On Casting the Safety Net

You can bring yourself up to date with the 4th instalment of my BMJ Blog here.

Zapiro on Shoe Throwing

Masjid al-Quba

Masjid al-Quba, Medina, Saudi Arabia ©Tauseef Mehrali 2008

A Brief Break in Beirut

On returning from Hajj I was pleased to see that my account of a short stay in Beirut earlier this year has been published in this month's Emel magazine.

A Brief Break in Beirut

We stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. In reality, it was a sore foot and some luminous yellow crutches that made us stand out. A few days previously, across the border in the Syrian capital, my wife had re-enacted her own Damascene moment at the Eastern Gate of the Old City. Rather than a blinding light catalysing a religious revolution, her episode involved a stack of paving slabs and a third metatarsal, necessitating a visit to the nearby French missionary hospital. So it was with a limb wrapped in plaster of Paris and copious pain-killers that we crossed the border, one April evening, into Lebanon in the back of a weathered Chevrolet with an equally weathered taxi-driver at the wheel.

We were advised to give a wide berth to Lebanon let alone the volatile southern suburbs of Beirut. Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Valentine’s Day in 2005, Lebanon has experienced a string of assassinations, rising political and sectarian tensions and a 34-day war fought between Israel and Hezbollah. The collective wisdom of the Lonely Planet’s online Thorn Tree Forum helped us put aside our misgivings though. As we checked into the Mayflower Hotel we drew further comfort from the knowledge that this hotel, a former hangout for seasoned journalists, had safely housed these hacks during the brutal civil war.

The Mayflower lies very near to the uber-fashionable Hamra Street (or in keeping with Beirut’s French-leaning sensibilities, Rue Hamra), the retail heart of Beirut. Fashionistas and fashion-victims patrol the street and emerge from gleaming SUVs. During daylight hours the street is thronging with shoppers and by night it transforms into an open-air catwalk. There are some gems amidst the endless clothes shops including the Lebanese branch of the ground-breaking Al-Saqi books, just off the main road. Bibliophiles can also find a cluster of bookshops near the American University of Beirut, originally a missionary outpost know as the Syrian Protestant College, locally referred to simply as AUB. Librairie du Liban, the publishing house responsible for the ubiquitous Arabic dictionary by Hans Wehr and the increasingly common place Lane’s Lexicon, is amongst them.

Soon we were drawing not only comfort but courage from the souls that had passed through the Mayflower and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves braving a freak rain shower to attend a photography exhibition in southern Beirut. We’d picked up an emotive flyer in a theatre foyer the previous day advertising the exhibition entitled Algerie: Photographies d’une guerre sans images (Algeria: Photographs of a war without images). The showing was taking place at the unassuming but outrageously named Hangar, on Haret Hreik. As we entered the southern districts of Beirut the areas’ political affiliations became increasingly apparent; forests of Amal and Hezbollah flags and insignia vied for prime position in our field of vision. The central reservation of the road we were driving along soon sprouted a column of street lamps, each hosting a picture of a fighter killed in the recent conflict with Israel.

The exhibition, hosting a decade’s worth of photography by Michael von Graffenried from the Algerian civil war, was a moving collection. The images captured the incredible human suffering, injustice and brutality of that conflict. The parallels with Lebanon’s own situation did not go undetected.

We emerged from the Hangar into yet another downpour and quickly made our way to the nearby Ramadhan Juice at the Ghobayri Crossroad to take shelter. A muscular bearded man with a neck wider than his head sat at the till and politely enquired what we’d like to drink, pointing to the framed menu behind him. Alongside the menu was a huge mural of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah looking benevolently down upon the juice drinkers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first drink on the menu was a Katyusha rocket cocktail. After much deliberation though we opted for the less incendiary and far simpler mixed fruit cocktail and watched some al-Manar as we sipped our concoctions.

The dilemma that faces amateur Arabists when travelling through the Middle East is one of language. Modern standard and even classical Arabic are far more commonly taught in the West whereas the language on the street, ‘aamiyyeh or colloquial Arabic, is a far cry from the rigid grammatical structure of its more formal counterparts. Needless to say we reduced many Lebanese to tears of laughter as we requested assistance, directions and prices in the equivalent of Shakespearean English.

The language of food (and not only love) is thankfully universal. We enjoyed some excellent meals in Beirut, none surpassing the wares offered at the longstanding Kabab-ji which has outlets throughout Lebanon. The delicious kebabs and mezze being served up were even more palatable with some sumptuous muhammara, a walnut and roasted red pepper accompaniment. Nearer to our hotel, a Swiss patisserie that appeared to be untouched since the French mandate, provided us with some tasty treats. (To the genial old lady running the store, I extend my apologies for dripping coffee all over your shop floor).

