...On Shammi Kapoor's Passing

Shammi Kapoor passed away yesterday, and as is usual in this remote location that I currently call home, I only found out today. I was saddened, extremely saddened and more than a little shocked. I mean I know he was in his 70s and a longtime sufferer of renal failure, but he had seemed so hale and hearty until very recently that his death comes as a major shock, at least to me. I hadn't planned to write anything this month but I feel I must express my feelings and thoughts in one way or the other otherwise I might spiral into another one of my black dogs. And since my location precludes what would've been a more fitting tribute to the great actor, namely getting together with some friends and watching his movies and songs, remembering and re-enjoying the hours and hours of pleasure he brought to milllions of his fans, I can try to use my words to somehow pay my respects to one of my favorite actors, and one of my favorite people, the late Shammi Kapoor.

I can remember being a Shammi Kapoor fan for most of my life. I wasn't exposed to Bollywood films very much, especially in my childhoood, but I still remember watching a fair number of Shammi Kapoor films, and more than a fair bit of Shammi Kapoor songs. What had appealed to me even as a child, was the spontaneity, the freshness and the overpowering sense of joy in his performances. As I got older and properly started watching classic Bollywood films, my admiration for his work grew. There is a sizeable number of my friends and possibly a fair chunk of the movie watching public who didn't consider him a serious 'actor' in the Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand mould, thinking of him more as a lightweight (not literally) who was suited for just comedy and a bit of song and dance. I had had the same opinion before I started watching him in earnest, but my opinion didn't last long. There was a vivacity, a natural exuberance, and in films like Brahmachari and Vidhaata, a sense of the melodramatic that was at par with the other 'greats' of that time. That's why I consider him not only a fine performer, but one of the great all-round actors of the Golden Age of Bollywood.

And as for the songs, now they're a whole other story. The Shammi Kapoor-Muhammad Rafi partnership was a match made in heaven. The sheer number of evergreen and immortal songs picturised on Shammi Kapoor and sung by Rafi saheb is unequalled in Bollywood history. The two had more chemistry than any on-screen pair could ever achieve, an affinity so brilliant that you could forget that it was actually a playback singer belting out "Aasmaan Se Aaya Farishta" while Shammi dangled from a helicopter in An Evening In Paris, or that it was someone else and not Shammi singing "Main Gaoon, Tum So Jao" to the cute little critters in Brahmachari. Again, the amount of pure, unadulterated joy that Shammi Kapoor managed to express in the songs was a mark of his consummacy as a performer. He was also the first leading man to incorporate dance - his own trademark style of dance - into the three minute song that was the staple of the Bollywood film. With the jaunty, slightly spastic and ever-so-debonair flicks of the head and jerks of the hips, he was able to communicate an irrepressible joie de vivre to everyone who watched.

Bollywood's answer to Elvis, Shammi also shared the King's unfortunate weight issue, yet for at least ten years - the most fruitful period of his career - he didn't let his weight come in the way of having a grand old time onscreen. He sang, he danced with an exquisite lissomeness that defied logic and he churned out hit after immortal hit all through the sixties. It was only when the weight problem got out of hand that he gracefully changed gears from leading man to character actor and spent the rest of his career as a bearded, benevolent presence in film after film. Kidney failure plagued him for the last two decades of his life, a disease that was precipitated if not aggravated by the same weight issues. But Shammi didn't let an ailment control his life and spent his last years squeezing out as much enjoyment and happiness out of his days as possible, a fact that was borne out by the delightful series of webcasts he made in these last few months titled "Shammi Kapoor Unplugged", a series that I watched eagerly and with great enjoyment. I remember him remarking once that he had dialysis thrice a week, yet on the other four days, he managed to have so much fun that those three days were more than compensated. On his final webcasts, I could see the ravages of age and disease - the laboured breathing, the thinned frame and the raspy voice - but I hadn't thought that they were that serious, which is why his death came as a shock to me.

