The past week

The week that just ended was one where I was off call; however, I worked for the first two days and then proceeded on leave for the next three days. On day 3 and 4, I stayed in Al Muwayh; on day 5, I went to Ta'if and stayed at my usual hotel for the next two nights before returning to Al Muwayh on Saturday evening. This was one holiday when I did nothing particularly engaging, other than sleeping long hours, surfing the net and enjoying my meals at the Indian restaurants nearby. 

My younger daughter Hannah has gone on what is fashionably known as an "industrial visit" from her college. I have been speaking daily to her, and she is apparently having a lot of fun, but no real lessons in anything. In fact, according to her, the tour guides who are accompanying them show them stuff that is appropriate to be shown to school kids! Thus, there is a gap in the knowledge that they are getting. Of course, on the entertainment front, they are having a gala time of it. I think she is expected to return after some more days. 

Nishrin and Inas are on a house-cleaning spree now that Diwali is around the corner. To those of my readers who are not aware of what Diwali is, it is a "festival of lights" (and bursting of millions of rupees worth of fireworks) that commemorates an important event described in the great Hindu epic Ramayan. Apparently, when Ram entered Ayodhya after his 14-year long exile (when he lived an ascetic life in the forest), the people of Ayodhya lit up the whole city with hand made "diyas". Eventually, Ram was coronated and became the King of Ayodhya.  Although traditionally, this is a Hindu festival, it is now a part of Indian culture and people of all religions join their Hindu brethren in celebrating it. Diwali is an occasion when people clean their homes, make sweets and delicacies to eat, buy and wear new clothes, jewellery and accessories, burst fireworks, adorn their homes with "rangoli", "toran", lights and other traditional decorations, visit their friends and relatives, and generally enjoy themselves. Since the past two years, I have/will be missed/missing this great festival. However, inshallah, I should be back in India before Diwali 2014.

While India and Pakistan continue to engage in skirmishes at various points along the "line of control", in Saudi Arabia as well as in other countries where the people from these two countries have emigrated to work, people of these two nations behave in the most friendly manner. The events at the border between the two countries seem not to affect us where we stay. Some of my best friends here are of Pakistani origin. To give you an example, let me mention my car-mechanic friend Mr. Shabbir Choudhary. He is a Pakistani and has his workshop in Ta'if. I went to him during my visit to this city this week; he is a large, effusive man and talks through his heart. On previous occasions, he has surprised me with his friendly approach as well as his hearty hospitality. This time, though, we could not go out for dinner as he was very busy with his own and his clients' pending tasks. 

Meanwhile, just out of interest, I have begun taking oral lessons in the Filipino language! If I am able to reach a level where I can understand about 20-25% of the spoken language, I will be happy. 

In other news, I have completed my online learning courses on "Animal behaviour" and "Global Health" and in my last week of the course on "Vaccines". The next few courses I will be taking will be primers on "Diabetes", "Global Warming" and "Nanotechnology". By the time I complete those courses, it would be February or March 2014.

The last thing I wish to share is that my visit to India is now almost certain as I have received my vacation paper today. Inshallah, I should be in India around the 18th of November 2013.

That's all.

P.S. The women of Saudi Arabia are trying to get permission to drive cars in the Kingdom. They had planned a joint movement which was to be held on the 26th of October 2013, but they backed off because of the strict governmental directives asking them not to take the hasty step or they would be fined heavily or even arrested. In spite of this, about 50-60 women did take to the roads, and at least one such woman, an activist, was arrested and imprisoned for one night before being released.

The past ten days since my last entry

My readers might be eager to learn what has been transpiring in my life since I last made an entry in this blog near the end of August. I had described my stint in Zalm, with one more day to go. Well, the last and final day also went off peacefully. I finally left Zalm on Saturday morning, going with a team of Maintenance crew (Al Ewan Medical Company) which was proceeding to T'aif. They very kindly gave me a drop outside my house. I left my luggage and then went to the Hospital to attend to my duties.

