"May I
Sir?" I finally raised my hand from amongst the huge audience sitting in this
magnificent conference hall of Aston in Birmingham at one of the annual Medical
gatherings (2005) in order to convey my concern to Sir Robert Shaw, the then
President of our College( Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists London)
( I always feel a bit reluctant & shy to speak up in a crowd like this or in
front of someone I may be a bit impressed/scared at heart but if I have a
feeling that speech is vital here, I have to take a few deep breaths with the
word 'ya sala'mo', a trick that one of my senior & award winner community
religious psychologist taught me, recite my favourite prayer of these times(the
prayer of Moses sws to speak up rabbi sharah lee sadri... and then I can hear my
voice very soon :) "Sir; I agree that the monitoring of the Doctors' time is a
crucial step forward for clinical governance, but i has been done since a while
now, tracking even the time the poor doctors spend in the loo :) ending up more
into a paper work activity, I suppose there needs to be something more, perhaps
something like a 'self check'. During the busy hours on long duties and
operating theatres, during night and day, whenever we return to our rest rooms,
our side tables are loaded with magazines full of porne and baseless images and
stories. Where do these come from? We are getting them free in tens and
hundreds. Don't you think sir that we need to give a bit of moral touch by
adding some advisory writings to our College/Medical journals and make them
available in our rooms?" I suddenly felt that the half lit silent hall full of
doctors suddenly filled with whispers. Even in the darkness around me I could
feel hundreds of pairs of eyes piercing my face which felt scorching despite the
comfortably cool temperature of the giant hall. On top of that a sharp elbow
nearly broke my two middle ribs when Dr.Ayesha, my dear old friend, poked me
from my right side. "aaa''I had to cover my mouth in order to hold back my
scream. "Ayesha ke bacchi..bahar nikal zara..phir..." (It was an unforgettable
day when I asked this new Dr. Colleague on a family dinner during our initial
days of work in Yorkshire in 90s if she had studied in Quetta Convent for a
while during her dad's Army posting coz her mischievous eyes and curly hair
reminded me of someone and we realized we were the lost friends of childhood..
she was shocked though on the fact that I identified her after decades atleast:)
"uhmm...uhmmm..." sir Shaw's strident cough curbed the growing murmurs. "I
suppose you could speak to the Editor of our journal about this. Well it could
be one of the factors but the issue is that if we are really concerned about our
continued professional development and career planning and we wish to achieve
the certain positions of our dreams ........ ...and the talk then returned to
the traditional worldly pattern of gains and losses, the never-ending business
of this hustle and bustle, dry and shallow solutions to the growing problems
every moment of the days. I found the editor during lunch but not much of a
gain, or perhaps I did not pursue it vigorously even later, or was it just my
solitary voice; even my best friend thought that there was no need to expose
ourselves unnecessarily and different from others.
The think tanks of the West are now saying that there is something more to teach
to our children than just 2+2=4 or H2 and O makes O2~nothing seems to prevail
without moral teachings and faith is a value which cannot be ignored in his
regard. The combination of capitilism and atheism has not given much goodness to
the humanity. Therefore, be it East or West, the 'treatment' of 'extremism' is
neither suicide bombings, nor drone attacks, rather the efforts to wipe out
ignorance by promoting knowledge & awareness not only about the science &
technology, but also moral affairs. Only yesterdays European Election will show
the impact of MPs expenses in UK and it's impact on the results of the Election
we find out today.
The dormant faith organisations seem to be waking up with yawns, when all seems
to be going a bit 'weird' and 'eerie' , the world is desperately looking for the
solutions to the common puzzles the humanity is facing together in the
contemporary but defying times of the 2010th century.