Life and death are part of the inevitable and vicious circle of life and no matter how much you reconcile yourself to it, the passing of someone special always leaves the geart pained and sorrowful. With Shammi Kapoor's passing a great chapter has closed in the history of Indian cinema. Now only two, albeit two of the greatest - Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand - remain of the Golden Age of Bollywood. Dilip saheb is an infrequent sufferer of health problems and Dev Anand is in his nineties now, so I'm afraid we won't be blessed with their presence for long, but again, their passing will leave the heart sorrowful. Only one thing remains to assuage the heart's pain, and that is the treasure trove of memories immortalized in celluloid that Shammi Kapoor has left behind; memories that might start fading a bit faster after his passing but will never be completely obliterated. The joy he brought - that's a word one has to use often when describing him; joy - to millions around the world, the way he lived his life on his own terms till the very end, and the innumerable memories he has left for his fans are his astonishing and magnificent legacy.

Farewell Shammi Kapoor, and thanks for the memories ......

...Of Another Country

I've been aware of this malady of mine for a long time but it became painfully obvious around a weeek ago. I was sitting in an empty dining hall, perfunctorily changing channels on a beaten down old television when I stopped on PTV. They were showing an interview with the senior character actor AK Hangal. It was some fifteen minutes into watching it raptly that I came to a realization that I was probably the only person in Pakistan who, at 11pm on a Friday night, would willingly tune into PTV of all channels, watch a rather exhaustive interview with a 94 year old actor whom most people would only barely know of, and not only watch it but nod knowingly every time the words "Garam Hawa", "Homi Wadia" or "Prithvi Theatre" were mentioned. While I was thus a revereein' the interview ended and the credits rolled with Mehdi Hassan singing Nasir Kazmi,

"Bhooli bisri chand umeedain, chand fasanay yaad aaye
Tum yaad aaye aur tumhare saath zamanay yad aaye"

Inexplicably, my eyes grew moist.  It was then that I turned off the television in some alarm and left.

Ever since then, I've been trying to figure out this peculiar predicament. Why is it that I live a sort of double life in which the past plays a more important role than the present or the future. Why is it that I will gladly spend days upon days listening to or editing a 40 year old piece of music and consider it the most pleasurable experience imaginable when the very same piece of music will make grown men cover their ears and run for cover. Why do I spend (or did I spend) hours on the internet trying to find a site that will stream Turner Classic Movies so I can sit back and watch Preston Sturges marathons. Why do I know Monty Python jokes better than names of some of my family members?

It's not that I have an overpowering obsession with all things grey and mouldy, it's just that the past is more appealing to me than the present.And when I refer to the past and the present, I mean of course the cultural aspect. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I dream lovingly about the days of kerosene lamps and open air lavatories. It's the cultural, the artistic ephemera from the past that fascinates and captivates me, and I can't seem to find an explanation for it. I have a fairly active social life (or at least I did when I was in Lahore), am fairly proficient professionally and function adequately well in everyday situations. Yet always, and I mean always, at the back of my mind will be snippet of a Rafi song or a line from a Wodehouse novel or a scene from a Humphrey Bogart film. It's a semi-sleepwalking state that I've perfected to such an extent that except for the keenly observant, no one can usually guess that I'm actually thinking of something completely remote from the topic of conversation whenever I'm talking to them. Again, it's not that I have no interest in the present, or like Ignatius J Reilly from The Confederacy Of Dunces, consider everything modern 'an abortion of the highest order". I am a rabid fan of film, literature, television and some of the music of the present day, although I will admit my tastes differ slightly from the average.

Someone once asked Dylan why he played so many old songs on his radio show, "Well, there are more old songs than new ones y'know" was his reply. And I suppose that is an argument that can be advanced in my defence. There are more Rafi songs than Atif Aslam songs, more Wodehouse novels than David Mitchell novels, and according to the law of averages, proportionally more good Rafi songs than good Atif songs and so on. But popular taste, and indeed my taste doesn't work by this logic. It's something else that draws me to what I call entertainment and what others call, in a most appropriate word, "maghziyaat".I guess it's more of what Dylan meant when he wrote in Chronicles, and I'm paraphrasing here, that his world wasn't the world of the '60s, his world was the world of a hundred years ago; the world of the American civil war  that he spent hours every day reading about in the New York Public Library. The events in the daily newspapers of the 1860's were to him more relevant and more resonant than what was going on around him. That was also what attracted him to the folksong in the early part of his career, the fact that something was written decades ago yet was still relevant and alive.

