Saving Cardiologists from Job Hazards

Coronary
angiography suite

Resurrection

Having a mother who still teaches one a decade after her departure from this life.

She is the mom, beneath whose feet ,the messenger described as paradise.

What was man born to do?

To fight for truth and win, and in defeat ,to admit defeat, but NOT to accept defeat within.

At long last, after a long dark night of the soul, she awakened my 

discouraged spirit, saying as she had decades ago. "Son. It is not the end of the world, rise and shine again."

  "Zero plus zero is still zero", my mother said this many times, but I have always been too dumb to understand her.

 

The current state of the  land of the pure, to which we managed to move in August 1947, from Delhi .........the current state is a big fat zero minus.

Why do I say this?

My friend pointed this out the other day while we biked around this town.

It was a sunny day, cool and bracing, [they call it Indian Summer]

 "As long as you have the American boot on your neck you can not ever be FREE."

"Why are you concerned?" 

"Because if Pakistan breaks free of their boot, it helps us in the rest of the planet."

Paul is a very passionate friend.

He even went down with the pink ladies group to support Imran Khan's campaign prior to the recent election in Pakistan.

"Do you have ANY humour in your holy book?"

"Please show me something humorous in it."

All we hear in the media daily is "Kill, Kill, Kill."

I must concede that Paul has a point.

"I shall make a concerted effort to find HUMOUR in it."

While I make this promise, I am not very hopeful 

Albert Brooks, a few years ago did make a foray into Delhi to find an answer to the vital question.

"Did you see the movie?" 

Paul did not see the movie. "I do not see movies."

Paul is a DOER, not a mealy mouthed procrastinator like me.

Jinnah's dream, dashed?

This afternoon at rounds at the hospital, the oldest member of our medical staff, Dr.George B. asked me, "Tell me, how is Pakistan?" I told him that the country is unwell. My good friend, Dr. S. G. Shah, FRCS had a one-word diagnosis for Pakistan when I popped the very same question to him last Monday. “Pakistan is in RIGOR MORTIS,” he said. I was flabbergasted. 

It was Jinnah who said, “God has granted to us the grand opportunity to build up this nation. Let it not be said that we did not prove unequal to the TASK.” (These words are engraved on the large examination/convocation hall at King Edward Medical College where I studied.)  

Dr. George B. continued: “With no electricity nor potable water for the average citizen, let alone social justice – do you regret having formed Pakistan?"

I will answer that question in a later post.

Test Test Test

This is a test to see if Aba's blog is still working... Call me and let me know if you can read this Aba!!

amber
xoxo

About My Brother - May 2007

A conversation with Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan

“Why did you go to the funeral of M.A. Jinnah?”

“I was the first foreign minister of the newly created Pakistan. Mr. Jinnah had selected me and appointed me to this post.”

“I loved and respected Mr. Jinnah and it was my sacred duty to pray for his departed soul. That was the least that I could do for the father of our nation. He was the sole spokesman* for the Muslims of India in the fight for our Independence from Britain, there was shock and extreme sorrow. (*This is in deference to Ayesha Jalal’s book The Sole Spokesman.)

Everyone wept that day in September 1948—the whole nation was numb with the shock of the sudden departure of our beloved leader…”

“People have said things against you Sir Zafarullah”

“I am not a great man. The great man was Mr. M. A. Jinnah our Quaid-e-Azam i.e. Great Leader.

“I am just a little humble soul who was lucky to be elevated to lead the first Pakistan delegation to the San Francisco conference where we were, along with many great nations, involved in writing up the Charters of the new U.N.”

“Which year was that?”

“The year was 1945 A.D.”

“Did you contribute any ideas to the U.N. Charter?”

“Yes! Indeed—the old League of Nations became defunct and the nations, of the world decided to draw up a new Charter for the new world organization—the U.N.O.”

“Sir Zafarullah, tell us about your work on the constitution of the new U.N.O…”

“It was a Charter and we were able to insert actual words from the noble Quran and these became part of the document.”

“You were the first Pakistani to recite the noble words for the noble Quran.”

“Yes! When I had been appointed President of the U.N. General Assembly in the early 1950s, I began the session with quotes from the noble Quran.”

“But, Sir Zafarullah let us go back to the funeral prayer that you did not offer for Mr. Jinnah.”

“Let me tell you the detail, my son, before offering the prayer I was almost finished with my ritual ablution—one must be physically clean as well as mentally pure when offering any Islamic prayer.”