A crucial stopover in Beirut has to be the corniche, where the Mediterranean Sea laps at the Lebanese shoreline. The people-spotter buried in each of us cannot fail to be unearthed by the panoply of characters promenading alongside the coast. We wandered past Pigeons’ Rock, an outcrop of rock jutting up from the mainland not dissimilar to some of the physical geography off the Dorset coast, and our collective consciousness was suddenly invaded with the dredges of GCSE geography that we carried with us.

The much lauded Downtown area proved to be a bit of an underwhelming experience. The area was the cultural heart of the city before being destroyed in the civil war. It has been painstakingly restored but the perfect, unblemished facades of the buildings make it feel a little surreal. Several security cordons were filtering access to the area resulting in a disproportionate number of well-to-do Beirutis dining al fresco while their rotund children were chased around with spoonfuls of food by their Philippino nannies. The fact that I was frisked by one of these security cordons did nothing to endear Downtown to us. However, there is something undeniably alluring about strolling around amidst the vestiges (some original, but mostly touched-up) of a huge spectrum of architectural periods and forms from Crusader to Ayyubid and from Mamluk to Ottoman.

We hailed a taxi outside Charles Helou bus station to take us back to Damascus without much difficulty. Our apparent stroke of good fortune was soon blacked out by the cigarette fumes from the living chimney that was our taxi driver. Through the clouds of ash we struggled to see him and breathing became a little tricky until we convinced him that on this occasion, open windows was a better choice than air conditioning. He soon got talking and was elated by me underestimating his age by a decade. He disclosed that he was a father of four allegedly demanding children and as a result not a great fan of Eid.

Our driver got us safely back to the Old City in Damascus and once again we felt like we’d stepped out of a time machine.

Postscript

A month after our visit, the country erupted in yet another bout of the cyclical violence that has plagued the tiny state. A poignant extract from Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ follows the title page of Robert Fisk’s Pity the Nation and it remains just as resonant.

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings once again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Sweet Cider

It was worth making the effort to get to the penultimate showing of Sweet Cider, Emteaz Hussain’s stage debut for Tamasha productions. It helps that I am enamoured with the plethora of Turkish grill restaurants, or mangal ocakbasis, that encircle the Arcola theatre in Dalston. (My cousin recently changed my life by introducing me to Hasan Meze & Mangal whose grilled onion with pomegranate juice, olive oil and lemon juice is simply superb).

The play itself was both charming and challenging. The audience is invited to share an unspecified period of time with two Muslim girls from somewhere near Manchester as they rebuild their lives having been forced to relocate to a women's refuge. It was refreshing to see the idiosyncratic Northern Anglo-Pakistani dialect replicated so wonderfully well on stage.

My only criticism would have to be the writer's succumbing to dealing with seemingly every single issue affecting British Muslim youth at the expense of character development. A noteworthy debut nonetheless.

Attack of the Clipboards

View episode 3 of the BMJ blog here.

Iqbal on the (1935) Credit Crunch

An extract from Allamah Muhammad Iqbal's 'Lenin in the divine presence':

The towering Bank out-tops the cathedral roof;
What they call commerce is a game of dice
For one, profit, for millions swooping death.
There science, philosophy, scholarship, government,
Preach man's equality and drink men's blood.

The Bundu Khan Rollercoaster

We made a surprisingly impulsive decision to eat at the brand new Bundu Khan restaurant in Whitechapel the other day. (In reality it was a neuro-linguistically programmed predestined decision as several people had mentioned the eatery in conversation over the previous fortnight.) We drove past, made the mental connections and somehow found a parking space.

The Bundu Khan phenomenon was born in Karachi. It soon spread across Pakistan (with four restaurants in Lahore) and is now truly international. It boasts branches in Australia and the US and, with this yeast-independent expansion, is probably within walking distance of where you're reading this from now.

Our experience was mixed. The decor was understated and crisp. The staff were overstated and seemed more numerous than actual choices on the menu. The poppadoms were far from crisp and were probably vestiges of the Raj. The fish curry was the best I'd ever had. The 'special Bundu Khan paratha' was essentially a deep-fried nan. We disagreed over the relative merits of our drinks as well as those of the palak-paneer. The cocktails left a lot to be desired. "Like toilet cleaner" apparently.

I'm trying hard to convince myself that this was a memorable trip. It was. But for all the wrong reasons.

The Universal Strategy

Read the second instalment of my BMJ Blog here.

Whole Lotah Love!

I’ve always wondered whether Iris, my housekeeper at university, ever thought to herself why on earth I had a watering-can in my bathroom despite my digs being totally devoid of any greenery whatsoever. Not even a sprig of mint or coriander for garnish. She (thankfully) asked no questions and heard no lies.