I think maybe that frame of mind comes closest to describing my own. I believe music and film and literature from the past aren't things that come with expiry dates or notices that say 'You must be this old to enjoy this.' The fallacy that most people fall into is thinking that the exact opposite is true, that a Mehdi Hasan ghazal is something only 'Uncles' are supposed to enjoy and we'll be damned if we're caught listening to it. The same is obviously true the other way round and the members of one generation are generally averse to partaking in the pop culture of the ones that succeed it. Thanks to modern means of communication and dissimination, the past and the present are both right in front of us, to partake of as much as we like.

I don't know where I intend to go with this discussion ( or this one-sided ramble if you will ), but I started out attempting to identify what it was that makes me so attracted to the past. I think I tried a similar exercise previously, in a rather execrable little poem if I remember correctly *shudders*.  I haven't come to any conclusion but I think that if I can somehow balance, however precariously, the demands of what my father often refers to as 'PRACTICAL LIFE" (yes, he uses capitals when saying it), with the demands of say, knowing the names and artistic aachievements of Messrs Jerome Kern, Bulwer-Lytton, Bix Beiderbecke, Rex Harrison and Micheal Bloomfield, I might be able to achieve a rare distinction, a dual citizenship of the present and the past, which as they say, is another country.

...Of Five Weeks

It's been exactly five weeks since I came here from Lahore. "Here" being the place I'm currently ensconced in (I love that word) and the name of which I can't mention because of reasons too tedious to go into here. I had thought at the outset to write a journal. I thought I could overcome my natural laziness and get down to at least a cursory habit of regular writing, after all I had faithfully kept a journal for the whole six months I was at PMA. I kept at it for a week, writing in pencil because I'd been told that journals are best written in pencil, but eventually complacency interfered. The journal is now being used for jotting down stray thoughts that'll prolly be collected in a blogpost. It wasn't just complacency though. The fact that nothing ever happens where I am living contributed directly to the cessation of my pencilling. And when I say that nothing happens here, I mean just that. Here's a brief rundown of an average day.

Get up around 8.
Shower and such.
See the two or three patients that come to the clinic.
Play video games till 2.
Lunch.
Nap till 6(aka roll around in bed trying to sleep while fanning yourself with a folded up newspaper).
Go out for a bit of exercise (only the first week)/Watch movies/television shows/documentaries on The Dude* till dinner.
Drive two miles to where the inhabitants gather every night, have dinner, do the day's only bit of socialising.
Drive two miles back and go straight to bed.

*The Dude being my laptop, named after the person who's lazy footsteps I seem to be following, Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski.

It's not just my innate introversion and asocial tendency that's led me to spend my days as described above. It's a mixture of being miles away from other people, lack of access to electricity, the telephone, the tv, the cellphone, the internet and other similar modern abominations and yes, my innate introversion and asociality that's turned me into either a modern day Thoreau communing with nature or a slightly paunchy, mustachio'd version of Rousseau's Emily. Yes, mustchio'd. I've decided to keep a moustache in lieu of a pet and I can say it's proving to be a great companion. Many an idle hour has been spent twirling the edges of said fungus while lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. But gentle reader, I hope you don't get the impression that I'm living in a sort of Kafka-esque morass of utter despondency and boredom. There are distractions, a few every day, that help tide the day over and have helped me while away these three weeks.

There's the weather first of all, a weird abomination that seems to have combined the worst features of the weather systems of the Amazonian rainforest and Hell. We have the heavy rains expected in this time of the year, but they aren't just heavy. Every night it pours, turning the dirt roads into slush and making it impossible to leave the room. And inside the room is an entirely different matter. The drip-drip-dripping roof and the buckets on the floor to catch the indoor deluge were something I'd only seen on TV or in movies until now, but being a quick learner, I can now easily place buckets, mugs and glasses at strategic locations within five minutes of hearing the first distant roar of rainclouds.  It rains every night, usually accompanied by violent thunderstorms, and every so often as a special treat, we have gales that uproot trees and block roads. The rains are then followed by the most oppressive mixture of heat and humidity ever concocted by Beelzebub or whoever's in charge of the meteorological machinations in this part of Pakistan. A dozen glasses of Energile every hour are required to prevent oneself from dehydrating to death. I use to think Lahore's heat was bad until I got here. On the bright side, one doesn't have to worry about hygiene because at least seven baths are required every day if you want to save yourself from turning into human fly-paper.

