What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised?

Now THAT is a good question. I do many things completely differently from how I was raised, but here I’ll write about that one thing that stands out, if not for anything other than the fact that I had always been meaning to write about it. Now, as they say, is as good a time as any.

I grew up in a cult. Ha! That shocked you, didn’t it? Well, it may not have been a cult as such, but was certainly cult-like. Such was my family’s absolute belief in and devotion to homoeopathy.

Having been born ‘into’ the cult, I grew up believing homoeopathy to be the one and only acceptable form of medicine. Our system was the right one, and everyone else was plain wrong. That made us special. Made me feel special.

There was a clear-cut division of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The others mainly included those following the modern system of medicine, derogatorily referred to as ‘Allopathy’. In fact, allopathy could have been a bad word the way it was used, full of disdain.

Growing up, all ailments were treated with sugar pills. I am pretty sure it was my own immune system that kept me going till adulthood rather than the tiny pills handed out.

No ailment left me alone. I have had them all: mumps, measles, chickenpox, whooping cough, bronchitis, pneumonia, tonsillitis, conjunctivitis… I was the favourite person for every fever or cold doing the rounds. Headaches/migraines were a permanent fixture of my life. Everything had to be suffered through. That was the mantra. Being sick meant your body was fighting or some such baloney.

I had never ever been to a proper doctor of modern medicine until I was an adult and pregnant with my first child. But I still held on firmly to my inculcated (or is that indoctrinated?) beliefs and took even the vitamins the doctors doled out, with the utmost suspicion. Luckily for me, I had sense enough to get my children vaccinated as children. Small mercies.

I continued holding forth on homoeopathy to whoever cared to listen, parroting the self-same lines I heard growing up, considering myself somehow superior to the lesser people who popped ‘allopathic’ pills. The reality check came later, through my children, and their questions. Not that I gave in initially. Mostly I listened to them, smiling, but not really accepting. That is… until…

One fine day I had an epiphany. Omg! I am like someone from a cult. Unquestioningly believing everything she has been told to be the truth, the last word. Moreover, that feeling of being special, of knowing better than others? A classic cult characteristic, I realised with a jolt.

My eyes had opened.

I looked around and started noticing things I hadn’t before. I read, made myself aware of new developments. Once I was on the journey, I just couldn’t believe how I could have lived all these years with my eyes (and mind) closed to facts. I was a liberated, modern woman, with views quite unlike those of the family I grew up in, and yet one part of me had been too narrow to see beyond what I had grown up with.

Most members of my family are still stuck in the same groove. When they wax eloquent on their favourite topic in my vicinity, I keep my mouth shut for the sake of peace. But rest assured that inside my head I am waging a battle—sometimes even laughing at the absurd claims—and vanquishing them all with facts, for all I am worth.

©️ Shail Mohan 2026