How the Zalm posting has helped me

As my readers are aware, I was sent to Zalm within a few days of my return to the Kingdom. It certainly did not appeal to me at that time, as it appeared as if the sudden shunting was part of a penalty imposed on me by someone in authority. Ten days have passed since then. I cannot say I am happy in Zalm, but there are positive aspects to it. For example, I would point out that when I left last time for India in March, I had mostly cleared my house of my belongings. If I had stayed on in Al Muwayh, I might have had to re-purchase many items in my house. Also, I have missed one salary here, and it might have tightened my purse. Thus, the Zalm posting has freed me from the need to empty my purse right now and re-furbish my home or buy food, or stuff like that. 

Zalm is a very quiet place, and I have more time to do things I always want to do, but run out of time for. A radiology locum doctor next to my room has a Wi Fi and he has so kindly shared it with me, so that I am able to surf the net - a luxury for some, but an absolute necessity for me. I have watched live TV, downloaded movies, taken modules of studies on Coursera, updated my status on Facebook and Twitter, written this and other previous entries on this and other blogs of mine, and so on, only thanks to his generosity.

I have also found time to read a book here and there. And watch so many movies that are already on my laptop or that I have recently downloaded on to my laptop. I also downloaded and watched all the recent episodes of Grey's Anatomy, 11th season, and of Game of Thrones. These viewings have helped pass my time. 

I am also writing. I have recently begun writing a book to help candidates studying for the membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The book will not be a scientific compendium, but a lot of advice on how to go about passing the exam. 

Today, I successfully posted my Parenting book back on the internet to sell as an e-book. The link for the same is here. Readers from India may pay in Indian rupees using any credit card of their choice. International readers will probably fetch the e-book at much lower rates than existing e-books on Parenting, which often cost more than USD 15. I request readers to take a look at the link and to buy it or gift it to their near and dear ones if they wish to do so. 

I have made friends with my co-Pediatrician here, Dr. Hany Moharem. He has a table-tennis table in his house! I went to his place some days ago, and discovered that he and his other friends play the game regularly. I joined in as well. I was completely out of touch and had a tough time scoring even 5 against these seasoned players. I was quite surprised by the skills of Dr. Hany, who remains in good physical shape despite his age of nearly 64 years. He is due to retire in a few months' time. Yesterday, I was joined by a Pakistani anesthetist friend who is also doing a locum post here. His name is Dr. Abul Bashar, and he and I went to Dr. Hany's place to play TT, as we used to call this game in our salad days. It is exhilarating and fun to play, and I think a dose of such game-play is required in every house where there is place enough to do so, as it can keep the family fit and united.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and as always, my request to share this post with others on G+ or other social media, to write your comments and to start a conversation with me and with other readers.

Reading more about this country on others' blogs

As I mentioned in an earlier entry posted by me a few days ago, I have started exploring Saudi Arabia through some exceptionally well written blogs on the net. I came across one by a lady who calls herself Laylah. She is probably an American, but the fact is that she married a Saudi man, and has started a blog that has almost 500 followers, and a page on FB with more than 1500 likes. Check out some of her entries on http://www.blueabaya.com.

I read about her experience of attending a Saudi wedding. This encompasses two rather long and detailed posts on her first time at a Saudi wedding. It was thoroughly enjoyable. I haven't attended one as yet, but would certainly like to go for one if invited. 

Also, she writes about many interesting places to visit in the kingdom, and one of the posts describes a village called Ushaiger, which is an hour and a half's ride by car from Riyadh. You should probably read the post and take a look at the amazing pictures that she has posted on the site! 

Of course, Saudi Arabia has some problems, but then, which country does not? At least I am seeing a fairly good administration, well-planned, clean cities, an optimum use of the resources that they have to beautify places, plant trees, and do whatever they can to make cities livable. I would like to ask if a country like ours, i.e. India, could match the kingdom in the provision of good governance. I am not even talking about expenditure or whether India can afford to spend so much on this or that ... just clean governance, which costs nothing in money but everything in conscience. To that extent, I am gradually turning from a critic to a grudging admirer of this nation.

Someone asked me why I looked so happy nowadays. It made me think. Some standard stuff came to my mind such as my having passed part 1 of the MRCPCH, my having appeared for part 2, my having performed a visit to Madinah and performed the Hajj, my having made a decent amount of money that I could not have made had I been in India ... but at the heart of all this was the fact that life is getting to be enjoyable here because there is less stress, more peace, a slow pace of life, time to do things which one cannot ordinarily even contemplate doing in the fast hurly-burly of life in Mumbai, and such other comforts that are difficult to describe.