Along with the weather, the fauna round here are definitely something to write home about. Apart from the usual domestic menagerie of cats, dogs and goats and the profusion of insects both great and small, In three weeks, I've seen jackals, deer, an ibex or two, baboons, wild boar (who seem to roam these parts in groups of upto 50), wild buffalo, hyenas, foxes and yes, that most common animal around here, snakes. More on the snakes later, I believe they require a separate account because of the special part they play in our social life. At least you can say this about the dumb chums, they really go out of their way to socialize.

The insects were the first to establish contact. One afternoon around three weeks ago, I woke from my nap itching all over. I thought a shower'd fix it but it didn't. A look at my arms and legs revealed that I'd turned a pretty pink, and not only was I pink, I had erupted in an effusion of large wheals and bumps. I realized I was getting an allergic reaction because one of the insects that inhabited my bed, taking completely the wrong view of my sharing the sheets with them, had decided that it was time for us to become more than just friends. I hurrried over to the tiny hospital that doubles as my office and got myself injected with the requisite mixture of steroids and anthistamines that ought've gotten rid of the unwanted effects of insect affection. The pinkness and the itching started going down and I breathed easy. But at around midnight, the itching returned with a vengeance, burning up my arms and legs. I bore it as much as I could, then decided i oughtta get a second shot of the medicine if i wanted a good night's sleep. I got out of my bed and immediately felt the ground give way under my feet. I grabbed at a nearby chair as my heart sank like it'd never done before. I realized that the allergy was worse than I'd thought, and when the sinking feeling didn't pass after a minute or so of horrid waiting, I made a dash for the hospital. Barely getting to the door, I woke up the poor nurses (male nurses dear reader, no need to look at me that way). Got my BP checked and just as I'd thought, it was down to 100/60. I got myself hooked up to an I/V line so that I could get some fluid in me and get my BP up, dozing off to an uneasy sleep only to wake up only an hour later feeling that the itchiness and the queasy heart-sinkingness were returning. A review of my BP revealed that it'd gone down to 80/40 and we'd officially entered scary territory. That's when I did one of the most surreal things I've ever done. Being the only doctor at the hospital, I made the decision that the patient's condition was now beyond my capabilities and that he should be evacuated to the nearest medical centre. I wrote myself a prescription accordingly and called the ambulance, which came a half an hour later and by 5am I was safely settled in a medical ward. The happy result being that my nurses now happily tell everyone who cares to listen, "You'll never guess who was the first serious patient doctor sahab referred? Himself!!"

When I got back, the first thing I did was to get a mosquito net and fix it onto my bed. I mean I was flattered by all the interest the insects were showing, but you have to draw the line somewhere, if you know what I mean. That's when the goats came into my life. There's a herd of mountain goats that can be seen prancing around my lodgings, and I hadn't paid much attention to them. That is until it was, as the writer says, a dark and stormy night. My room has tiny courtyard in front of it, with a roof large enogh to barely keep out the rain. I was sleeping while the tempest raged around me when I suddenly felt he bed shake. For the first week after I'd gotten here, I was plagued by almost nightly nightmares, probably a subconscious response to the change in surroundings. I thought this too was one of theose nightmares when suddenly, my senses were assailed by a curious smell. I thought, I've never had olfactory nightmares, what gives? Waking up and looking about, I realized that I was surrounded by goats, hundreds of them. They were all around the bed, they were under the bed, and one of the more adventurous ones was trying to get into the bed. They were fidgety, loud and smelly. Especially smelly. Still sleepy, I tried to figure out the reason of this hairy convention that had suddenly decided to congregate around me. I knew it couldn't be just my animal magnetism, and it was when I looked around that I realised that a rainstorm was pouring outside and the animals had gotten in around my bed to try to shelter themselves from the elements. I figured it wouldn't be nice to shoo the poor creatures away into the rain, so I pinched my nose and willed myself back to sleep, being woken once or twice again when one or the other of the members of herd got particularly excited. The goats, encouraged by my hospitality, have now become a fixture so that every rainy night, I have to accomodate a dozen or so hirsute quadrupeds around my bed.

