He didn’t say much at first. Just slumped into the chair like a man whose battery had 2% left despite eight hours of charging. The shirt was branded, the watch was sleek, and the under-eye circles had their postcode. You could smell success—office success, not health. He had all the right boxes ticked: a bungalow in Whitefield, club memberships, two kids in international school, a wife who did Zumba and smoothies, two imported dogs with a dedicated vet, an aquarium lit better than my clinic, and two exotic birds in a golden cage that probably came with a user manual in Italian.
His mother walked in behind him, thin, sari neatly pinned, calm as a summer coconut tree. She did most of the talking.
“Doctor, he can’t sleep without melatonin… gets headaches every Sunday evening… sugar is high, pressure is up… also neck pain, back pain, acidity, gas… and this anger, doctor! Like a volcano. We are scared to ask him for chutney also.”
The son just nodded slowly. Even that seemed to hurt his neck.
That moment captured everything. Our parents walked through storms and built houses from scratch. We sit inside those houses with ergonomic chairs, filtered water, five remotes, and still complain of burnout.
Our parents were healthy because they were too busy living to obsess about health. Their bodies moved, minds worked, sleep came, and food was seasonal, not shipped across hemispheres. My father never heard of “gut microbiome,” but he started his day with a handful of soaked methi seeds and ended it with warm jeera water. He never had six-pack abs, but he had a six-sense approach to life: eat on time, sleep on time, work hard, worry less, laugh often, and trust the body.
Today’s 38-year-old has everything—a house, a car, gadgets, and even weekend getaways—but not a single day without tiredness. Or a neck that feels normal.
Last week, a 35-year-old techie walked in, sat down with a sigh, and said, “Doc, I don’t know what’s happening. I have acidity, gas, and palpitations. I took two weeks off and went to the Maldives. Still, same.” I asked what he does during the day. “Calls. Zoom. Slides. Uber Eats. Repeat.” His tongue was coated, his pulse erratic. His food had travelled more than he had.
I see this often. Young men and women with glowing skin on Instagram and wilting energy in real life. They have wearable devices that track everything except joy. They count steps, monitor sleep, and record water intake—but can’t digest rice and curd.
Meanwhile, their 70-year-old parents wake up at 5, sweep the porch, do half a Surya Namaskar, sip filter coffee, and digest chana sundal without complaint.
One patient’s mother told me proudly, “Doctor, I don’t take tablets. I take chutneys. Mint for gas, ginger for pain, jeera for digestion, ajwain for bloating.” Her son, 40, takes pantoprazole, mebeverine, clonazepam, and vitamin D—yet feels “something is off.”
What’s off is the rhythm.
Our parents had a routine like temple bells. Early to bed wasn’t philosophy—it was power cut reality. They didn’t know the word “mindfulness,” but they chewed food slowly and knew the names of three kinds of cucumbers. They didn’t need Netflix to unwind. They had charpoys and conversation.
Their food came from the backyard or the street next to them. Today’s food comes from cloud kitchens, …packed with chemicals and additives that sound more like Wi-Fi passwords than ingredients.
I once asked a 30-year-old what he had for breakfast. He said, “Almond croissant and cold brew.” I asked his mother. “Ragi mudde with soppina saaru.” One of them had acidity. Guess who?
The truth is, our parents had fewer choices and better outcomes. We have more options, but also more confusion.
Take sleep. They had no white noise machines, no blackout curtains, no magnesium sprays: just one pillow and a full day’s tiredness. We have memory foam mattresses and insomnia.
Stress? Our fathers had to run entire households on a meagre salary, wake up at 5, read the newspaper, go to work, come home in the evening, and listen to All India Radio. No yoga retreats. But also, no panic attacks.
Today, I meet 32-year-olds who panic when the Wi-Fi is down. One even told me, “Doc, my mental health depends on Spotify.”
One 70-year-old uncle in my clinic once told his software son: “When we were young, we had only one doctor in the whole taluk. So we didn’t fall sick. Now you have 400 doctors on your phone and still coughing for 3 months.”
Ayurveda says: health is balance, not perfection. Our parents didn’t chase health. They lived in tune with the seasons, with hunger, and with their families. They didn’t fear food. Or carbs. Or papaya. They feared only two things: the fan stopping during a summer power cut and the dosa sticking to the pan when guests had arrived.
I recently asked an elderly patient, “What’s your medicine routine?” She smiled, “Two tablespoons of homemade thambuli and five rounds of walking around the playground.” Her daughter, sitting next to her, had five supplements and six symptoms.
Our generation treats the body like a project. Trackable, hackable, overcorrected. But healing is not data-driven. It’s rhythm-driven.
We need to walk again. In the sun. Without earbuds. We need to sit and eat without Instagram. We need to sleep when our eyelids feel heavy, not after watching ten episodes of our favourite show. We need to stop blaming the body and start rethinking the way we’re living inside it.
Our parents didn’t have perfect lives. But they knew something we’re slowly forgetting—health is not in luxury. It’s in simplicity.
Nostalgia won’t fix our fatigue, and our parents’ legacy won’t carry our weight. If we want their strength, we can’t just admire their stories—we have to live our own with the same courage, rhythm, and responsibility.