Yes, I miss my family a lot. I miss the snacks and the food that India is so famous for, and was one of the many reasons I regretted leaving India for, but these are common to the millions of Indians working here and in other countries in the Gulf as well as in the other countries of the world. So, we suffer, but we all do, and it is something you get used to after some time. In fact, the absence of corruption in day-to-day life, the absence of scams, the absence of terrorist attacks, the absence of the rat-race that we all become a part of in India ... you actually begin to like these things. And, thus, Saudi Arabia grows on you. Gradually, imperceptibly. As it has, on me.

That's it for now. Do write in with your comments. 

I finally found my periscope

Dear Readers,

I came to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia exactly 18 months ago. After a brief sojourn in Ta'if, I was taken to Al Muwayh to work as a specialist Pediatrician in the Ministry of Health's general hospital. My "incoming" was fraught with difficulties, and my regular readers probably remember the problems I faced during my first two weeks in the Kingdom. Of course, the difficulties did not end then, and even today, I continue to make compromises with myself as and when the need arises.

Imagine, therefore, my pleasant surprise when I discovered so much new information about Saudi Arabia today, while surf. ing the net. I came across a listing of blogs based on Saudi Arabia on the www.expatsblog.com site. These blogs have been maintained regularly. For example, the blog http://workinginsaudiarabia.blogspot.com has been online since 2007, and has had more than a million visits! The site http://www.blueabaya.com is a fantastic blog, as is the site http://www.americanbedu.com. These last few blogs have tremendous posts, great pictures and super blog views .

I call this my periscope because, until now, I was living at the bottom of a deep well and could barely look outside it. Knowing that there are other people out there who are also bloggers like me, and who have been writing such fantastic accounts of their life in Saudi Arabia has been a shocker, no less, for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed their blog entries, although I do not see their point of view when they criticise the Saudi government. The reason is simple. If you are in a foreign country to earn your livelihood, you must not speak against them ... it is an uncharitable thing to do! So, I am going to restrict myself to writing positive things about my stay here in the Kingdom. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining. So also this. I am going to concentrate on the positives. There are many, and there is no doubt there are negatives too, but it is not for me to be a judge of what they are and what they do as long as I am working here and earning my livelihood thanks to their generosity.

So, what is the periscope showing me? I read a post on ten things to do when you are in Abha. I read a beautiful post on the people and the village of Ushaigar (2 and a half hours' drive to the north-west of Riyadh). I read a post about the liberal lifestyle and dress of the Saudi women in the 1950s and 1960s before abayas and face covering were made compulsary. I think these posts have opened my eyes to the beautiful things that Saudi Arabia has to offer and it will be my endeavour to discover these things for myself in the months to come. Do stay with me, dear reader, for more revelations about this country.

Thank you for reading. That is all for today.

Into a New Weekend, with additional material for discussion

I am now reading a little as my Saudi Council examinations are just three weeks away. Due to this, I may become even more irregular in posting on this blog. I, however, do crave the indulgence of my readers to await the installments with patience. Today, I finally completed a book called "PreTest" for Pediatrics. It is a collection of 500 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) on different aspects of Pediatrics. I have fared reasonably well, I think, for someone who hasn't read much for the past two and a half decades. I mean, one does attend conferences and so on, but organised reading? You've got to be joking!The most I have done is to turn the pages of the new editions of the Holy Grail of Pediatrics (Nelson's Textbook) for a few days after purchasing it every few years. In addition, I read to understand difficult cases, to teach my students and sometimes, to kill time in the clinic when the patient flow reduces. This cannot substitute for systematic reading, and I well know it. As I went through the questions, I realised how little I actually knew about so many disease entities. Although there was an explanation attached to every answer, I still felt quite inadequate and so kept turning to the textbooks to know more about a particular subject/illness/topic. 


In a way, this reading will help me not just for the Saudi Council exams, but also when I want to appear for the MRCPCH examinations later in the years to come. So, I am trying to be serious here.


The weekend began as usual, today being a Thursday. I did not cook anything, but managed to stave off starvation by eating leftovers for both breakfast and lunch. I skipped a formal dinner as I had already had snacks earlier in the evening. Today, I used a downloaded program called SPORTS TRACKER on my Android-platform mobile phone (Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830) to monitor my walk. I went from home to the hospital on an evening visit, then returned home, and proceeded onward to the garden after a few minutes' break. In the garden, I walked just 1 circuit and then went to the cafeteria to have my customary snack and tea. From there, I walked back home. The entire walk took about 6.2 km and discounting the 2 breaks (one at the hospital and one in the cafeteria), took about 70 minutes, thus giving an average of about 10 minutes or so per kilometer.Which, I think, is a pretty good effort. The app calculated a consumption of over 320 calories, which I made up with my cafeteria snack and one cup of tea with milk.