Day 2, Ahmedabad: Six days to Exam Day

Let me begin with what happened yesterday evening. As I had written, my friend Dr. Paresh arrived soon after I had shared my previous entry on this blog to Facebook. He has changed a lot since I last saw him a year and a half ago in Al Muwayh. After he exited the Kingdom and returned to India, he has again gained weight, and how! He confessed he has put on 15 kg after his return. He hasn't blamed anyone other than himself, though, and says he is "obliged" to attend several family functions in the last few years. At  most such functions, he ends up eating a lot of unhealthy, butter or ghee-laden food. I had no option but to laugh with him and share my own food-and-weight-related escapades both here and abroad.

He had come on a Honda Activa scooter, and he invited me to go with him and spend the evening with him. I agreed and off we went. First, he took me around the local area, showing me the Roza of Syedi Qutbuddin Shaheed, where there were a lot of Bohra men and women wandering about. Next, he rode down Naroda road for about 4-5 km till we came upon a restaurant called Desi Tadka. It was about 6.10 p.m., and the owners told us the place would open for business only after 7 p.m. We then went to a neighboring tea and snacks outlet, and settled down to have tea. Over tea, Dr. Paresh spoke about his life and specially about how he was busy making a lot of side money investing in stocks in the NSE market. I picked up a few tips from him.

At seven o'clock, we moved to the other place, where we sat down to a luxurious early dinner of Gujarati foods. We ordered a "ringan no oro" (a dish of coal-cooked brinjals and other mixed vegetables) and a "stuffed brinjal" (stuffed with a paste of onions and other vegetables)  with bajra rotis. The food was delicious. I returned to the hotel at about 8.40 p.m., and then we parted. 

Today morning, I woke up at half past eight, and went down to breakfast at about 10 a.m. They served poha which was quite good, but I could see that their preparation is completely different from the one that we make in Mumbai. After this, I returned to my room and studied till half past 1 p.m.- before descending to the restaurant for a delightful lunch of authentic "undhiyu" and tandoori rotis. To top it all, I even had a plate of rice and dal and a cup of tea.

Now it is evening. I have put in more than 2 hours of study with a Skype session with my friend Sanjay Shukla and am raring to read more. That's it for now. Keep praying for my success. Thank you for reading and bye, dear reader.           

Preparations for the final part of the exam: Into the last week

My sitting for the final part of the MRCPCH exam is confirmed and I would emerge from the exam venue exactly a week from now, either victorious for having conquered the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's Membership exam, or a bit sad at not succeeding this time. In either case, the journey so far has been memorable. I still remember writing about my ambition to do this exam 3 years ago in this very diary. It was one of my stated aims when I chose to leave my home country and work in Saudi Arabia. I feel a sense of accomplishment, because I have cleared the first two parts of the exam and will appear, on the 18th of this month, for the CLINICAL part (the final one), from GCS Hospital, Ahmedabad. To fulfill that purpose, I flew from Mumbai to Ahmedabad today morning, and am writing this post from a newly opened, reasonably priced and clean hotel just across the road from the exam venue. This hotel is called Lalji Hotel. Owned by a father-son duo of Vaishnavi Gujaratis, this is a 12-room two-storeyed hotel on Naroda Road. 

The person I have interacted with is Mr. Jignesh Sharma, the son, who has completed his hotel-management from UK and has started this modest hotel with his own funds on a 200 sq. m. plot owned by his father. A chef at heart, he personally supervises the hotel's ground floor restaurant menu. While they serve thalis for lunch, the dinner menu is a la carte, as he told me during the chat I had with him. He is an extremely affable chap and has gone out of the way to help me feel at home in his hotel. The room is small, but clean and has all the necessities I need to be able to study. The only thing lacking was a study table, but we improvised one using two small side tables, each 18 inches high, stacked, one atop the other. A chair was missing, but he readily provided me with one. The Wi fi he had wasn't up to the mark, and he arranged for a new router, which he affixed within a few hours of my arrival, so as to facilitate my stay. I had upma for breakfast, and a limited thali for lunch. The upma was very tasty. The Punjabi thali was tasty as well, but if I had to critique it, I might say that the vegetable portions were inadequate. There was paneer sabzi and potatoes, with three tandoori rotis (they serve it with butter by default, but I asked to be served them without the latter). There was a small helping of pulao rice with dal fry, but no sweet dish to complete the meal. I would rate the thali a 6/10.

