My short trip to Ta'if and what lies ahead

As I stated in my last post, I went to Ta'if for a half-day. I left my home after the Dhuhr prayer, reaching Ta'if just after Asr'. I had a simple agenda. The first task was to visit my bank and send money back to India; after this, I had an open agenda to spend the evening. I had hoped to fix my car, but realised that time would be wanting; hence, I just visited a grocery store to buy several items to take back home; a bufiya (a fast-food joint) to have tea and some snacks; the mosque to perform the Asr' prayers; and, finally, Ta'if's Heart Mall to purchase some food from McDonald's to carry back to my place as well as to do some window shopping.

I completed all these tasks by half past seven, and so, left Ta'if to return to Al Muwayh. Both, while going to, and returning from, Ta'if, I used my car's media system to watch two old Hindi movies - Aar Paar and C.I.D. Naturally, I had to watch them in bits, as I had to keep my eyes (and my mind) on the road, but I daresay many of my readers will think I did something unacceptable! Hence, before you say "WTF", let me submit that yes, it was wrong for me to have done so, and I was putting myself at peril.

But it was really enjoyable to listen to the fantastic bouquet of songs from both these movies ... and while Waheeda Rehman was scintillating in C.I.D., Guru Dutt was thoroughly enjoyable in Aar Paar.

Coming now to what happened on the next few days. Sunday was uneventful, but today, i.e. on Monday, I gave an educational talk on "Effective Communication" in our hospital's conference room. Interspersing my talk with anecdotes, and embellishing my presentation with some cartoons helped my listeners to stay awake through the necessarily brief talk of just over 22 minutes. 

I caught up with my online studies today evening, and, after writing this, I plan to prepare a small bag for my 2-days' duty at Zalm starting tomorrow. Yes, Zalm beckons again. So, as my colleague has completed over six weeks there last month, it is my turn to go.

A weekend of rest and play

As I write this on the morning of Saturday, I wish to inform my readers that this was my off-call week, and so I am rested and free from any kind of tensions. My colleague is on-call, but also pretty much rested as there is a lull in the flow of patients over the weekend. Remember, the next week culminates in Hajj. Hence, people of Al Muwayh have moved out of the village and are currently either in Makkah to perform Hajj, or have gone to their relatives' places in other parts of the Kingdom. 

On Thursday night as well as yesterday night, I played games of tennis with Dr. Essam, our medical specialist, in a make-shift tennis court just aside the garden. For making a net, we used a light pole and a rubbish can to anchor a clothesline; we covered the line with a large bed-sheet and used clothes-pegs to keep the sheet from flying away. There are no focus lamps, so we usually play wherever the illumination is better. 

The entire Egyptian community comes to the garden on all weekends, and I have, by now, made friends with most of their children. I guess that is what makes me return to the garden each weekend. On Thursday night, Dr. Ahmed Ouf's daughter Rahmaa celebrated her birthday, and I got sweets and cake from there. Yesterday night, it was no one's birthday, but we still got some food from the ladies' enclave ... the place in the dark where the wives of the Egyptian doctors chat in a circle. The tennis was quite good, and I was a bit tired after the game, as the ball keeps going away from the place of play, and I had to run around to retrieve it. The running doesn't tire as much as the bending your back each time to pick up the ball from the ground!

After writing this, I plan to go to Taif to spend an evening at the mall and perhaps meet a few guys here and there.

That's it for now ...

Life or Bollywood movie?

The Yemeni guy who had purchased my old car about a fortnight ago had second thoughts on this car; the legal office that was supposed to hand over the car to him had some problem receiving the all-clear status on my car as I had not cancelled the complaint regarding unknown persons robbing my car - this had to be done formally, and I was unaware of the system. Anyways, I approached my local police last week before going to Jeddah for my clinical MRCPCH course, and they made the necessary papers, but this had not reached the status of an official cancellation in the police's computerised system for over 10 days after the paper was made by my local police ... and until this was done, the legal office had NOT RELEASED MY CAR or transferred its ownership to the Yemeni fellow ... and he therefore lost interest in the car. He came to me in Al Muwayh on Monday the 22nd, and gave me the story. He said the legal guy wanted me to go to Jeddah and hand over the money back to the Yemeni and then re-possess my car!

Thus, I left for Jeddah in the Yemeni's car on Monday at about 2 p.m. We reached the legal office (maarad) at around 6 p.m. We met the legal guy, an Egyptian fellow called Atef. I paid the SR 3000 back to the Yemeni, and the officer promptly handed over the car key to me and gave me permission to take away my car. There would be some delay in getting back my vehicle registration card, he said, and it would be given to me the next morning. I was thus forced to stay back in Jeddah, without any toiletries or other stuff. 

The funny thing is that when the Yemeni guy came to fetch me in Al Muwayh, he told me that we would go to the maarad, I would hand him the money, get back my car, and then he would re-buy it from me through another maarad. He seemed interested in the car at the price he had paid me. The maarad guy wanted him to pay for "expenses" - an euphemism for extortion from him. The amount the officer quoted was SR 800! This would be a huge cut in the Yemeni's possible profit from the deal. So, he hung around me for some time, then he went a little further, ostensibly on the phone, and then, made an unceremonious, unannounced exit from the scene, without giving me back my money. The result: I now had back my car, he had back his money, and none of us would probably ever meet again.

I contacted the taxi-driver I had met last time, and stayed at his place overnight. The next day, we went to Maarad, but Atef told me the required card would not be ready that day, and so I requested him to hand over the card to the taxi driver Tanveer Ahmed/Malik. Next, we went to the old cars compound ("tashliya") to get an used compressor for my old car's A/C, and a few spare parts for my Hyundai Accent car (I needed a seat belt clamp and a front dashboard box, both of which are broken in my car). We then went to an A/C mechanic and fitted my old car with the A/C, filled it with gas etc. and then went to a mechanic to fix a few small things in the car. We finished both jobs by 8:00 p.m., after which I took leave of Tanveer (having paid him a huge amount for his service) and began my return journey.

I reached Al Muwayh in the late hours of the night - at half past two.

P.S. We went for lunch to a new place called Zamzam restaurant - which served an excellent plate of Kadai Mutton with rotis. I should review this place some time.  The service was a bit slow as there were too many costumers, but the food was piping hot and very nice.