The isolation has had its advantages as well. In fact, if it weren't for the weather and all the animal intrusions, I might've grown to like this place. The locals assure me that I've just come at a slightly importune time and if I'd arrived any time except the months of May-August, I'dve found the place heaven on earth, albeit still one overpopulated with goats and snakes. I've managed to do a lot in these five weeks, including finishing six books, one of which I had started thrice previously and had given up on because a)it's a rather difficult read and b) because there were too many distractions in Lahore. And having finished it, I can safely say that "The Confederacy Of Dunces" is one of the funniest, smartest books I've ever read, and one that has given me two of my favoritee fictional characters in Patrolman Angelo Mancuso and Ignatius J Reilly. I've also started brushing up on my Persian, doing it the only way I thought best, by reading Rumi's Masnavi verse by verse and then breaking down the accompanying translation. I've listened to music almost non-stop, to such an extent that my favorite pair of headphones finally decided it could take no more and handed in the dinner pail. Luckily I'd brought an extra pair just for that contingency (at the time of writing, these too have gone kaput) I've been listening to a lot of Jazz and marvelling at the absolute genius of Louis Armstrong, especially his recordings of the late '20s and early '30s. The mixtape a friend gave me before I departed from Lahore hs also been on constant play, as have been two or three of my favorite Qawwals. Lest anyone fear I've been shirking my duties too much, I must inform them that I haven't been tardy on the Qawwali front, having cleaned up and edited the sound on ten or so very rare Qawwali videos.I had also stocked The Dude full of movies and TV shows because I had a pretty good idea of the amount of boredom I could expect, and I'm glad I took that precaution. I can also safely say that Freaks And Geeks is one of the greatest, humanest TV shows I've ever seen.

My situation here isn't entirely an uncomfortable one, but I'm sure I can surround myself with a more homely atmosphere. That's why when I get home on my first leave, along with the requisite amount of catching up and reacquainting myself with such exotic things as running water and muslim showers, I need to do some shopping. Specifically a television and a DTH antenna. Maybe then I can give the Dude a rest and recapture some of my old couch-potato glory just in time for the football season. Who knows, with a couple of posters on the wall, a UPS, football on the telly and a goat or two by my side, I just might grow to like this place. Touch wood!

...Of A New Perspective On Heaven And Hell

Pop Milton once said, “The mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven”. I've come to somewhat similar conclusions over the past five weeks, as you can read below.

Heaven is having the leisure to finish six books in five weeks.

Hell is being surrounded by people who read Sidney Sheldon and call this activity "bookreading"

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Heaven is listening to Barre Ghulam Ali Khan sing Malhaar while the monsoon rages.

Hell is trying to keep goats out of your bed while the monsoon rages.

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Heaven is a cool glass of Energile after a long day in the sun.

Hell is the long day in the sun preceding the glass of Energile.

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Heaven is understanding what Ghalib meant when he said,

          "Dil dhoondta hai phir wohi fursat, ke raat din
           Baithe rahain tasawwur-e-Janaann kiye huay"

Hell is understanding what Ghalib meant when he said,

"Girya chaahe hai kharaabi mere kaashaanay ki
Dar-o-deewaar se tapkay hai bayabaan hona"

...................................................................

Heaven is a life free from Pakistani news channels.

Hell is hearing secondhand bad news, weeks after it ocurred.

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Heaven is no Sahir Lodhi and no Madni Channel.

Hell is no Coke Studio and no Turner Classic Movies.

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Heaven is living in splendid isolation.

Hell is having nobody to contact when the toilet drain clogs up.

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Heaven is finding cellphone signals in the middle of a secluded field after you've wandered miles searching for them.

Hell is realizing that the field is infested with snakes and that the signals aren't strong enough to even send a text message.

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Heaven is watching all three seasons of Black Books without interference.

Hell is a place where "Mind Your Language" is considered the pinnacle not only of British comedy, but of all comedy.

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Heaven is living where I live.

Hell is living where I live.

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....Of Leaving Lahore And Long Overdue Admissions.

When I was in Med School, a yearly trip to Lahore was an almost sacred ritual. For a few days every year, spending a sizable chunk of my meager allowance/stipend, I'd grab a bus to Lahore, happily explore the city on rickshaw, meet the few friends I had there and get some shopping done. Summer or winter, I'd make it a point to visit Lahore, even if it meant using false pretences to goad out a permission from my parents. Even though I had lived a sizable chunk of my life in Rawalpindi and hadn't ever LIVED in Lahore, I considered it my , erm my spiritual home if you will. However, when my five years in med school ended and it was time to decide where I wanted to do my house-job, I was in a fix. My family was in Rawalpindi (they'd planned to eventually move to Lahore in a year's time) and I knew and liked the city, but somewhere in the back of my mind was the voice that said, "Go to Lahore!!"

