Category Archives: Articles

The month of Ramadhan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. For many people, it is synonymous with fasting from dawn to dusk. Without a doubt, that is a major part of this blessed month. But for me personally—and this is especially so in the last few years—Ramadhan has also been a time for prayer, for contemplation, and most importantly, for peace.

Last year, my family and I spent Ramadhan in a lockdown in Malaysia. I wrote a couple of blog posts about it, one describing my nightly ‘tadarus‘ sessions with my MCKK batchmates, and another describing some key takeaway points I wished to take from the blessed month.

This year, once again my family and I are spending Ramadhan together in an unfamiliar setting. Partly this is because of the pandemic and its associated restrictions, although in the United Kingdom at least, the situation seems to be improving alhamdulillah. But the setting is also unfamiliar because of the lengthening days as we move further into spring. At present, we start fasting at around 4am and break our fast around 8.30pm. This is longer than a typical day of fasting in Malaysia, where people normally would fast from around 5.30am to 7.30pm.

Nevertheless I am very grateful for the experience.

I’ve learnt not to take my time in this world for granted. A few days ago I shared this quote with my kids:

Yesterday is history

Tomorrow is a mystery

But today is a gift

That is why it is called the present

I didn’t recall it at the time, but apparently that quote was in Kung Fu Panda 2!

Anyway, you should’ve seen the looks on my kids’ faces when they heard it. A multi-step journey from initial bewilderment (what is Dad talking about now?), to the moment of understanding, before finally breaking into smiles at the ingenuity of the words.

Is the quote corny though? Sure. Naive? Maybe. But that’s what I love about kids. They’re not cynical about the world. They’re curious and excited to learn new things. I wish more people would learn to be like this again.

Stepping Away From Social Media

At the beginning of Ramadhan I decided to take a break from Facebook by deactivating my account temporarily. Sure, social media (not just Facebook) can be useful, but increasingly I just find it to be a cacophony of bruised egos. I don’t want to be overzealous about it or anything, but after the initial withdrawal period I must admit that it’s been really nice not to have to bother with social media at all. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball posted something about Twitter yesterday that hit the nail right on the head:

Twitter is a machine for directing self-righteous anger, and it fires all day, every day, whether the targets are deserving or not.

What is true for Twitter, is also very true for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, <insert your favourite social media platform here>.

I know I’ll be back on Facebook soon because I don’t want to lose touch with my friends completely. But my brief experiment away from it has taught me to value it even less than I did before. If only there was a better way to see everyone’s family pictures this Hari Raya!

That’s all folks. I hope you too will learn something meaningful during this blessed month of Ramadhan. Until then, take care…

The 2021 Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, held last Sunday in Ely because of the pandemic, has concluded with Cambridge winning both the men’s and women’s races.

But this post is not about THE boat race. It is a story about MY boat race.

Years ago, in a moment of madness, I joined the Jesus College Boat Club and began my life as a rower. It was the winter of 2005/2006. In hindsight, it was probably the worst time to pick up rowing, considering the fact that you had to start so damn early in the morning when it was awfully cold. Did I mention it was winter back then?

So yes, the first time I dipped my fingers in the River Cam, it felt like liquid nitrogen! Clearly I was not destined to be a rower. I did, however, stick it out until the end of term, ‘competing’ in a couple of events namely the Queens’ Ergs and the Fairbairn Cup. I say ‘competing’ because, let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly Speedy Gonzales when it came to rowing.

By my own reckoning, I was the second ranked novice that term. Second ranked, from the bottom that is! Every training session I pushed myself hard, knowing there was a very thin line separating myself from the title of ‘Worst Novice Ever’ for the Jesus College Boat Club. Ha!

My kids laughed at me when I told them I used to be a rower, until I showed them this picture:

I am both horrified and proud that I even signed up to be a rower that term. Horrified, because if you know anything about me, you’ll know that sports isn’t exactly my forte. In the picture above I look moments away from being ejected out of the boat and into the River Cam for an unplanned swimming session. But still, I am proud that I volunteered for something so out of my league.

