Dear friends
Most of us (The ordinary APPNA members)went to India for sightseeing with family members and close friends plus added bonus of CME with some tax benefit. we did not go there to build to bridges and most of did not care about that part of the tour.
My few comments are:
The tour was very well organized, considering more than 250 people in the group , most of them very vocal and with strong opinions. The quality of tour was high class, the tour operator and his associates did great job, few practical problems occurred which were expected and were dealt in a professional way. CME was of high standard, we learned a lot about the advancement of medicine in India and the zeal and passion local experts demonstrated about their work was very well appreciated.
Dr. Najma Heputulla, God bless her, is a great lady, she treated us very graciously. I do not care what her personal thinking is, she was genuinely welcoming and extremely friendly making our trip like a royal visit, we should all (who went to the trip) send her a
thank you note for her kindness, generosity and making our trip so grand.
L to R:Drs. Qadir Memon, Mahmood Qalbani and Devan Qalbani
Dinners and evening Galas: Almost every night, we had lavish dinner and some musical or dance program. All programs were of high quality and very entertaining.
Day 1:Music program By a local artist, was actually very good,He sang all kinds of songs and made many of us dance and have really a good time.
Day 2 . A big Gala by Dr. Hepatulla was really grand at the Ashoka hotel. We had Indian Defense minister as the Chief Guest and his daughter gave an extra ordinary
dance program on Faiz Ahmad Faiz's Dusht-E-Tanhai and on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's songs. Mr. Advani was there too as a special guest, he was probably invited for
being a Sindhi and lots of APPNA group members were from Sindh and more over Dr. Heputulla is changing her loyalties from Congress to BJP,and this would be a good place to keep her new friends happy? this is what I heard at the dinner. Lots of APPNA group members
were very happy running to have their photo taken with Mr. Advani,
From L to R: Devan Qalbani, Mahmood Qalbani, Shirin Qalbani.
L.K. Advani and Askar Qalbani in Delhi.
his wife and his daughter. No one was forced to meet with Mr. Advani. ( I have video recording of all the nice people enjoying their picture taking with Mr. Advani and his family. If any one is interested, I can post this short video as an attachment.)He was nice and very polite to all of us. My wife enjoyed talking to his daughter and Mrs. Advani who used to live behind The Regal Cinema in Karachi close to our flat. I do not think Mr. Lal Krishin Advani really cared too much about the so called AWARD (Plaque).
The dinner at Agra was of Mughal theme, all waiters were very well dressed in Mughal clothes and food was little bit Mughlai. The evening program of female Qawall was enjoyed by ever one throughly. The Rajsthani dinner in Jaipur was out of this world, The lavishness shown by the event organizers was appreciated by every one. I heard some one saying "It can not get better than this", every one to my knowledge was mesmerized and showed their gratitude to the tour coordinators.
Where are they? May be in Jaipur.
In Mumbai, the dinner and the classic dance at The Nehru Center was of the highest quality. The music and seven different dances on the same song was a visual treat. Bollywood night at the hotel in Mumbai was of usual affair as expected. This was probably the only functionorganized by our executive committee and was sort of disaster and wastage of our time. However, Johnny Lever and the main singer were pretty good. Sunil Dutt made fun of us. And the disaster of attempting to do fund raising happened on this night.