“What happened, Sir Zafarullah?”

“I was told that the cleric (mullah) who was to lead the prayer was none other than a person named Shabir Usmani who had used vile and abusive language against the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement.”

“So what did you do, Sir Zafarullah?”

“I was paralyzed and in shock.”

“So this knowledge caused you to miss the funeral prayer.”

“My son, the Nebi Karim always taught that actions will be judged by our intentions.”

“So!”

“So! My intention in being there was to offer the congregational prayers along with everyone else---- if I had not intended and fervently desired to pray for my leader, would it not have been more logical and make sense for me have stayed home--- and not having come to the funeral?”

“Yes! Of course, Sir Zafarullah. The newspapers then reported you as sitting on a rock and missing the prayer… They also report that someone asked you why you missed prayer and you are reported to have said. Perhaps with some bitterness--- ‘I am either a Kafir foreign minister of an Islamic nation or an Muslim foreign minister of a Kafir nation…’ You were angry and caught in a catch 22 situation…”

Sir Muhammad Zafarullah then brought honour to his country when he was appointed a Judge and ultimately the President of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the Netherlands.

My wife and I visited him there along with my wife’s brother in Nov. / Dec. 1968.

Prior to that, in 1967, we drove Sir Muhammad Zafarullah in our battered 1960 green Mercury Comet from Chicago Airport to his speech at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. On the way there were huge crowds blocking the roads in Chicago.

Sir. Zafarullah wondered why there were so many people on the streets.

“Sir! Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has just been assassinated in Memphis”

To be continued…

April Fool 2010 Who is Judging Whom?

Human beings become violent when two things happen. One was an invention i.e. fire. The other was the development of speech… Are we operating our reptilian (primitive) brain? Are we progressing to civilized behaviour? We are certainly deluded and continually thwarting our own progress.

When UWA visited me at Cook County Hospital in 1964 and came up to my room, 1017 I think it was, at Karl Meyer Hall, I said to one of the wisest and sanest men, “Uncle I am my own worst enemy.” He was there to visit Pfaelzers, parents of Rita Hirsch, SWA’s close school friend. On the way to their posh Michigan Ave. apartment (condo? This word was not yet invented) Uncle W.A. and I walked past Hugh Hefner’s club… “Let’s go there, Omar…” “No, Uncle-ji! We will not ever go near that one.” Uncle W.A. didn’t say anything. I suppose I was still a raging bull, only 23-years young.

My marriage was still two years in my future! I read somewhere that the problem with life is that it comes at us far too fast. Then there is the Maya (illusion) of the present moment - and even this is subsumed – alas! so rapidly does it flow – time disappears as it were Hg (quick silver) through one’s fingers.

At the Pfaelzer’s we were welcomed as if we were long-lost family. Rita and her friend took UWA and I out for lunch. I was them earning only $100 per month – having chosen to work at the charity hospital CCH, which you might remember if you saw “The Fugitive” movie with Harrison Ford as the physician who is hounded all over the U.S.A. – as Jean Valjean was in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Dr. Richard Speck’s son so many decades later declared that his father was indeed innocent.

After supper, when we retired to the guest bedroom at the Pfaelzer’s, I asked UWA, “Khaloo, which direction shall we offer our night prayers (Isha)”? UWA, erudite, as well as suave, quoted the original Quran in pure Arabic, “Where so ever you turn, you can behold the face of your sustainer…” So I asked UWA as my learned elder, to lead me in congregational prayer. “No two are gathered together in praise of life than I myself am their third companion.

You cannot have a friend greater than I. I love you more your mother ever could.

So, I fast forward – 45 years:

Asad Ali, another dear friend had these words written at his desk, “Time is a river…” The two good persons above named have departed this earthly life. I do miss them.

Today I am still an April fool. This morning I was rushing to the workshop to get my son’s Acura 1.6 EL 1997 serviced. Acura had failed to start up the day prior on March 30, 2010. My neighbour, Ken, had charged the battery last night but still the car refused to start. The automatic windows refused to scroll down. “Qaisra, please help push the car down the slope,” I said to my wife, who will be 63 years old in June.

Driving east on Gorham, late because I had a nice haircut by Qaisra after the lovely breakfast. Omar, seeing a bus stopped, blocking my path, I ignore, once again, the subliminal words of the blessed Nebi Karim. “Haste comes from Satan.”

