My Beloved Garmini

I had a first look at the marvel called the GPS in Norway !

On a drive from Oslo to my wifes cousins place about 4 hours away, her hubby a young handsome Norwegian doctor was all ears for his GPS, and as the seductive female voice crooned and sheened the way to us I envied Andreas for this device !

" He does not need this ,he knows the way blindfolded but still he wants to hear her ,look at him all ears ! he is never so with me "grumbled his wife .

we chuckled and Andreas grinned like a chesire cat ,I love her seductive voice ,she makes me go !( thank God for that phrase )

" True True " me

"Baaaah you men " this from my wife !!

I decided immediately to buy one on my return ,I needed company on my long drives to Dubai or Abudhabi as I was alone in the U.A.E. and what better than a seductive voice cajoling you to take the left and not the right haaan ....

There were two more reasons ,one was Dubai had signboards planned by someone who had a pleasure in torturing souls who had no sense of direction and who dreamed of unsolvable riddles all the time ,

one could see signs here pointing within minutes in different directions and with the new flyovers and roads made it a maze for one who was not aware of the geography .

Born with an inherent directional disability I was all the more affected by this turn of events ,most of my forays to Dubai ended up in me giving frustrated calls to friendly neighbourhood cousins to save me from strange places where I had landed without my knowledge

Oh Lord forgive me for I know not what I do was usually my demanour in such tight situations .

A neurology friend commented that I should be having either an aplasia of the needed cells in the grey matter for directional capabilities , or an infarct in the right place or is it the wrong place.... I am confused !

not to cry over losses I looked forwards to a crooning seductive velvety slithery voice to soften my travels in the future .

Dubai here I come I thought , dont you try your tricks with me ,I have my lady with me ha

So I bought a nice Garmin GPS and specially heard her out ,she did sound nice but not seductive but just nice

I settled down for this ( wife was quite happy ,the Norway one was too se....... y ,this one is affectionate like your little sister ok ? )

no luck even with Garmins !! sob sob

so the next time I went to Dubai I was all spurred up ,I positioned my GPS and typed out my destination and lo she told me how long it would take for me to reach and till I got out of Al Ain city she was perfect ( Al Ain where I stay has wide ,orderly ,planned roads )

In the outskirts she bid me goodbye telling me drive straight for 85 kilometres and went into hibernation

she woke from her suspended animation exactly at 85th kilometre jolting me with a now keep left for 5 kilometre and turn right

man this is it now I could reach the stars I thought .

Once into the outskirts of dubai I was lost in the multi laned huge maze of traffic ,every way seemed my way ,

My Garmin was telling me turn in second exit in next roundabout and I was searching for the said roundabout ,

I then realised the Dubai map had not been updated and with the rapid changes happening there all roundabouts were literally extinct to be replaced by confusing ramps and flyovers and my poor girly GPS was as lost as only I could be .

look at the irony ...the guy even buys a GPS similar to him !!!

and so with a 1000 AED GPS with me I took my mobile to give my distress call to my living GPS my cousin

she croons nowadays you know my GPS I mean ................started liking me haan

do I hear you snigger ........

seven pounds ...review

A pound of flesh was what Shylock wanted but here it is all about 7 pounds atoning a guilt or to put it differently to calm a sadness of the soul .

Will Smith as the protaganist has done remarkably well

there is a kindness that softens his feutures and a genial faraway look in his eyes that see beyond the horizon .

Ben Thomas an Internal Revenue Service agent has a past that knaws him and happens to meet individuals to whom his heart goes out and the descison to change thier lives remarkably is taken by him

his protectiveness to Emily who has an impending death from heart failure ,turns to love and solace, but time is short and memories are too painful to forget and he does what he plans to do

sorry for this very cryptical summary but to give more would be to destroy the essence of the film

see it with patience till the end you will not regret it I assure you .....

Alizadeh Hussain

This story is about a five and a half year old Iranian boy in Doha ---Qatar who was born in Iran on July 1969 and at one year migrated to Qatar

He went to normal school in the day and to Arabic school in the night ,

He plodded through five years of elementary school three years of secondary and finally four years of high school ,and Arabic five years of elementary ,three years of secondary and three years of high school and in july 1985 he passed out of iranian school ( high school ) with an average of 99 .5 and from Arabic school with an average of 95 %

( early signs of a prodigy in the making .)

He also did the O and A level from the British Council in Qatar ,

passed TOEFL in 1986 with a mark of 685 out of 700 and IELTS in 1998 with a mark of 7.5 out of 8 .

phew !!

now ask me who this is

this is the phenomenal person I could meet and work with the last two years when in UAE

He is consultant hematologist Dr Alizadeh Hussain .

