Musings Of A New Doc

Today was a sad day for all Pakistanis. More than four decades ago, Pakistan lost half of its population to a new country. Today we were struck by a different kind of calamity. An army school in Peshawar echoed with deafening roar of AK-47 firing. The targets were children. The killers were barbarians.

More than anything else, the news made me think about how even such an act can be humanly possible. True, wars have brought the worst in people across cultures -armies have countless times in the past decimated populations, torched food supplies and crops, raped women and children and plundered and razed entire cities. History of us humans is no stranger to savagery. But then, humanity moved ahead. We learnt to value peace and civilized living. The fruits of peaceful coexistence were for all to see and enjoy. A part of me wants to think that we gave up our vicious instincts to inflict senseless pain to our enemies.

The force in our hands have been becoming deadlier. I imagine holding an AK-47 -havingan infinite power to bring death around myself; being the sole judge of who deserves to live; sparing a few lives when my heart feels soft. 

But then I also think about having a 14 year old  target locked. How can any part of my entire existence let me proceed with it? How can even dare move my finger on the trigger? A helpless, scared, fourteen year old. A boy I do not even know.

And yet 132 times the trigger was pressed. Classmates watched each other falling; silence replaced their shrills; and mutilated caricatures stared back at their former friends.

I also think about what would be going on in the children's minds as they left us for a better world. Was it about how to tuck his best friend in so the terrorist take him for the dead? Or was he weaving a safe story to give his mom when she asks what he has been up to? May be he just took comfort in the thought that it is all a bad dream. After all, why would fully armed terrorists ever get into his classroom and shoot at all his friends?

To know that people this perverse, sick and dastard share this land with us is disturbing. As unfathomable as this is, we cannot go back from here in denial. Yes, humans walk this Earth who are capable of shedding blood of 132 innocent children in  vain in front of their best friends. Yes, they live among us, either in our own very country, or somehow connected to our people. They communicate with us through tweets, Facebook and TV. These are real human beings, who are born to mothers and may be even loved by some. Somehow, somewhere, somthing has gone awefully wrong, for humanity cannot have allowed it.

Denial in the face of severe grief and shock is understandable. We may find people among ourselves saying that such people are not humans. As inhumane as the acts are, they were committed by humans. Even animals would shy from such henious atrocities.

We also get to hear that such acts cannot be committed by Muslims. It is impossible to find out the faiths of the attackers. To me, the fact that such inhumane acts can even be carried out makes their actual faith completely meaningless. Nevertheless, these attacks were later claimed by an organization that professes not just to be Muslims, but in fact champions of Islam.

'Being a Muslim' is distinct from 'Acting in accordance with Islam'. Being a Muslim is an identity that connects one to the greater community of people of Islamic faith. In  Pakistan, we also have a legal definition for a Muslim. So are Taliban Muslims? I opine that, yes, very much so. Have they been acting in accordance with Islam? Clearly and outrightly, No!

It is understandable to distance oneself from people who have committed henious crimes of unthinkable scale. We all do it to reiterate our own commitment to staying civilized. That is perhaps what leads us to conclude that such people cannot be Muslims.

But beyond such denial should follow realization. That yes, people like us -Muslims, Pakistanis and sons of this soil, have committed such grave crimes against humanity. We should do so not because the blood is on our hands, but because the solution is. This realization would most definitely follow an introspection, which would lead to rethink the way we interpret our religion and  the way we educate our coming generation. The menace of terror that we face arises from a thought discourse that is very much ours. We need to rethink it so that extremist views are not encouraged.. These people are no aliens. Courage requires that we are able see the monsters in our own selves.

Angulation away from the knee (leg below the knee deviated away from the axis of the lower limb); damaged medial meniscus; damaged medial collateral ligament; damaged anterior cruciate ligament.

What the sportsman would call it -Shit that ended my career

What the doctors would call it -'UNHAPPY TRIAD'

When doctors call something unhappy, it really is something this worrisome. That's about as much expressive as doctors can get with their descriptions. The most debilitating and psychologically taxing of all injuries probably, one that is feared by anyone in contact sports, and yet at a hospital, it’s just a patient with an unhappy triad.

Broken ACLS by Hellerhoff - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -

Its two months since YouTube –the world’s biggest video junction, is banned from Pakistan. Two months ago, a shoddy movie depicting Muhammad (SAW), the Prophet of Islam in a derogatory way was popularized on YouTube. Later, the producer was found to have conned the artists and studio owners into working on the said movie. Later still, the producer was jailed for fraud.

