THE MIND & BODY BLOG

From movies featuring the casino-hopping swish life of Las Vegas, to high-profile Diwali parties back home, gambling looks all glamorous, stylish and sexy. Some may choose to look the other way, but quite a few of us are more than once tempted to try our luck and test the odds of winning — be it just online poker and rummy, or horse-racing and even real casino-style betting.  The ‘art’ of gambling, or betting on money or other objects, has been popular for entertainment and recreation across cultures for centuries. In India, the Mahabharata lore shows us how popular gambling was among our ancestors. Needless to say, there were repercussions that shaped the narration of the epic as it stands today. As early as the 4th century BC, the Arthashashtra recommended taxation and control of gambling. Even in modern times, some speculative investments like options or futures that fall into the same bracket have been cleverly excluded to be perceived as different from gambling, especia...

A doctor is not simply a practitioner who heals the body. He is as much a healer of the mind of a person who’s tired of an ailment, is tottering on the brink of hopelessness, and has come to him in good faith. A good physician is one who successfully treats a person with his understanding of the science of medicine. A great physician is one who makes the practice of medicine into an art by bringing together his study of the science along with the individual’s own healing capacity and utilises the faith he reposes in him as a catalyst to make the cure complete, and holistic. Life is both science and art. There is a distinct and detailed methodology which is inbuilt and there is a way in which you live. Brain, which is at the centre of our lives and steers it through the entire course of our existence, is also a science and an art. Similarly, the practice of medicine is both science and an art. There are three components to healing. One is the medicine, second is...