( To be continued in our next issue of InTouch)
Mahmood Qalbani MD
LMC1969
Saint louis, MO
Enjoyed the trip to India very much
No sour grapes
VIEW POINT: APPNA, Advani and the plaque —Syed Mansoor Hussain MD
Article taken from the Daily Times Lahore for ABSMN Subscribers interest
The vast majority of the members of APPNA left Pakistan before the winds of enlightened moderation had swept the land and are thus entirely uncontaminated by them. They are still very much the victims of the indoctrination they had endured in PakistanThe Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America, recently renamed as the Association of Pakistani-descent Physicians of North America but better known by its whimsical acronym, APPNA, is in a state of turmoil. Before going any further I must in the interests of full disclosure state that I happen to be a life member of this organisation. A little bit about APPNA first. The organisation is almost three decades old and has the distinction of being the first major organisation representing members of the Pakistani Diaspora in the US. Today, it has almost two thousand dues-paying members, which is an impressive number for such organisations. Over the years, APPNA has evolved and like most of us has become an entirely confused desi organisation without much direction. However, of the many competing purposes that have emerged over the years, three seem to take precedence. The first being its fraternal function, second being the need for doing good work in the home country and third, the need to help its members in the professional and social milieu they live in. This has often produced considerable tension within the organisation requiring an intricate balancing act by the leaders that have been elected over the years.APPNA was founded and initially run by people from the Punjab, primarily physicians from King Edward Medical College (KEMC) in Lahore and their few friends from other institutions. Whatever people might wish to say, this is even true to a great extent today, as is obvious from the fact that of APPNA’s last five presidents, only one has been from an institution other than KEMC. The Karachi people from Dow and other medical colleges, though in a majority, were perhaps always too cosmopolitan to become involved in such a parochial organisation and most of them went on to other bigger and perhaps better things. Somewhere along the line, APPNA was discovered by the Government of Pakistan; affectionately know as GOP in APPNA circles. This first happened in the 1980s when the need to do good things for the home country became APPNA’s primary self-validating purpose. The previous ‘general president’ of Pakistan evidently had a particularly soft spot for physicians, especially those from the US. And, as the Punjabi doctors met the Punjabi general-president, it was love at first sight. In those days, the people running APPNA like most Pakistani expatriates were consumed by their need to return to Pakistan. Frequent trips were subsequently made by APPNA delegations and they were treated as VIPs on arrival in Pakistan. Grand plans about reforming Pakistani healthcare were presented and accepted but nothing came of it. Though a single visit to Pakistan with an APPNA delegation could get a Pakistani American physician a few plots ostensibly to build a clinic or hospital, and we all know how important plots are for Pakistanis. Since that time APPNA’s leaders have been close to almost every government of Pakistan or at least those that were dominated by Punjabis. The present government initially posed a minor problem but that was easily overcome. Punjabis, as we well know, love a man in uniform. And, the present prime minister happens to be one of our own, a real unvarnished Pakistani American expat, and a Manhattanite at that! Also, the chief of the ruling party is about as Punjabi as they get. So, the relationship between APPNA and the GOP became close once again. After 9/11 when the Pakistani American community was in great need of leadership at the local level, the leaders found it easier to concentrate on Pakistani issues. After all what sane Pakistani-American-Muslim would want to take on tough issues like the Patriot Act and institutionalised discrimination against Muslims? Some desultory attempts were made and are still being made by the leadership to offer at least lip service to problems facing the Pakistani American community. However, when the much bruited peace process between India and Pakistan came onto the scene, it presented a perfect way out for APPNA leaders. Always ready for a good time, they decided upon taking a large APPNA delegation for a “good will” trip to India. For some reason that is still entirely shrouded in mystery, during this trip the president of APPNA, in a function sponsored and probably paid for by the current opposition party in India, decided to give a plaque of “appreciation” to the BJP leader, Mr Lal K Advani. The man responsible for the destruction of the Babri Mosque is obviously not quite a hero for the mostly Muslim membership of APPNA. When the news of this award to Mr Advani got back to the US, questions were raised about the appropriateness of this decision, and worse, about the possible role of our beloved GOP in this unfortunate action.It might be appropriate to mention at this point that the vast majority of the members of APPNA left Pakistan before the winds of enlightened moderation had swept the land and are thus entirely uncontaminated by them. They are still very much the victims of the indoctrination they had endured as young people while in Pakistan and thus tend to think of most Indians as devils incarnate.The latest leaders of APPNA after coming in frequent contact with the latest GOP have however been completely transformed. As such the trip to India and the plaque was for them a perfect opportunity to demonstrate their new found enlightened moderation and spread it on to some ordinary members also. Unfortunately for the leadership of APPNA, after living in the US, most of the ordinary members of the organisation have actually started believing in bizarre concepts like participatory democracy and accountability of elected leaders. An electronic media campaign started by some such misguided members demanded an explanation from those responsible. There were even some calls for resignation. The president first tried to defend his actions and then apologised for giving out the plaque, using the “mistakes were made” formulation. Other members of the leadership and organisers of the trip rapidly distanced themselves from this entire matter acting as if they knew nothing about anything. It would now seem that somehow the mysterious plaque of appreciation with its unknown message was manufactured in the US and then schlepped across three continents without anybody, not even the president of APPNA finding out about it until “a hidden hand” forced him to present it to Mr Advani.
Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com
=========================================
No comments:
Post a Comment