My only regret is that I didn’t do more to capture those moments. How could I when I was playing World of Warcraft all the time busy being a medical student?

The past year has taught all of us the priceless value of the outdoors. I’ve written about it numerous times on this blog, but I’ll say it again: I’m incredibly glad that I can just walk out of my door and, just a minute later, find myself in a beautiful park looking at trees and empty fields under an expansive blue sky.

Going back to rowing, I honestly wish I had stuck with it for a bit longer. I gave it up after the 2005 Michaelmas Term but even now, I still remember the exhilarating feeling of gliding across the surface of the River Cam when all 8 rowers were in synchrony with each other.

Incidentally, I went jogging last Sunday (the morning of the 2021 Boat Race) wearing the very same rowing T-shirt as the one in the picture. I must’ve kept it all these years because of its sentimental value, as proof that I too, was once a rower.

My family and I saw a hot air balloon yesterday while playing in the park. Turns out ballooning has a long history in Oxford, based on this BBC article about James Sadler:

James Sadler: The Oxford balloon man history forgot

From the article:

Balloon fever had struck England 30 years before in 1784 when Sadler had become the first ever Englishman to fly.

Back then, his hot air balloon drifted off from the vast fields by Merton College, Oxford, early on 4 October and rose about 3,600 ft (1097m) in the air. 

Further on in the article it mentions:

And such was the lack of information about our skies that some people thought you could use a paddle to row in the sky.

Sadler had been warned he might collide with Heaven, and that sky dragons might come and attack him.

He was so famous that he once went to Cheltenham in 1785 to conduct a balloon flight and the entire town closed.

Unfortunately we couldn’t really see who it was flying the balloon yesterday. To the anonymous pilot (is that what you call someone who flies a balloon?), thank you for brightening up our day. I hope you made it past the sky dragons safely.

I was sitting in the MRI suite the other day, waiting for my research participant to finish his scan, when I heard the two radiographers talking in the background. They were discussing the various supermarkets in the area, with an intensity that came from a deep and thorough knowledge of the topic.

“Sainsbury’s is here, right next to this roundabout.”

“Ah, but surely you would have to pass an Aldi AND a Morrisons to get there.”

Well, not if you go through this road. Plus, there’s also a Tesco nearby!”

“You don’t say…”

“They have the best offers when it comes to…”

On and on the conversation went. My first reaction was to try to tune out the ‘noise’ and return to the article I was reading in The Economist. “I’m just not that good at making small talk,” was what I told myself.

Then I thought: Why do we label conversations like these as ‘small talk’?

I mean, it was obviously important to the people discussing the issue. And yet, exchanging pleasantries, talking about the weather etc. are all lumped together under the category of ‘small talk’, presumably to differentiate them from the real business at hand, the actual ‘important stuff’.

In all honesty though, we often overestimate the importance of distant events in our life, and underestimate the significance of little things around us.

Take the topic of this week’s The Economist, for example, the one that I was holding in my hand:

• Dealing with China
• Biden’s border crisis
• How to promote African factories

No doubt, these issues are important to someone. But who am I kidding? What role do I have to play in any of these? Sure, I may know about events happening a thousand miles away, but what use is that if I can’t even give a stranger directions to the nearest supermarket?

My point is that we need to reassess the balance between what we consider to be important vs what seems trivial in our life. Small talk does not necessarily mean idle talk i.e. gossip. Often, they mean more to people than whatever is splashed across the headlines that day.

Silently, I slip my copy of The Economist into my bag. I focus instead on the conversation in the background, which has now evolved into careful inspection of the exact locations of various supermarkets in Google Maps.

In my mind, I slowly begin to memorise the details:

So to get to Sainsbury’s, take the main road north until you come to a T-junction, not the big one, but the one with a rickety fence next to it. Turn right, and keep going until you pass a flock of sheep…