The lotah, ibreeq, bottle-shottle – call it what you will – is a utensil found in many a Muslim bathroom. In its simplest form it’s a jug with a spout that’s used as a hands-on bidet. Despite the allure of triple quilted toilet paper, we continue to prefer to combine forces, or the brave just simply wash and go. It’s an ubiquitous feature of life, reflecting religious injunctions on cleanliness and ritual purity.

Traditionally it looks like an oversized teapot without a lid and is made from metal or plastic although the variations in size, shape and colour are almost endless. Logistical nightmares can arise when you’re unexpectedly faced with a different style of lotah to the one you’ve grown up with. Left-handers seem to be at a distinct disadvantage when adhering to the left hand – dirty, right hand – clean, convention.

An increasingly common modern variant of the lotah is what the plumber recently working on my uncle’s house subtly referred to as the ‘bum-shower’. These often frightfully complex gadgets are nothing more than a modified hosepipe. Attached either side of a toilet they can be the source of epic flooding disasters if the owners don’t clarify instructions before you find yourself using one.

Equally traumatic experiences can arise from finding yourself in need of a lotah when there just isn’t one around. Spurred on by the embarrassment of always taking a bottle of mineral water to the toilets or sneaking around them with moistened toilet paper, creative individuals have found an ingenious use for collapsible plastic bottles.

On honeymoon in Malaysia I encountered a Japanese inspired toilet with a built-in retractable bidet which perhaps offers the perfect harmony between water and manual input. We can only live in hope…alongside the Andrex puppy.

Flashmob Iftar

Last Tuesday, as the sun set, I found myself sat on some tarpaulin in Lincoln' Inn Fields, one of London's soup kitchen corners, sharing some food with family and randoms. This was my first flashmob experience, and a flashmob iftar at that.

The chaotic spontaneity combined with an act of goodwill really helped to practically apply the ethos of Ramadhan that so often remains theoretical and abstract. So many people sharing thoughts and stories over food with strangers showed a wonderful flip-side to the usual tabloid typecasting.

Read the organiser's thoughts here and the Guardian's Sarfaraz Manzoor sheds some light on the flashmob iftar phenomenon here.

On the frontline as a GP registrar

From this week's British Medical Journal Editor's Choice:

New guest blogger Tauseef Mehrali is about to start a year's stint as a GP registrar in London, fully aware that his future will require the utmost in flexibility and lateral thinking: "Central London has the dubious distinction of being the epicentre of changes to primary care provision, and I'm already eyeing up a corner of my local Tesco Express to set up shop in. I wonder how many reward points patients will accrue on agreeing to see me as they wander past the frozen veg."

Yes that's right, I now have the cyber-equivalent of a holiday home. Read more here.

Where have all the good sales assistants gone?

As we slalomed around several incredibly over sized pushchairs parked throughout the baby department of a well-known triliteral high-street store - the very same store that Londoners are warned to mind out for as they get on and off the tube - we noticed a dearth of sales staff. Our task was to find an outfit for a friend's now not-so-newly-arrived baby. I decided to wade through the sea of pushchairs and see if the cashier could shed some light on this.

Me: Excuse me...there don't seem to be any sales staff on the shop floor.
Cashier: [with an expression that suggested this was quite a normal state of affairs] Oh right.
Me: We just wanted to see if this [holding up a stripey baby jumpsuit] was available in the 3-6 months size.
Cashier: I don't know where they [presumably referring to her co-workers] all are.

In due adherence to shopping protocol I thanked her for her assistance.

Ramadhan in Images

Click here for a wonderfully diverse pictorial tour of the Muslim world during Ramadhan (and as pointed out by SD, perhaps the biggest jalebi in the world...ever).

Date Dilemma

In the prelude to Ramadhan, coming a respectable third in the topic of conversation league to the perennial moon-sighting debacle and what date to book off work for Eid, is the date dilemma.

Traditionally consumed at the time of breaking the fast, the wrong date can induce huge feelings of regret as a chalky, flaky, pseudo-sweet disaster destroys your palate. Thoughts of chewing the stone are usually not far away at this point.

Thankfully, such experiences have been few and far between. My earliest childhood date memories revolve around the ubiquitous almond-stuffed blocks of dates from Medina. These were soon replaced by the uniquely glossy rotab dates of Iran.

Enter the Medjool date.

A Medjool (left) and a Khadrawi (right) date.

The Medjool date represents the evolutionary pinnacle of the date species. This year's crop from South Africa, which I managed to get my hands on in Green Street, is exceptional.

Iqbal for Dinner

Between dinner and dessert at a friend's place yesterday, we were treated to a farsi masterclass via the medium of Iqbal.