The entire week saw me gradually increasing my study hours as the day for my examination for Part 1 of the MRCPCH nears. I am scheduled to appear from Jeddah on the 9th of October this year. Hence, as I write this, there is less than a month to go for the exam. Overall, I am not too satisfied with my studies; I guess it's been over 25 years since I read Pediatrics in a concerted manner. However, I have certainly improved quite a lot this year. Initially, I read quite a lot for the Saudi Council exams; thereafter, I took a break of a few months. From mid-June, I began reading again, what with the books I brought back with me from India (kindly provided by Dr. Faizan Bhoira, the pediatrician who looked after my clinic for the first few months after I left India last year). I subscribed to a paid revision account with www.onexamination.com, a venture that has enabled me to revise over 1600 questions. The account was for 3 months, and expired today. I am planning to renew it for one more month, if they will enable me to do so. This might be a little difficult as things stand today. Although I got a confirmation that they WOULD be able to renew the account subscription, I have not yet heard from them so that I can fulfill my obligation.

If I am unable to renew, it won't be much of a loss, as I do have quite a few Multiple-Choice-Questions books to read. In fact, I have so many books that I don't think I will be able to finish all of them in the limited time available.

I have been cooking quite a bit these last 8-10 days after returning from Zalm. I have made, so far, dal, channa masala, kheema, cauliflower-potato bhaji, mutton curry, fish curry, scrambled eggs, noodles, palak bhaji and chicken masala. The last two items have just been made and I think they have turned out quite good. Let's see what they actually taste like. 

I have been gradually adding friends from the hospital to my Facebook friends' list. This week, I added Dr. Measser, the Syrian resident doctor. Going via his profile, I am now friends with more than 6 other doctors of the hospital, including Dr. Amr Hilal (Surgical resident, now also Quality Assurance in charge), Dr. Majid Shaib (Surgical Specialist), Dr, Moataz (Anesthesiologist), and a few more. This has been a nice thing, as I am now able to peek inside the world of Arab doctors from Egypt, Syria, Sudan, etc. The best posts, however, are in Arabic, and I have to then approach these friends off-line, that is, in the hospital, to understand what the post was about. 

That's all for now. My father continues to be in poor health in India. My mother is okay, I guess, but tired of it all. They have appointed a full-time man-servant to attend to Dad's needs and to feed him by the feeding tube as needed. 

My wife and kids are fine, as are my brothers, their wives and their children. Amen.

A Week later ...

Readers will discover this post when I go back into public mode. The last six or seven days when I have been off-public and in private mode for certain reasons have been routine for the most part. I continued to be on-call this week, and have had a fair share of calls in the evenings and nights. In the day-time, though, I have been free to read and do other stuff on the internet. This week was bad from the point of view of studies: I scored low in many multiple-choice-questions that I tried to answer, and this has firmed my resolve to read more.


Dr. Mohammed Abdel Jawad, one of my resident doctor friends from Egypt, brought my Mastercourse books with DVD when he returned from his holiday in Cairo, and I will be indebted to him for getting this book at a much lower price than its mandated price. So, I have begun reading this with earnest.


I also did a fair amount of cooking this week, making a vegetable mix of bottle-gourd with carrots, a boiled potato bhaji, mutton masala, and sprouted Bengal gram. Also made rice and other stuff off and on. Breakfast wasn't very formal but I did make poha (a dry snack made from beaten puffed rice) one of the days and it turned out to be quite nice. It missed a dash of sweetness which is what I like to get into it when I have it in Mumbai. The chapatis I brought from India have served me well, and I am now worried about what will happen once the stock runs out! Thus, I economise on their consumption, varying them with rice, bread or other stuff.


Ramadan started on Thursday here, and I was looking forward to the new OPD schedule that went into place from today, i.e. Saturday. From today till the end of the Holy month, we will be attending a split duty from 10-1 in the morning and then 9-12 in the evening. This enables us to be in the home the entire afternoon and evening, a sort of blessing since it is so hot anyway. As I write this, I am preparing for my first ever evening shift which is to start in an hour.


