He is an interesting man, Ali Mazen Abdul Jowad. He likes women. He prides himself as the modern-day Arabian Casanova.

Ali Mazen Abdul Jowad is 32 years old and is a divorced father of four, who lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He works for Saudia, the Saudi Arabian airlines. Saudi Arabia is a highly religious, ultra-conservative country, constantly patroled by the ” Mutawwa” or the Religious Police. Those bearded men with beady eyes.

His pastimes include, among others, prowling  the streets of Jeddah in the evenings in his car, looking for women. Ali Mazen can spot them, the susceptible ones, a kilometer away. He talks to them, he understands them and convinces them of their need to visit him at his flat.

And then?

He takes them to his place and makes their nights memorable. In short, he seduces them.

And then?

And then he goes  on TV. On LBC, the Lebanese channel each week,and describes his nocturnal exploits in graphic detail, sex toys included. The viewers are welcomed to his bed-room,”where everything happens”. The programme, “A Bold Red Line” was hugely popular in these parts.

The Moral Majority caught up with him three months back. They had had enough and took him to court. He spent the past few months in the prison, reminiscing those nights.

Today, his verdict was given. Ali Mazen Abdul Jowad was awarded 5 years in prison and 1000 lashes. (Yes, I got those zeroes right.)

Ali Mazen can now look forward to reminiscing for some more time. Or, now maybe, he’ll discover a taste for flagellation..

He has, after all, enough materiel.

The Hospital Director had called me early morning and told me that a high security prisoner had been referred to our hospital and could I see him as early as possible? ( The police officials had just rang him up to arrange a consultation. )  The prisoner would be braught to the hospital at 9am sharp, he said.

I had an early breakfast at the cafeteria and was walking down the corridor with my colleagues when I saw the policemen outside my OPD.. Must have been at least 50 of them, serious, unsmiling and with mean machine guns. They barely ackowledged me as entered my room. And we waited for the patient to arrive. Usually such patients would be seen by the Chief but the boss is away on vacation.

The prisoner was accompanied by the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner was blunt. He told me, “Just examine this patient, Dactoor, and give your treatment. Don”t ask him anything, not even his name.”

I studied the patient. He must have been around 30. In clean Arab robe and headgear. He had kindly eyes, a black beard and gentle demeanor . He reminded me of some Christian priests from Kottayam, back home. And later when I spoke to him,  he replied in good English, with an American accent.He was shackled at his wrists and ankles and could barely walk. But he smiled at me and was polite.

And when I examined him I was in for a surprise. He has evidence of early malignancy ( cancer)  in him. Lymph glands over his neck, enlarged, hard and shotty. My clinical examination was precise and I knew this guy was  is in trouble, serious trouble. I did the investigations and ordered even more, scans and all the rest, the results to be seen by me later.

Later today I was told that my patient was once the mastermind of all terrorist activities in this country and in neighbouring countries too. Explosions, hijackings and the rest. He was an engineer and had some of his education in the US, and that he was from a rich family.

I was wondering what people do these days in the name of religion. Which god is pleased by the killing of innocent people? Orphaned children, and  people whose lives have been destroyed by grievous wounds and horrible injuries.

May be my patient’s god has decided that enough was enough and has finally decided to call him back for all his troubles..

I met him outside the ER one evening. He was a Pakistani and had come for treatment of some minor injury. He asked me if I was Indian and then, from which state did I came from? I told him that I was from Kerala. His face brightened and then he told me, “Doctorsaab, meri beevi bhi Kerala se hain. Kottayam se.” Seeing my surprise he explained that she is a nurse and that they had met some twenty years back here. They liked each other and had got married. She was a Hindu but had converted to Islam, he told me. He was mechanic and was running a garage. Of late, she has not been keeping too well, he said.

One evening a few weeks later they came to visit me at my flat. He had walked up the stairs alone. He told me that he had braught his wife along and that she’d wanted to meet me. She was too ill to climb the stairs. Could I come down to the car to meet her?

I accompanied him down to the car. She was happy to meet me and we spoke in Malayalam in our Kottayam accent. She was dressed in an abaya ( burkha ) like an Arab lady but spoke perfect Malayalam. She said that she had been to Kerala and to her home just once after her marriage and that her husband had accompanied her. She had lost track of her family after that. They had no children that she had stopped working, she was too sick, she said. I could see that she was severely dyspnoeic ( breathless ) and was having a bad cough. She told me that she had a heart condition and that she was in heart failure. She was having adequate treatment, she assured me. She told me smiling that she was happy to speak her mother-tongue after a long time. Then they left.

