Family Trip to UK, October 2016: I An overview

My family arrived in the UK through Manchester on the evening of the 30th of September 2016. Having flown on Turkish Airlines, they looked tired. I went to pick them up in a car I had hired from Enterprise - a US based company that works out of many locations in the UK. 

I took my family straight home to my residential quarters in the hospital, where they settled in for the night. From the next morning, we were on the move. We first went to Bath, where we stayed for 2 nights, then Oxford and onward to London, where we spent three nights. Our next destination was York where we would stay for 2 nights, but before that, we stayed one night at Cambridge. After York, we stopped for a night at Durham, then proceeded to Edinburgh, where we stayed for 3 nights. From Edinburgh, we moved to the Lake District, where we stayed near Hawkshead for one night, and then, onward to Blackpool itself, where we stayed for 5 nights. On the 20th, my family took a return flight from Manchester to Mumbai, thus ending a memorable 21 day holiday that had everything in it.

This, then, was the itinerary (as planned and how it panned out):

30/09/2016: Arrive in the UK via Manchester. Stay overnight in Blackpool at my place.
01/10/2016: Travel to Bath, and arrival to Aquae Sulis Hotel. Evening walk to local places. 02/10/2016: Visit to The Roman Baths. Onward to Stonehenge. Return to hotel.
03/10/2016: Drive to Oxford. No stay. Explore the sights and buildings on foot. Punting on the local river. Drive to Castle Comb village for an unique rural experience. Evening train to London. Stay at the Notting Hill Gate Hotel.
04/10/2016: London sight-seeing. Hop-on, hop-off bus tour. London Eye. Thames river cruise. London bus tour by night.
05/10/2016: Museum of Natural History. St. Paul's Cathedral. More local sight-seeing.
06/10/2016: Leave London and drive to Cambridge. Overnight at Cambridge.
07/10/2016: Cambridge colleges sight-seeing. Drive onward to York. Overnight at Clearly Apartments in Bootham.
08/10/2016: Explore York. Visits to the Minster, to the Shambles and other local sights. Overnight.
09/10/2016: Leave York and travel to Durham. Visit to Durham Cathedral. Could not see the castle as it was closed that day. Stay overnight, 
10/10/2016: Planned hot-air ballooning with Virgin. This flight was aborted because of inclement weather. Proceed to Edinburgh. En route, unscheduled halt at the Vindalonda Village (old Roman archaeological site) and Hadrian's Wall. Reaching Edinburgh at night, overnight at Heather's Place (booked on AirBnB).
11/10/2016: Full day bus trip to Scottish Highlands and visit to Loch Ness. Return to accommodation overnight.
12/10/2016: Full day Edinburgh sight-seeing. Visited the Edinburgh Castle and a few more places. Stay at the accommodation overnight.
13/10/2016: Leave Edinburgh and arrive at Hawkshead at the High Grassings Hotel at Outgate in the Lake District. Stay overnight.
14/10/2016: Check out, and drive to Blackpool Stop at Tarn Hows on the way for a few hours of brilliant sights of the Lake District. Drive by ferry to Bowness-on-Windermere. Take a boat trip from Bowness-on-Windermere to Brockhole, then Brockhole to Ambleside, and then return to Bowness on Windermere. Drive back to Blackpool in the evening. Arrive at Blackpool and stay overnight.
15/10/2016: Drive to Manchester. Visit to Manchester United FC. Return to Blackpool.
16/10/2016: Drive to the Birds of Prey Centre at Trubary Woods, Duxbury, Preston. Amazing experience with hawks, owls, kestrels and falcons. Then, drive onward to Liverpool where we spent the evening at the Waterfront. Overnight at Blackpool.
17/10/2016: Local sightseeing at Blackpool, Visits to the Blackpool Tower, Dungeons, Sealife and Madame Tussaud's. Overnight at Blackpool
18/10/2016: I resumed work at the hospital while the family went to the Pleasure Beach.
19/10/2016: Shopping and enjoying the last night with family.
20/10/2016: Drive family to Manchester airport, from where they returned to Mumbai with Turkish Airlines.

End. 

Keeping in touch

It has been over nine months since I left KSA. In these nine odd months, a lot of changes have happened globally, and many in the Kingdom as well. Their strategy of undercutting international oil prices has backfired on them so badly that the country is reeling under losses and has moved on from a budget with profit to a budget with deficit. Petroleum prices have been raised, a lot of expatriates are being sent back home or are languishing in the Kingdom without wages or without a job, and the monarchy is considering other ways of raising capital and doing business with the world. 