A Dialogue between God and Man

God

I made the whole world with the same water and clay,
But you creater Iran, Tartary and Ethiopia.
From the earth I brought forth pure iron,
But you made from that iron sword, arrow and gun.
You made an axe for the tree in the garden,
And a cage for the songbird.

Man

You made the night, I made the lamp;
You made the earthen bowl, I made the goblet.
You made deserts, mountains and valleys;
I made gardens, meadows and parks.
I am one who makes a mirror out of stone,
And turns poison into sweet, delicious drink.

And perhaps my favourite, delightfully oblique piece:

Solitude

I went up to the ocean and, addressing a wave, said:
‘You’re always restless; tell me what is it that troubles you.
You have a million pearls enfolded in your garment’s skirt,
But do you, like me, have a heart – the only pearl that’s true?
It squirmed, retreated from the shore, and uttered not a word.

I went up to the mountain and said, "O huge heap of stone!
Can you not hear the wailing of a heart in agony?
If in your stones there is a gem which is a drop of blood,
Then speak, O speak, to a sad soul that pines for company.
If it had breathed, it breathed no more, and uttered not a word.

I travelled long in upper space, approached the moon, and said:
"O ceaseless wanderer, is there any rest ordained for you?
Your radiance makes the whole world gleam white like a jasmine field.
But is your breast aglow with a live heart whose light shines through?"
She looked round at the starry crops, and uttered not a word.

Transcending sun and moon, I went up to the Throne of God.
"There’s not a thing," I said, "I can be friends with, not a thing.
Your world is heartless, while my dust is all of heart’s stuff made.
A pretty garden, but not the kind of place to make one sing."
He answered with the smile He wore, and uttered not a word.

Commercial Cambridge

As the digressive_mind and I strolled through Cambridge yesterday, even the warm late-afternoon glow of the colleges along Kings Parade couldn't disguise the overwhelming commercialisation of the town. The preponderance of (admittedly discreet) malls and high-street franchises renders the place less quirky and more capitalist.

Fasting Fast Approaching

Over at Akram's Razor, Svend captures the zeitgeist:

Gulp ye coffee while ye may, for Ramadan is but 2 weeks away.

As is the case every year, Ramadan arrives just as I'm trying to get back into some semblance of an exercise routine.

So much for that plan, at least for a month and a half or so. There's always the nocturnal walk, I suppose.

Our infinite ignorance

In today's issue of the British Medical Journal, Dr Iona Heath frames the philosophies of Karl Popper and Immanuel Kant in the context of modern medicine, in particular the widening schism between research and clinical practice.

Her assertion is that only a select band of clinicians are involved in research that itself focuses on patients whose outcomes conform with trends (rather than the fascinating conundrums posed by those that buck the trend, such as octogenarian smokers). The remaining clinicians are 'handed down' the results of such research in the form of 'guidelines, incentives and imperatives'. In Heath's opinion, this state of affairs stifles autonomous thought on the part of the clinician and she invokes Kant's 'battle cry of the Enlightenment': '"Sapere aude" Dare to use your own intelligence!', encouraging its use as a battle cry for every clinician.

It might be well for all of us to remember that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal. (Karl Popper)

Khuda Ke Liye

I recently watched Khuda ke liye (For the sake of God), Pakistan's critically (and internationally) acclaimed movie depicting some of the country's deeply entrenched and divisive social issues: religious conservatism vs liberalism, east vs west, men vs women.

Shoaib Mansoor's film almost succeeded in convincing me of its merits but sadly a few things detracted too substantially from the viewing experience.

1. It reinforces plenty of stereotypes (which may reflect the state of affairs in Pakistan) but I find it hard to accept that there is such a barren middle ground between the wildly polarised ends of manifestation and expression of religious belief. Fanatical religious zealots and unfettered libertines seem to make up the majority of the cast of characters with the odd individual in a state of transition from one state to the other or in denial.
2. Mary (a second generation Pakistani in the UK who is forced into a marriage in Afghanistan) has the worst Mockney accent in cinematic history. It makes Don Cheadle's accent in Ocean's Eleven, 'the most preposterous Cockney accent since Dick van Dyke' seem like a linguistic masterclass. [Incidentally, Mary's father who dupes her into this awful relationship, leaves the village he has chosen as her prison before wishing her goodbye because the toilet's aren't quite up to scratch!]
3. It was far, far too long. The point could have been made in at least 60 minutes less time.
4. The accompanying subtitles were obviously compiled by someone with a working knowledge of neither Urdu nor English. Simply hopeless.

Still, despite these shortcomings, the film bodes well as a harbinger of what's to come from non-Lollywood Pakistani cinema.