The whole affair was a disgusting sham. The ploy worked, and thousands of Pakistanis came on streets, while hooligans looted and committed acts of arson. The government then decided to block YouTube until the website removes the sacrilegious movie or at least make it unavailable in Pakistan.

Google usually does that. It blocked access to certain pages on YouTube’s website in other countries where the content was deemed inappropriate, like India and Bangladesh. But it did not do it for Pakistan. So, as the said content remain available, whole YouTube remained, and still remains blocked throughout Pakistan.

I have my reasons to believe our government and its officials has little interest in religion. Neither do they base their decisions on Islam. In fact, it can be argued they are not even remotely sincere to the cause of Islam. Yet, they cite religious reasons to press on the ban on the entire YouTube –which has millions of videos on thousands of different topics including a treasure trove of Islamic videos, when clearly the ban is not even serving the religion.

Rather, I believe that the government apparatus is only keen on suppressing avenues of free speech and whistle blowing which are widely accessible to the general public. Already, YouTube videos have exposed influential media public figures and business tycoons. They regularly lambast political bigwigs, and recently, they have been instrumental in getting the word out to the world from rebellions in Syria and wider Middle East. Government of Pakistan feels much more in charge without such a wayward avenue which was fast becoming part of the mainstream media. The mushrooming growth of broadband connectivity in the last decade  have made Internet videos a potent tool at the hands of anonymous reporters and political activists.

The government could not have cited a more indisputable reason to take down Internet media. There is legitimate anger at the small group of miscreants who initiated this devious ploy of instilling unrest in the Muslim world. However, we need to ask ourselves who are we really empowering by banning the entire YouTube. Can the people at the helm of this decision can really be trusted for their sincerity to Islam? Aren’t we making the tyrant rulers stronger by suffocating free media? Are we also not surrendering a very powerful tool to bring down injustice at the orders of these very people who propagate these injustices?

I feel that this debate needs to be taken up in the national discourse. Rather than having a small fanatical pressure group pressing the government, and the government only too happily blocking access to free information, we need to have a more mainstream debate based on reasoning and keeping in view the immense contribution of YouTube to Pakistani society, politics and even religion.

This week, I have put an end to a consuming relationship with Facebook that has been part of my life for almost seven years. I have tried to pull off in the past as well but realized life isn’t all that better without it either. However, this time I think I have reasons to believe otherwise.

Over these seven years, Facebook has changed enormously and has -like every other serious contender of a long-term relationship -tried to be an ever-increasing part of our lives.

Polio immunization campaigns, despite registering landmark successes worldwide in Pakistan, have come under fire in a military conflict in North Western Pakistan. Last year, American Intelligence recruited Hep B Vaccination teams in its hunt for OBL. Taliban commanders, holding sway over large tracts of tribal belts, have recently outlawed access to children for polio immunization teams. Later, Tribal jirga (assembly) echoed the sentiments of Taliban commanders and put directed tribal populations to refrain from having children immunized. On 19^th July 2012, an expat physician came under fire while moving in his UN marked vehicle in Karachi for an immunization drive.

 

Pakistan has a mystical glory to it. An elusive spirit –indefinable and intoxicating; one that waits to be dispelled, but still lingers. It has defied conquerors, stood its many masters and provided for millions who poured on to it. A country like no other in multitudes of ways –it’s a paradise for a geologist, an enigma for anthropologist, a delight for a trader, and a true treasure for an archeologist.

Table Tennis is one of the most remarkable sports ever. It’s easy to learn, agile, reflexive and immensely enjoyable. That makes it popular too –the Table Tennis table can be found everywhere from schools to colleges, workplaces, common rooms and homes around the world. The number of people who play it makes table tennis one of the most popular games in the world, even surpassing soccer. But, I would ask: is it really a proper sport?

 

Across each of the scores of office desks that line any government office, we can find our typical government office clerk. They sip tea, eat biscuits, take breaks, comb their hair, rock their chair, and then, when their mood and motivation permits –do some paperwork that comes their way. They aren’t particularly fast at processing your applications, but the stash on their papertray stays slim. Every morning at their fixed time, they punch in their attendance card and occupy their chairs. They sit through the office hours, go about their stereotypical routine, and then they go home.

 

February is not the best of months to acclimatize in London. Granted, London’s fast-paced lifestyle is hard to catch up any time of the year, but for February, even the weather brings out a new surprise every morning. For my four weeks of electives break that I spent in London, I walked through thick snow (first that London received for the season), defied sharp cold winds, got wet in occasional showers and basked on some lovely sunny mornings. And then at the Hospital where I spent most of my time, the diversity of scenarios was even more exhilarating.