In such circumstances, many doctors are also reconsidering their options. Those from India and other upcoming nations are already contemplating return to their homeland. In the construction industry, people are in so much trouble that some are left to fend for themselves by resorting to begging. There is a sense that Saudi Arabia may be in more trouble in the years to come. The Nitaqat movement started by King Abdullah has urged companies to substitute expatriates with Saudi citizens. Many thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers have been issued exit visas and have been and are being deported.

Doctors' jobs are, for the time being, secure as Saudi doctors are few and far between, but it is estimated that their numbers will grow as more and more Saudis graduate from medical schools. The coming decade may see many Saudis displacing general practitioners and resident doctors in the hospitals. Over the ensuing few decades, there will be a run on posts of specialists as well. Saudi Arabian tertiary medical centres will, however, need super-specialists for a long, long time to come.

The writing is on the wall. Beware.

The Aamir Khan controversy

Normally, I do not respond to triival controversies on issues that do not even remotely touch my life. However, this issue clearly touched everyone's lives, and so, here I am, taking a stance on it. Before that, however, let me take you through the entire controversy. 

Aamir Khan's initial statement was made HERE at the Indian Express' Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards recently. 

Within hours, he was being attacked. Although he was purportedly quoting his wife KIRAN, he was being accused of being a seditionist! Thousands of messages across social media were painting him in black, asking for his head, asking him to leave India with his family, accusing him of being anti-national, of being a traitor and of false description of the state of India.

Another video gave a more balanced view-point and gave an opportunity to Aamir to explain what he had said in the Goenka awards. However, the so-called Indian patriots continued to hoot and bray and shout against him. Then, someone had a "bright" idea to punish SNAPDEAL whose brand ambassador Aamir is. They uninstalled the app from their phones and exhorted others to do so as well. Within a few days, as per one news report this was being done with the hashtag "Appwapasi" and "SayNoToSnapdeal". In some reports, I gathered that more than 6.5 lakh people (650000) uninstalled this app and sent a message to Snapdeal via social media that they would not buy anything from them unless they removed Aamir Khan as their ambassador.

The controversy raged on. On the one hand, there were open letters to him that ridiculed him and all the other "Khans", others that added a religious touch to it (equating the whole thing to Muslims feeling intolerant), and still others who created and circulated jokes on his supposed desire to leave India (there was even this image of Salman Khan escorting him on his back to Pakistan in a sort of Bajrangi Bhaijaan 2 - replacing the head of the girl with a photo of Aamir in an intelligently done Photoshop). One of those who joined the rabble rousers was Anupam Kher, whose saffron chaddi is always visible.

Soon after, support for him surfaced - Rahul Gandhi, A R Rahman, and some others started the ball rolling, Soon, the intellectual class joined in and cleared the air, slowly but surely. He had never said anything anti-national. People who claimed they "tolerated" him because they went to his movies were exposed with the statement that they saw his movies not because he was a Muslim but because they liked his work. In the same way, their sails were knocked out when it was pointed out to them that they were, in fact, displaying the very same intolerance that Aamir had accused them of. If you analyse those criticising him you will find that none of those criticising him were Muslims, but many who started supporting him had Hindu names!

The controversy is slowly moving from the front pages to the back-pages. When I searched for him on the Times of India website, I couldn't find anything for the last few days. I do hope that better sense prevails. It was sad that Aamir had to give out follow-up statements, but I am proud to report that he stood by what he had said and found no reason to change the statement. Also, he firmly said that he was an Indian citizen and was always going to stay so.

This, then, was the way the controversy developed,.

My own take: Ignore the rabble rousers. Aamir Khan's original video shows that he never meant to mix religion into the statement. He was merely talking about insecurities. Much like how parents feel insecure when their daughter returns late from a party. Or a wife, when her husband isn't home at the right time. Perhaps the last 7-8 months have seen some degree of individual remarks by people within the Saffron Parivar. Those statements should have been nipped in the bud by their mentors or organisations, or at least criticised by the PM. They weren't, but the anti-Muslim dialogue has taken wing and is growing more and more as the days pass. Hence, the kind of insecurity Aamri spoke about is quite natural to understand. 

What do you think? Join me in the comments section.