A few months later I heard that they’d had an accident and that she had died instantaneously. Her husband had survived with some injuries. I had gone to their home to offer my condolences and was told that she was buried at the ” foreigner’s cemetery ” according to Muslim customs.

Later on, when I had spoken to my malayali friends about her I was surprised to discover that almost no one had seen her, let alone spoken to her. She had kept to herself all those years but for a few friends in the Pakistani community.

In the end she lies buried in a distant land among strangers, forgotten by her people, family and friends.

Sometimes I remember her and wonder what was it that made her come and meet me. Was it premonition?

I’m off for vacation. At long last and after untold hassles. The officer in the Passport office had even discovered that someone had mistakenly deleted me from the ‘ re-entry ‘ list and according to him I am still in India.

” You are not in the system, ” he told me. He meant the computer data system.

That’s somewhat like being declared persona-non-grata in a foreign country.

But matters have since been cleared up and I’m off. To Kerala. Where the real rains are. Thundershowers. Not the misty drizzles we have here. And the majestic trees and the greenery and the flowers. Not the desert and the date palms.

I’ll be home Thursday, 24th May in time for lunch.

But Kerala will also deflate me in no time. The crowd and the confusion of it’s towns, the roads that double as rivers during the Monsoon and the endless shenanigans of the politicians, the arrogance of it’s people..

But then, like they say, you can’t have the cake and eat it too.

And it’s afterall, home.

In the days of yore, fleets of  ”dhows” manned by the hardy sailors of Arabia plied down the waters of the Arabian Gulf and often riding the monsoon straight across the Arabian Sea, to India and then to the East.

They explored the coasts of India, the Malabar and the Coromandel, looking for trade in spices, wood and ivory. Then they sailed on for precious stones from Ceylon and  porcelain and later, tea from China.

Their ” dhows ” were unique works of marine architecture, these flimsy vessels had their hull planks not nailed together but stitched together with hemp or twine. They used them to reach the far-away shores of Sumatra, Bali, Vietnam and China. It took six months for a voyage from Basra, Iraq to reach Canton, China in those days.

These intrepid people had considerable influence in societies they interacted with. Religious conversions..marriages. Some of them have their tribal names like al Hindi and al Malabari even today.

This is about Abeer, the Saudi nurse assigned to my outpatient clinic.

Abeer is a pleasant young Saudi woman dressed up in an abaya and veil. A giggly young chatter-box, who looks out at the world through the slit in  her veil and takes the trouble to help me with the paperwork and my rudimentary Arabic.

Of late, I ‘d noticed that Abeer was  trying to tell me something personal, in privacy..

She did tell me her ” secret “,  few days back.

She told me in her Arabic-accented English, ” Dactoor, my mother too is from Kerala. She too speaks Malayalam, like you.”

And she added laughing, ” So, you are her brother ! “

This is from yesterday’s ‘ Arab News ‘ that  some of my iLand friends might find interesting..


Cyber-bullying Turns Into Real Bullying

A ” flame war ” is a term that describes the utterly pointless, self-gratifying arguments among anonymous strangers that are known to appear on Internet forums or blogs that are often characterised by a lot of personal insults.  Flame wars are started by ” trolls “, a term for people who scour online forums and blogs looking for people with whom to argue - the topic of argument is rarely as important as the argument itself.

Anyone who spends five minutes reading the comments left on Internet forums and blogs knows that otherwise decent human beings turn into ” flaming trolls ” when given an annonymous identity and endless space to spew their views and insults.

Recently, two Saudis got into a discussion that degraded into an argument and then into a flame war. One of them then turned into a troll and said something very demeaning about the other guy’s mother. The other guy responded by daring the troll to insult him to his face. The troll gave the adversary his home address. Sure enough, the Saudi hunted down his troll and physically assaulted him.

Moral of the story : When you behave like a troll, it’s best to remail hidden.


A joke for the day..

Ramesh  irritated everyone in the office. Whether it was his tone of his voice or his condescending attitude, everyone steered clear. He must have suspected he was annoying because he asked his co-worker, ” Why does everyone take an instant dislike to me? “

Rahul responded, ” It saves time. “


A thought for the day..