So, now it is just past five p.m. I am awaiting my friend Dr. Paresh Shah, who was working in Saudi Arabia until last year, and whom I had called to help me fix a hotel in Ahmedabad before coming here. However, he was unable to find something really suitable, but it is rather kind of him to call me and would be coming to the hotel to meet me any moment now (this is feeling like a live blog now!) The friend who DID arrange this booking at Lalji is my class-mate and work-mate Dr. Nimish Shah, whom I had also called from Saudi about 2 weeks before landing up here in Ahmedabad. He got the number of Lalji from Just Dial. And he remained in touch with me on Whatsapp and finalised the booking without any trouble to me. Thanks to both of these fine doctors who went out of the way to help me.

That's all for now. Will update you all, dear readers, of life in Ahmedabad, and about the exams from time to time. Signing off now. Thanks for reading.

A week in India

It has been a week since I came to India. I reached Mumbai airport at half past eleven on the night of the 31st of December. The airport at Mumbai is really a very busy one, and it took over 2 hours for me to reach home from there. The new T2 terminal is really well-designed, but I felt that the arrivals area is not as pretty as the departures area which is located on the upper floor in full sight of the sky. The arrivals occurs at a lower level, and one has to then descend to an even lower level to reach the taxi stand. At the time I arrived, there were 2-3 other arrival flights, so the immigration guys were really stretched. The long walk one has to take before reaching immigration, however, really dampens one's energy. It is nearly 2 km long! A few meters here and there have horizontal automatic walkers, but the rest of it you have to walk all the way. 

Back home, I was welcomed by my family in a very glorious fashion. Considering that the time was well past two a.m., that was so nice of them. Not only did I receive a whole lot of hugs and kisses, they even had me cut a cake as a welcome gift. I was thrilled by their elaborate preparations. 

The next few days saw me going to several places, among them, visiting my mom (who keeps well, Alhamdulillah), completing various tasks, and taking my family for dinner on the 1st of January (at a place called The Sassy Spoon at Express Towers, Nariman Point).

On the 3rd, I visited Sion-Koliwada with Nishrin and prayed at the Dashmesh Gurudwara there. Also met Lovely and her son there. From there, we parcelled two plates of Fish tikka to eat at home ... from a place known as Hardeep Restaurant. The restaurant is well-known to everyone in this area and receives hundreds of guests.

On the 4th, we invited Nishrin's brother Pappu with his family, as also Mom and her companion Sakinabai, and Murtuza and his family, to dinner. Kaizar and his family, too, were invited, but did not come. This was my first-time with Pappu's son Devender, his wife Radha and their mischievous son, who entertained us all the way with his antics and his unusually sharp mind. We served catered food: there were chicken legs, Mutton biryani, Gupta's Kulfi, Mutter paneer with chapatis, and carrot halwa. The last two items were home-made by Nish. Everyone enjoyed the food and our hospitality.

We also went for a marathon shopping session to Phoenix Highstreet on the 5th of January, spending nearly 10 hours there as we went to almost all the shopping centers there, including Skywalk, Galleria, Palladium and Courtyard. We ended with a dinner at Mainland China in Palladium Mall.

My studies are picking up, and just 11 days remain before I sit for my exams. It will be a tight race to the finish as I still have so much more to read. The evening Skype sessions are now not taking place, as most of the others with whom I was studying are busy doing other things. Only Dr. Sarita and I are due to appear from Ahmedabad in the next fortnight. 

I am missing my work in Saudi Arabia more than I thought I would. Life there is relaxed, while it is very hectic here in Mumbai. Anyways ... life goes on.