In the end, it was the advice of a friend - a friend of otherwise highly dubious character traits - who implored me to choose Lahore, that, coupled with my parents' decision to bring forward their planned Lahore move ahead by one year, made me decide for Lahore. Looking back, it was probably one of the smarter decisions I've made in a rather checkered decisionmaking history. After spending one whole year in Lahore, I can safely say that I haven't regretted it one bit. I had come here primarily to do my housejob and that I did. It was the most intellectually rewarding one year I could hope for, even better than what most of my coursemates in Rawalpindi had spent. I got the chance to learn at the feet of some of the best teachers in the country and substantially improve my practical and clinical skills. On the personal side, I was lucky to have two of my closest friends -make that three, with the third a recent addition - living literally next door. That meant I was never too hard pressed for companionship.

The exploring/photographing bug bit me at just the right time as I scoured the backroads of Lahore in search of amazing places. If summer had delayed itself just one or two more weeks I'd have visited and photographed just about everything I'd set my sights on. Unfortunately the oppressive Lahore heat (probably the only thing in which Lahore loses brownie points to Pindi) and my tight schedule meant that I still haven't visited or photographed a few very important landmarks - Masjid Wazir Khan for example. Some other time perhaps. It's also been a year where I've indulged almost all my rather varied intersts. I've been to Qawwali performances by the dozens, watched plays and stand-up shows, attended concerts and conferences, and in what must certainly be the highlight of my life so far, met Yusfi sahab. And I've eaten, by God have i eaten. The extra tonnage that I've put on over the last year doesn't do justice to my culinary exploits. In short, I've lived it up - at least according to my definition of living it up.

My one year is now up, and it's time to leave. I'll be moving to a rather remote location in two or three days, as diametrically opposite to Lahore as you can imagine. Even though I knew that I was gonna have to leave Lahore at the end of one year, that still doesn't make the departure any easier. I may be able to live without the food, the exploration or the 'ronaq' but there's one very vulnerable chink in my armor, one that I don't usually let show to others,but one they might notice if they are attentive enough.

When we were completing our training, a newly graduated psychologist joined us for six months. The poor guy had to spend all day dealing with idiots who'd shout out,"Yo shrink, come here and tell me about my personality." And being the nice guy he was, he'd provide them with a rather detailed and unflatteringly accurate description of themselves. One day, when he and I was alone, he asked me why I hadn't ever bothered him with the usual request. i replied that I pretty much knew who I was and didn't need further analysis, thankyouverymuch. He said he'd still tell me one rather important thing he'd noticed about me over the course of six months, it was that I had a 'dependant personality'. I needed people, friends around me to function properly. Without a proper social support structure, I was constantly in danger of collapsing inwardly into a coccoon. I simply nodded my head in assent and left, slightly unhappy that he had discovered my most important weakness.

And that is the chink in my armor that must now confess to. I'll be going to a new place, with a new set of colleagues, which is something I would've been fine with were it not for the fact that the remoteness of my location might make it impossible to establish any contact with the folks back in Lahore, or for that matter anywhere else in Pakistan. Without my 'social support', I'd be a fish out of water, which is a rather frightening proposition. But what gives me some hope is that I've been in a similar situation before. Five years ago when I joined med-school, I was thrust into a group of strangers. It took some adjusting, but after spending five years, I count that group of strangers among some of my very best friends. Maybe this adventure'll turn out the same way too. I can only hope.

What my two year stay at my next port-of-call will lack in friends, it'll more than make up in free time. From people who've served in similar places, I've gathered that killing time is the most important problem one faces. I think I have that covered. There's the extensive study that I'll have to start in order to appear for my specialization exams, then there's the Truckloads of Qawwali recordings that I've been assigned to edit and catalog. There's 160+ gigabytes on my harddrive that I'll devote substantial time to; so that at the end of two years, I ought've listened to all 19571 songs I've accumulated (a daunting task). A trunkfull of unread books goes with me too, none of them related to medicine. With such ample supplies, I think I'm pretty much covered as far as killing time is concerned. And if all else fails, I can still write.

I'll end here, I don't know when I'll get the chance to write again, so readers can consider this another one of my temporary retirements from writing. Consider this also, whether they can read this or not, a thankyou to all the many people who have made this year the most special year of my life. And finally, consider this a thankyou to Lahore, for being so good to me.