Why is it that drug addicts and computer aficionados are called  ” users ” ?

I read the scholarly article in the British Medical Journal three years back. No, it had nothing to do with Medicine not even Sports Medicine. It was about cricket.

It was titled, ” India versus Pakistan and the power of a six : an analysis of cricket results.”

It went on to elaborate  in detail the results of cricket matches played between the two countries between 1952 and 2003. Emphasis was given to the last ball six hit by Miandad which won the game for Pakistan in Sharjah in 1986. And the ” pre-six ” and the ” post-six ” fortunes of both the teams were put under surgical scrutiny.

The conclusion ? The authors concluded that overall, Pakistan has achieved success in both the forms of the game. Their data suggested that in one-day matches Miandad’s six inspired an improvement in Pakistan’s performance or a decline in India’s, or both, but this effect was small in test cricket. Venue, weather conditions, winning the toss and batting first were not associated with the outcome. They also admitted that weather conditions, ground conditions, selection policies and match-fixing are too innumerable to measure or adjust for.

” We believe these data support our hypothesis that a single shot had an enduring influence, ” they added.

Of course, they had a point.

Twenty one years on, Pakistan cricket is in a bit of a mess. Bob Woolmer, their coach, found tragically murdered in the hotel room in Jamaica. During the World Cup.

Is this going to be another landmark event in Pakistan cricket ?

Let’s wait and see..

Every year is the Year of Something and 2007 is no exception.

A few examples :

THE YEAR OF THE DOLPHIN - The survival of the dolphin has become increasingly uncertain because of unsafe marine habitats. The UN and other organisations have built an alliance for 2007 to focus on protecting them.

THE YEAR OF THE PIG - Associated with fertility, chivalry and pureness of heart in Chinese culture, this year is concidered lucky for bearing a child.

THE INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR - More than 60 nations are involved in this large scientific programmefocused on in-depth examinations of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

THE INTERNATIONAL HELIOPHYSICAL YEAR - A UN-sponsored project focuses on advancements in all aspects of the heliosphere ( the entire solar-planetery system ) and it’s interaction with the inter-stellar medium.

THE YEAR OF RUMI - This year honours the 800th anniversary of the legendary Sufi poet’s birth.

Been wondering about anonymity and social networking for a while now. Reading the blogs and comments of friends ( Rainbow Walker, Jissy Thomas et al ) has given me sufficient impetus to share a joke with my iLand friends :

A cabbie picks up a nun. She gets into the cab and the cab driver won’t stop staring at her.

She asks him why he’s staring, and he replies, ” I have a question to ask you, but I don’t want to offend you. “

She answers, ” My dear son, you can not offend me. When you are as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I’m sure that there is nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive. “

” Well, I’ve always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me.”

She responds, ” Well, let’s see what we can do about that. First, you have to be single and a Catholic. “

The cab driver is very excited and says. ” Yes, I am single and a Catholic too ! “

” OK, ” the nun says, ” Pull into the next alley. “

He does and the nun fulfils his fantasy with a kiss that would have made  a hooker blush.

But when they get back on the road, the driver starts crying.

” My dear child, ” said the nun, ” Why are you crying ? “

” Forgive me sister, but I have sinned. I lied, I must confess. I’m married and I’m Jewish. “

The nun says, ” That’s OK. My name is Kevin and I am on my way to a Halloween party. “

The Geography of a Woman

Between 18 and 20 a woman is like Africa in the 1800s, half discovered,  half wild,  with fertile deltas.

Between 21 and 30 a woman is like America in the mid-1900s, well developed and open to trade, especially someone with cash.

Between 31 and 35, she is like India in the early 1900s, very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 36 and 40 a woman is like France in the late 1900s, a gently aging but still a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between 41 and 50, she is like Yugoslavia in the early 2000s, lost the war, haunted by the past mistakes. Massive reconstruction is now necessary.

Between 51 and 60, she is like Russia in the late 1900s, very wide and with borders unpatrolled. The frigid climate keeps people away.

Between 61 and 70 woman are like Mongolia in the mid 1900s with a glorious and all-conquering past. But alas, no future.

After 70, a woman is like Afghanistan today : almost everyone knows where it is, but no one wants to go there.

The Geography of a Man

Between 15 and 70, a man is like Iraq in the late 1900s…ruled by a dick.