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.

Will the glorious past of books ever return?

I think not. Books were one of the most useful things mankind manufactured, and they were there thousands of years before printing was even discovered. Mankind progressed from carving on stone tablets (witness Moses' Ten Commandments or the Rosetta Stone), to Papyrus paper, to paper made 

Rosetta stone, at the British Museum

Paper made from the Papyrus plant

from the bark of trees to recycled paper. Books have survived most kinds of progress mankind has made. Even during the first seventy years after the arrival of the computer, books continued to remain popular among the masses. The real change away from books has occurred only in the last two decades, and more so in the last seven or eight years when Internet v.2.0 arrived on the scene. I mean social media. The arrival of these social media have taken people away from serious and engaging pastimes like reading or writing or painting to frivolous and even more engaging pastimes like checking others' lives, being voyuers or publicity-seeking hounds, like playing nonsensical games throughout the day (and sometimes late into the nights), like straining at the hand-held smart phone devices and chatting with friends (are they really off-line friends or just guys or girls whom you befriended online) and so on.

Today, the erstwhile book-reading middle-aged person who is computer savvy prefers to read the books in their soft-format as e-books on their laptops or smart phones. Additionally, they claim that avoiding purchase of books is also friendly to trees and therefore environment-friendly. Don't computers and devices also generate junk when their time has come?  Like those others, I, too, have almost completely switched over to e-books. I prefer the Kindle ones from Amazon, but I will take them in any format they come in. Peer-sharing web-sites allow people to share lay books as well as otherwise painstakingly compiled professional books without any payment to the writer of the book. Chatting apps like Telegram allow us to share these books without going anywhere else but inside the chat. (Telegram is available for Android, Windows and iOs operating systems, and can even be run on one's laptop.)

So, to answer the question I posed in the title: I really think that printed books will perhaps last out my generation, but slowly, they will expire, and be replaced with e-books. It is better to join the bandwagon and buy them off the net; or write e-books that you can sell on Amazon or any other similar site. 

What do you readers think? I will welcome your comments and thoughts, please.

Busy doing ... nothing!

During my first three years in KSA, I had much to look forward to. Even though I was alone and had to manage my life completely on my own, I had certain aims ... aims that now stand fulfilled to a large extent. My evenings were filled with walks, social media surfing on the net, downloading and watching movies, and studying for the MRCPCH. On off weekends, I would plan a trip to Makkah to perform Umrahs, or a recreational trip to Taif, or even farther ... such as my trip to the Abha region in 2013, or my two car trips to Riyadh (each one for a specific purpose). I also Skyped with friends, slept at odd hours when there wasn't much to do, watched Times Now (the ubiquitous Arnab) or Colors (especially Comedy Nights with Kapil) or other channels when in the mood to watch movies or international news or music.

Now, in Zalm, I do few of those things. I am grounded by the fact that Zalm is extremely hot and dusty during the day; I have no car; and I have no Asian friends among doctors, or outside in the community. Zalm is also not my home-town. There are hardly any interesting restaurants or even supermarkets where one may go just to kill time. I miss my TV and my Pehla TV subscriptions, as these are disconnected. The internet here is also not much to talk about. I cannot go to Makkah to perform Umrah as I am on substitute duty. I finished my academic studies for all practical purposes. So, as you, my dear readers can see, I am, sort of, rudderless and feeling bored and empty ... 

I know that this, too, shall pass. Happy days will return, as they must in the cycle of life. It isn't that I am unhappy, but there is not much to look forward to. Zalm lacks the patient flow of Al Muwayh, so professionally, it is down in the pits where I feel. No acute emergencies, no calls, and hardly a smattering of out-patient cases. No deliveries have taken place either, in all the six days that I have spent here. 

So, what AM I doing? I watch movies, of course. Either on my laptop, or on the TV that sits outside in the lobby. I still manage to surf the net and connect with social media friends whenever I can (read as = whenever I can connect). I sleep ... but not excessively, only about 8 hours in 24. I read a little ... currently, I have picked up "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger. I am simultaneously reading Dr. David Drew's book "Little Stories of Life and Death" on my Kindle. Dr. Drew is a whistleblower who blew the whistle on the NHS (the UK government National Healthcare System) and was summarily dismissed from service and forced to stop professional practice on account of cancellation of his practising license.

Among movies, I watched "American Beauty", "The Lady of the House" and a few other commercial movies. The latter is produced by Anupam Kher and stars his wife Kirron Kher in the lead role. It is a Bengali movie dubbed in English and portrays the life of a widow who lives in a huge, ancestral house all alone with servants. A film production unit seeks permission to shoot at her house, and she, being a recluse, refuses to do so, until the main director approaches her with sensitivity and persuades her to allow them to shoot. This is a story with a deeper meaning, and I recommend that you go and see this movie ... even if you must illegally download it! 

That's it for now ... Do send your comments as I eagerly await your input. Thanks.