I step on the gas pedal and the Acura leaps forward. I exult in the powerful surge of the V-tech engine carefully selected by my car-wise son, Tips. I’m crossing a solid line. Whey do they not place a dotted line here I think. The insistent present. I try to look for the large bus in my rearview mirror and see only empty road.

A blue-uniformed police officer with his radar gun is standing in my line of vision, pointing right, to the church of J.C. of Latter Day Saints. I slow down, knowing deep in my soul, that I have sinned, and this retribution, unlike the real promised one – is immediate and unavoidable.

“You were speeding and overtaking in a child safety zone.”

I exhale.

“No, don’t open your door. Just hand me your driver’s licence.”

I fumble in my arctic grey fox coat. “Here it is.”

“Stay in your car.”

I think about driving away. After an eternity of listening to Godwin George’s gift (another disappeared friend) of Sony transistor radio at 99.1 FM for awhile – I open the door, sidle down the Mormon Church driveway and approach the burly policeman’s car.

“Here is your fine. I’ve been lenient. You won’t lose any points but the penalty of $130 is the maximum possible short of losing points.”

I raise my right hand to thank him – he shrinks away – recoiling in practiced disdain – he is not bad at hiding his real feelings – perhaps he forgets that it doesn’t take an experienced old physician to read body language. “I don’t shake hands. My hand would get sore.”

He doesn’t convince me. Reminds me vividly of Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush era official, Secretary of Defence, who used to be cordial with Ayatollah Khomeini and even delivered a birthday cake to the Ayatollah during Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s. “I cannot understand why the Guantanamo prisoners complain about having to stand. I myself stand happily all day at my upright desk. I never feel tired or fatigued at all.”

The York Region police officer aka traffic cop hands me my $130 ticket and goes back to his radar gun facing west on Gorham St.

I try to restart my Acura. Nothing. I walk over to him, yet another unwanted walk.

“Now what?”

“My car won’t start. Could you give me a jump…Sir?”

“We can’t do that.”

“Could you phone my wife?”

“Nope, but I can phone a garage.” I hand him a CAA card and he calls them.

I sit in the car and then open the door and stand in the bright sun warming my bald spot and hoping to make some Vitamin D. I soon get tired of the CBC radio station and walk restlessly to nearby Gorham St. awaiting the tow truck.

A green car approaches and I flag my saviour, my vintage 1966 beauty queen, my wife.

“Why are you stopped here?” she asks and I explain.

“Why did you turn the engine off?”

“I’m stupid.”

“Do you have jumper cables?” She opens her trunk. I find new, unused cables. Triumphantly I carry them toward the black 1997 Acura.

The police officer approaches. “Who is she and how did she know to come here? And why did you send for the garage?”

“She’s my wife and she was supposed to pick me up from the auto shop after I’d dropped it off for a tune-up.”

“Well why didn’t you cancel the tow truck? Oh, I see, you wanted to be sure the car started up…” He is speaking his thoughts, not bothering to censor them. It seems that I am, to him, just another (dumb) Asian, after all, not a Fulbright scholar.

The tow truck arrives, the driver has no idea that the original owner of the t0w truck company, Joe, was my patient and friend, for more than a decade. How he went through so many health crises. I can’t tell you his health history… We used to frequent the pool at the fitness club, which has been open for more than 30 years.

The truck driver backs up toward the Acura and I walk up to his window. I tell him I don’t need a tow after all. I just need a jump start. He looks at me, though not unkindly.

He is tall, a young muscular man with too many tattoos on his bare arms and cigarette breath. “I’ll check if your alternator is OK.”

He cleans the battery bolts but only after the car is jump started. It makes no logic or sense but I say nothing. Besides basic education in electricity (part of my physics training at G.C. Lahore in 1957) I’ve had least a dozen or more autos and tons of battery experience.

This tow truck driver is younger than our youngest son, Sultan, born in 1975. When I arrive at the workshop, the Acura conks out yet again. Sultan had been starting it regularly during the five weeks we were away in Pakistan… We returned on Sunday March 28, 2010 after a direct 14-hour Karachi to Toronto flight.

“I’ve told John everything. I’m still in my night clothes, so hurry,” Qaisra says to me.

John is the mechanic who tends to our Acura.

I go inside. “Is your name John?”

“It’s Kevin.”

“Thank you, Kevin.”

Qaisra smiles, she did come into the auto repair shop.

“I’ll avoid Gorham now,” my better half concludes.