He is unique in not only his academic capabilities which I am yet to unfold ,but because of his very human nature

I would count Alizadeh as one of the most dedicated medical professionals I know of ,hardworking and a thorough professional

To him his patients were everything and to them he was too .

In 1985 he did his premedical study in london - U.K. and Istanbul -Turkey

From August 1987 to September 1993 he did his primary medical university in Pecs -Hungary graduating with a 4.98 grade out of 5 ! and walked away with the coveted Red medal for being the best student in the last twenty years ( from 1973 to 1993 he got the best marks !! )

Actually he did the medical school in four and a half years which normally is done in six years !

He was also teaching Anatomy ,Neuroanatomy ,Embryology ,Histology ,Physiology and Biochemistry in the last one and a half years in the medical school .

take a breath .........more to come

He then flew to the U.S.A. and was in New york and later in New Haven Connectiut .

He came back to Hungary in 1997 and was there till 2000 when he passed his internal Medicine Board Exam in which he got 100 % or 5 out of 5

( nothing less for him )

He then moved back to the U.S.A and to Houston - Texas where he did his fellowship in Leukaemia and Bone marrow Transplantation at the legendary M.D.Anderson Cancer Centre with Dr Hagop Kantarjian ( June 2000 to August 2000 ) .

He then hopped over the Atlantic to the U.K. to the Royal Marsden and Hammersmith hospitals in London from september 2000 to march 2001 to bag an additional fellowship in Bone marrow transplantation .

He joined Tawam hospital in Al Ain ,AbuDhabi ,U.A.E known for its hematology Oncology ,Radiotherapy ,Palliative department in March 2001 .

He passed the Board of Hematology -Oncology and Hematopoetic Stem cell Transplantation in February 2001 with ( guess what ,yes you are right now ) 100 % or a five out of five .

He had scholarships to Greece and Germany between 1997 and 2000 and also was teaching in Hungary and Austria

cosmopolitian physician indeed !

In Greece he got the award for the best researcher and also bagged his first Fiancee there ( wonder how he found the time admidst all these busy academics ....time managment dear friends )

in Hungary he got three awards for best teacher ,best researcher and best lecturer

In U.A.E he got eight awards which included excellent teacher ,excellent presenter ,employee of the month ,Best doctor by patients survey and an Assistant Professor in 2007 ,he was promoted to Associate professor in Europe in 2008 and also adjunct Associate Professor from FMHS in al Ain U.A.E .

( didnt leave much awards for others I think )

Iam exhausted !

He spoke several languages with the finesse of a native of that language English ,Farsi ,Persian ,hindi ,Urdu ,Arabic ,Hungarian ,French ,smattering of Tegalo and so on and on .

He was a dynamite of energy always on the move so much so he never married

( where is the time ? )

One fine day he left us all in Tawam to move to Europe hopefully for a short period with a promise to be back

On his farewell party I wrote a tiny ditty which I read out then .........which I am adding here

RECENTLY I ASKED ALIZADEH HUSSAIN ARE U GOING ON A TOUR ?
AND HE SAID NOT ANY MORE ….SORRY
BUT YOU KNOW HARI IAM GOING TO HUNGARY ……


IAM FROM IRAN ,I STUDIED IN LONDON
LIVED IN EUROPE AND LANDED IN TAWAM
ANYTIME U ASK ME HOW IAM AND I WOULD SAY TAMAM TAMAM

( good good in Arabic )

PEOPLE SAY I LOOK AND SOUND A LIKE A GENIUS
DO YOU KNOW IAM REALLY ONE ?
BECOS MY DEAR I NEVER GAVE MY BIG HEART TO ANYONE
AND AM STILL A FREE BIRD UNDER THE SUN

(UNLIKE MOST OF US HE IS A HAPPYBACHELOR )

ALL DAY I CAN TALK URDU ,ARABIC ,FRENCH ,PERSIAN,HUNGARIAN AND ENGLISH BETTER
THAN ALL THE TAWAM INTRPRETERS
SO DEAR GUYS I KNOW U R ALL GOING TO MISS ME

LIKE I WOULD TOO U SEE
TODAY AS YOU ALL WISH ME ALL THE BEST
I CAN PROMISE ONE THING I SHALL TRY TO COME BACK HERE FOR THIS AFTER ALL IS MY NEST

I dedicate this post to this wonderful friend of mine .......Alizadeh Hussain