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.

How-To guide: how to spend an interesting day in a desert

During my conversation with a dear pediatric colleague in India, he asked me how I passed the time, given that the Kingdom has hardly any entertainment channels or social do's or other activities to calm the restive mind. This blog entry is a result of my rumination in the past few hours over the question asked by my friend. 


Back in India, life was so fast that the above question never occurred to any of us to ask or answer! Here, in this simple Bedouin place called Al Muwayh, this is the first question that occurs to an inquisitive outsider - once he knows the limitations of this place. As it did to my friend. I mulled over the answer, and the simple reply that rose to my lips was: keeping in touch with your friends and family. This is the ONE activity most ex-patriates are engaged in throughout the Kingdom. Towards satisfying this end, people buy smart phones, VOIP cards, download software to talk cheap to India, surf the net and spend endless hours on GTalk, Yahoo Chat or the ever-growing Facebook, etc. The Saudi Arabians earn a neat amount of money through these and similar other activities, and I am sure they are not complaining. Several large organisations offer access to free Wireless within their office premises, and many hospitals within the Kingdom do, too. Unfortunately, Al Muwayh Hospital where I work is not one of them. 


To be sure, it has a Wireless, but it is password protected, and no one will tell you what the Password is. Hence, all the staff at my hospital from doctors down to ward boys and general helpers are forever buying internet cards and phone cards to be in touch with  their kith and kin overseas. In fact, for the female employees (nurses and female helpers), the cards are happily provided by one of the cafeteria servicemen, who probably boosts his own income by purchasing these cards in bulk at a discount and re-sells them at the MRP in the cafeteria.


I usually call my family every single day. In addition, I make a few calls each day to talk to my other contacts, whether in India or elsewhere. VOIP calls to India cost only 75p per minute, or Rs. 2.25 for three minutes. When one is properly connected to the net, the quality of the calls is as good as with a normal telephone call, as many of my readers whom I have called will attest to. Each day, therefore, I spend about an hour making calls. 


In addition to this, I walk about 5-6 km per day on at least 5-6 days of a week, whether I am on-call or off-call. I undertake these brisk walks at a pace of about 6.5-6.8 km/hr, and hence, I spend a solid hour walking. Including the warm-up, cool-down and the tea ritual in a local shop that follows my walk, this activity shaves off another 1.5 hours each day.


Doing all my internet activities such as reading upwards of 50 mails per day, writing this blog, visiting some fitness sites, logging into my investment website and tweaking my investments, visiting my bank accounts, answering health related questions on a few interactive health-query sites like this one, and viewing  a few videos on Youtube or Facebook - etc. take up another 2-4 hours daily.


When I cook, I spend another hour or so with this. Transportation to the hospital and back twice a day (once in morning/afternoon, and once in the afternoon/evening) take up another hour, and eating and other activities of daily living take up a few more. Sleep takes up seven hours or a few more on the weekends, and the rest I spend loafing around the locality, meeting people, sitting and chatting with like-minded people, and so on. 


I do play some games and read a book (currently, I read about 500 words per day from the evergreen book "The Lord of the Rings" a book that I missed reading in my youth) on my smartphone - the Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830, and I also read a real book (am reading "The Taking", a horror + sci-fi book by Dean Koontz) - these take up another 45-60 minutes each day. 


And, oh yes, I also see downloaded movies; I have over a hundred movies between my laptop and my external Hard Disk, and I keep downloading movies whenever I get free access to the net, for example, when I am in a hotel in Ta'if or something like that. 


When I study, as I did for the Saudi Council exams, I cut down on some of the above activities. Now that I am not studying, my hands are full and I am almost at the stage where I can proudly say that I am not bored of life, and that I am doing so many interesting things each day!


Thank you for reading this entry. Perhaps it touched your heart, and perhaps it did not. Whatever it is, do comment below and I will be obliged. 

Day 18, Saturday, 3rd December, 2011

Dear Reader,


I have very sporadic connectivity with you (read "internet") as Al-Moweh is a small town, and the device that I am using has poorer coverage than the other major company's device, but as I am not flush with cash, and I bought my current device for SR 100 (that is nearly 1400 rupees), I am trying to use the same device rather than the other, more favoured one (the device costs SR 180, which is over INR 2000).


Today, I gave one of the guys in the hospital SR 500 along with my original passport for making my work permit (also known as the "Iqama"). Once I have the permit, I can open a bank account and also send information to the authorities to credit my salary into that account. The entire procedure may take another 1-2 weeks, after which the process for the salary to be credited will be put into motion. 


Getting up in a big house can be a scary thing, because, once you are up, you have to finish  all your chores as soon as possible and leave for the duty. Although the official start timing for the duty is 7:30 a.m., most doctors report by 8:00 a.m. or so. The fact is that the place where I am staying is a good 15-20 minutes' walking distance away, and I had to start rather early if I were to make it on time. In the event, I had a light breakfast, took a quick bath, hung out the clothes that I had washed yesterday night (in the washing machine), and also set some of the utensils and other stuff back in their proper places.


Just after leaving, I called up Dr. Narendra Punjwani, who is a Sindhi friend who is working here as an orthopedic surgeon. He has a car, and he lives just across the road from where I live. Luckily, he hadn't left as yet, so I requested him to take me with him. That is what happened, and I arrived at the AGMH just around 8:00 a.m. i went to the cafeteria to have a small, quick breakfast of scrambled egg ("shakshooka") and tea. After this, I was in the out-patient department till the Dhuhr prayer. In between, I had to go to complete some tasks in connection with the submission of documents to Mr. Abdur-rehman, who works in the Medical Records section. I was asked to also submit recent photos, which I did not have. 


I had earlier met Dr. Shehab, the medical director, who had asked me to accompany him to his house where he would hand me the rubber stamp I had ordered from Ta'if via him - so I grabbed this opportunity to go with him and also requested him to take me to my house, from where I picked up the snaps that were needed (and which I had had the foresight to carry from home over 2 weeks ago!).


This is a unique self-inking rubber stamp that costs SR 50, and comes with a blank impression surface on which you may attach whichever letters you want from a bank of letters, characters, numbers and punctuation that come with the pack! It was an amazing -albeit tiresome - experience to create your own stamp with the legend of your own choice. I settled for a 3-line stamp with "Dr. Taher Y K" on the first, "M.D." on the second and "Sp. Pediatrics" on the final line.


This took the better part of an hour, I think. During this time, I kept seeing patients too, and before long, it was time for the prayer and lunch break. After the break was over, it was more of the OPD time, and soon, it was time for the Asr' prayer and finally, the end of another professional day. 


I got a return lift with Dr. Aala, an Egyptian ENT specialist who is a very kind and helpful person. My colleague Dr. Yasser and one other doctor whose name escapes me also joined him in his vintage Mercedes car that drove very nicely. It was a pleasure to see Dr. Aala leaving each of us at our doorsteps, a journey that made him go sometimes into the interiors of this crazily designed town.


Once I was near home, I visited a supermarket to buy some stuff, and then went home to cook cabbage, clean up the kitchen, surf the net and write this entry. I also spoke to Nishrin and ate some biscuits and popcorn while watching the movie "The Zookeeper" - which I had downloaded to my laptop before leaving India.


Once I am through with this entry, I intend to have my dinner and then arrange my stuff in the closet. Inshallah I will sleep by half past ten. I intend to make this a routine.


I am done. And, for the first time since I began this blog, I am ending ahead of the completion of the day! (Hurray!)