Mixed Bag

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Of Cigarette Packs and Elephant Dung

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Where can you go to see the following? (1) Creative photography on cigarette packs. (2) Innovative co-existence with elephants. Answer: Sri Lanka. Last summer, my family and I went on a week-long sojourn to Sri Lanka. That it happened to coincide with the heat wave in Karachi needs further explanation, in case you think I created a respite for myself primarily because I wanted to get away from angry sun gods. Truth be told, I felt guilty that I was vacationing in a tropical environment while the heat-facilitated death toll rose in Karachi… Anyway, after that trip, there was a strong urge to write about the island. I'm not a travel writer, but after experiencing the ‘wonders of Sri Lanka’, I couldn't stop myself from telling you about that land. Although considered a ‘developing nation’, there were aspects to the country that completely defied that label. As I was visiting from Pakistan, the analogy thus created was insightful. A runner's tale "Are you a...
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Sitting at Nadir’s Table

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We shared beginnings - different years, same places: Karachi Grammar School and Aga Khan University. A thin but sturdy thread in the doctor fraternity. We also shared the country club in Karachi, and in its gym is where we often crossed paths. Not to spot each other’s lifts but to swap maps of the world. Like the time I was heading to San Francisco for a conference and Nadir, between sets, gave me a street-by-street guide to the city, covering both work and after hours. He could have been moonlighting as a tour guide. That trip of mine went fantastically.  He was never my official career counselor, yet we had enough one-to-one sessions in the club’s garden to make it seem otherwise. He would talk about being at AKU, then moving away, shifting between academic medicine and private practice. When I spoke about my own trajectory in similar terms, he was always gracious in his mentoring. Later I realized he was like that with many others too. His funeral, with its sea of people ca...
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The Observer by Natasha Khalid (guest writer)

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Photo-credit: Saniya Kamal, AKU MBBS ' 18 I enter the corridor of my new work place. I’m welcomed and introduced all around. For some reason, best known to her, the human resource lady took so much of my time that I am already pissed and looking angry. I don’t feel comfortable in this different setup and I terribly miss my old working place. Every single thing about it which previously used to get on my nerves is acutely missed. However, I succumb to my new work because it has been over a year since I practiced medicine and the sole reason for me to be here is to get distracted from my mental chaos and to focus elsewhere. In a matter of hours I find myself adjusting here, understanding the work dynamics, and the system around here. It’s easy - not challenging, likely because there’s ample time at hand which I can utilize to study while earning. Not a bad deal!    This is a dialysis department of a semi-private hospital. Every single patient here is dependent on dia...
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