I learnt a few things about this place. People are not actually happy calling it Aurangabad. Its Sambhaji nagar for many. It didn't matter much to me. But someone asked me if it would be OK if people called me Rabiya. First of all I haven't been tortured by Rabiya and I genuinely think Rabiya is a beautiful name, so I wouldn't mind. But yes that got me to think about us using our past to have conversations...

 Why is the question we ask .......When in the glory of the sun we dont bask!!! These are the lines from the poem I wrote in the 1st year MBBS. (under the desk during a PSM lecture; being productive I guess!). So being curios most of the times makes me think a lot about things. It just starts with this question Why and ends up me writing the blog on love. So you would ask what is a topic like love doing on a blog for public health. Love shouldnt be taken for granted. Love makes us do things. Love motivates us. And not just for others. Love for oneself wil help you love others. There is a difference in loving yourself and being selfish. When you love yourself you can appreciate yourself without judging yourself. It helps you to not judge others. When you dont judge others you accept them the way they are and in turn love them.  The motivation for writing this post doesnt stem from the fact that I am looking for a life partner (which ofcourse is a quest of its own; perhaps as di...

 I am in Goa. Woke up late due to late night party which I feel wasn’t meant for me (am I old ? - no ways) So I was staying at a hostel. The reason being the opportunity to meet people. So after having a nice breakfast of omelette and coffee at a nearby restaurant I wander back to my hostel and sit in the wonderful courtyard with tall old trees saving u from the sun with their shadowy leaves. I started searching for places that had live gigs. Like of real indie music and not the usual ...omg I have forgotten what the sound of the disco is...please help me with that. So I was searching for some soulful musical experience in Goa. (Hoping to find lucky ali actually) Luck be it there was a live gig happening in the beautiful space in the hostel itself. The staff told me that the band people were already there. So I went to see who these guys were. They were just setting up their whole thing. The mic and the speakers and stuff. Don’t really know what all things are included. I just went...