In other news, I must update that as Dad's blood levels suggested a fair control of his kidney functions after his 7-8 sessions of dialysis, he has been advised rest for a week or two. He had developed some catheter infection (he had a intravenous line in one of his neck veins for his repeated dialysis), and this line was removed on this Friday. Inas is doing fine at her job, and Hannah has settled into a good routine at her Management studies. Nish is good as ever, but a little overwhelmed each morning because of the hectic start. Mom is keeping well, but getting exhausted after looking after her own self and her husband, my dad. However, the good news is that they now have a helper, a 17-year old boy, who stays with them from 8 a.m. in the morning till 7 p.m. in the evening. This should make Mom's condition a little better. 


I continue to live alone in the large house I "inherited" from Dr. Shahid after his departure from here, and to tell you honestly, it is a good thing, because I have a free run of the house and can "do as I please", with none to share my physical and emotional space with. The downside is the fact that I have to bear the entire rent and also that I am all alone and sometimes feel the lack of company.


That's all for now. 

The Working Week That Was: Sunday 4th March to Wednesday, 7th March, 2012

As is the usual case, once the working week starts, there is nothing exciting that one encounters in Al Moweh. As this was my on-call week, I was, for the most part of the mornings and afternoon, free to pursue my reading and/or writing activities, but, in the end, being the creature of habit, I loafed around the hospital, sitting in the ER with the doctors there, or spending time surfing the net, or visiting with any of the OPD doctors who were free at a given point in time. I did study, but, compared to the time spent doing all the other things, my studies amounted to almost nothing. I solved about a hundred MCQs in all, and scored about 70% overall, which is not at all comforting. I realized that I would have to read a lot more than I had thought previously.

To those who are yet unaware, I have to clear an examination conducted by Prometrics, the international examination experts on behalf of the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, before I can be certified and accredited as a Pediatrician and given a licence to work in this country. It does seem an unfair thing to do, as one comes to this country after considerable expense and is taken in and given a visa only after the verification of our certificates and credentials from our home country (India in my case), thus, there should be no need to re-examine us after we have started working here. However, this is how the penny drops in this country, and I have no choice in the matter. In fact, they will allow me a second chance at the exam should I fail to clear it the first time, but both my attempts have to be completed before the 23^rd of May 2012.

In the most unlikely case of my not passing the exam in the second attempt, I would get a final chance to appear before the end of my contract in November 2012, but there would have to be the need for the hospital to state that they needed me, and I would have to pay the examination and council fees all over again (a hefty sum of SAR 2250/= or almost INR 30000/=.

My emergency evenings were moderate, but many of the evening calls to see patients in the ER led to admissions of the children to the indoor department. This unusual thing happened because of the widely fluctuating weather conditions over the past week; we had alternating bouts of biting cold and nauseating heat conditions that probably resulted in a significant rise in infective conditions  among the mostly unhygienically brought up children of this locality.

I did not cook anything significant over the week except for mixed vegetables on Sunday and a mind-blowing masoor pulao with kadhI on Monday. On Tuesday evening, I had fish curry and dosai at the south Indian restaurant on the highway. I intend to do some serious cooking over the weekend that approaches.

I learned from my own family that the renovation of the parlour was almost done and Nishrin has begun to take clients in her newly refurbished place already. My daughter Hans has reached the fag-end of her examinations and is looking forward to being released from the stress cycle she is in for the last 1 ½ years … within a few days from writing this. Dad has been having the asthmatic attack for the last almost one week and is taking treatment with Dr. Saifee Savliwala. As to Inas, her training is progressing satisfactorily, and as per her own telling of it, she is enjoying this very much.

Let me now move on to a disclosure of my own plans for the coming months. After sitting for the Council examination in the second week of April, I am planning for a split holiday to India some time in mid-May. This is something that I am looking forward to. After my return from there, I shall plunge myself into studying for the examinations for the MRCPCH qualification of the UK. That’s it for now. And yes, if possible, I will perform the Haj this year, and if not, pray that I am able to do so the next year.