Our Family Doctor in Baghdad
Dr. Ihsan or Amu Ihsan (Uncle Ihsan), as we liked to call him had had a tough life. He lost a beautiful wife to cancer, early in his marriage. He was left to raise two boys and a girl, alone. I remember, Ayman, his daughter, at Baghad High. She had inherited her mother’s looks and was as kind as she was pretty.
We had a number of ‘Family Doctors’. There was Dr. Khalid, who was also an impressionist artist, a member of the Pioneer Artist movement in Iraq that commenced in the early sixties. There was Dr. Badri, who was the first Iraqi to obtain an FRCS in Heart Surgery in the UK, in 1948. And there was Dr. Ihsan. He later married Aunty Sevem (her name meant ‘fair’ in Turkish), in the eighties. I was in high school then. People mispronounced her name, and often called her ‘Seven’, mistaking it for an English word. She would smile in her own sweet way at that.
The most vivid of my memories with Dr. Ihsan was when I overdosed on an anti-spasmodic, I perceived as vital to my recovery from what had then seemed a ‘lifelong’ condition of diarrhea. I had started with two of the pills, and when it did not help, followed with another. Suddenly, I discovered that I could not urinate. I somehow found my mother’s diuretic, and stupidly believing it would induce me to urinate –like it did her all the time, I took one. Instead, I was ‘inflating’ a ‘locked’ bladder, and writhing with agony. When Mama came home from school, she grabbed me, sat me on the toilet seat, turned on every single faucet in the bathroom, and ordered me to look at it, and ‘release’. She did leave the bathroom to offer me some privacy. It did not help. By evening, I had braced myself for a massive explosion. I had convinced myself that I was going to die of a burst bladder.
Mama decided Ahmed should take me to see Dr. Ihsan, and he would work his miracle, as always. Ahmed piled newspapers in the passenger seat of his car. ‘I don’t want you peeing in my car!’ he sneered –he was not too happy that he had been burdened with the task of taking me to Dr. Ihsan’s downtown office. ‘I can’t pee, you idiot! That’s why you’re taking me!’ I retorted. I cannot remember what Dr. Ihsan did, but it worked. I was more than eager to use the restroom at his office. It was the biggest relief I had experienced in my whole life. That was years ago.
Yesterday, Mama told me that, ‘insurgents’ had kidnapped Dr. Ihsan. He had been taking a ‘back street’ as he normally does back from his office to avoid the numerous ‘American’ checkpoints. The street had been somewhat busy. Suddenly, a car rear-ended him, another pulled up in front of his car, while two others pulled over on both sides, blocking it completely. Yet another five cars surrounded the scene. Traffic stopped, and vehicles started to flee in diverse directions regardless of the flow. Ten people jumped out of the cars. Two pointed a gun at his head. Within minutes, he had been pushed into one of the cars, blindfolded, and his wrists shackled. The butt of a gun forced his head down.
All along, his blindfold was never removed. Through the thin material, he could discern that their destination was an abandoned house in the countryside. His captors wasted no time in revealing their intentions. They wanted a ransom; 300 US thousand dollars.
Dr. Ihsan offered to give them the details of his bank accounts in the UK, Jordan and Iraq. ‘I do not have that amount of money. You can check the balances, and if you discover otherwise, it’s all yours’. ‘But you charge so much per visit!’ they insisted. Sadly, they did not know that Dr. Ihsan did not charge the poor in Baghdad, a single ‘fils’. And the poor were many in Baghdad, and formed the majority of his patients.
In the meantime, a call had been made to Aunty Sevem, and she had been able to raise 100 thousand US dollars. ‘He’s very sick,’ she pleaded, over the phone. ‘He’s under the best care,’ came the grim reply.
Eventually, Dr. Ihsan lost 100 thousand dollars, but he won his freedom. He used all the wisdom that was so familiar of his character. ‘I’m 75 years old’, he had impressed upon his captors. ‘I am not afraid to die. I have lived a long life. I do not fear death. I have faith’. ‘We’ll slaughter you like a sheep!’ they had screamed back at him, in anger at his defiance. In response, he had asked for water to perform his ablution before prayer. ‘I rarely miss my prayers, and I do not want to miss any prayers now’, he told them calmly. ‘You want what?’ one of them had exclaimed. The ridicule in the question surprised Dr. Ihsan. If his captors were members of the 'religiously extreme' insurgency, where had their ‘religious’ values gone? He soon came to find they did not have any. And if the money was going to support the resistance, as they claimed, why was he overhearing differently? He could hear them talk when they thought he wasn’t listening. Yet, Dr. Ihsan recognized the attitude, style, and ‘jargon’ of the ‘intelligence’ personnel of the ex-regime. He had been detained before by the ex-regime, so it was not difficult for him to recognize the type of people that were incarcerating him again, only in different circumstances.
‘I was summoned to Bremer’s office’ when the CPA took power, he said to Mama. ‘I didn’t go. I wasn’t going to talk to the occupation. His assistant then came to visit me. I remember asking him, “What have you done? What do you expect now that have dismantled the entire security system of a sovereign country?”…He looked me in the face and remained silent. He had nothing to say…’
Dr. Ihsan or Amu Ihsan (Uncle Ihsan), as we liked to call him had had a tough life. He lost a beautiful wife to cancer, early in his marriage. He was left to raise two boys and a girl, alone. I remember, Ayman, his daughter, at Baghad High. She had inherited her mother’s looks and was as kind as she was pretty.
We had a number of ‘Family Doctors’. There was Dr. Khalid, who was also an impressionist artist, a member of the Pioneer Artist movement in Iraq that commenced in the early sixties. There was Dr. Badri, who was the first Iraqi to obtain an FRCS in Heart Surgery in the UK, in 1948. And there was Dr. Ihsan. He later married Aunty Sevem (her name meant ‘fair’ in Turkish), in the eighties. I was in high school then. People mispronounced her name, and often called her ‘Seven’, mistaking it for an English word. She would smile in her own sweet way at that.
The most vivid of my memories with Dr. Ihsan was when I overdosed on an anti-spasmodic, I perceived as vital to my recovery from what had then seemed a ‘lifelong’ condition of diarrhea. I had started with two of the pills, and when it did not help, followed with another. Suddenly, I discovered that I could not urinate. I somehow found my mother’s diuretic, and stupidly believing it would induce me to urinate –like it did her all the time, I took one. Instead, I was ‘inflating’ a ‘locked’ bladder, and writhing with agony. When Mama came home from school, she grabbed me, sat me on the toilet seat, turned on every single faucet in the bathroom, and ordered me to look at it, and ‘release’. She did leave the bathroom to offer me some privacy. It did not help. By evening, I had braced myself for a massive explosion. I had convinced myself that I was going to die of a burst bladder.
Mama decided Ahmed should take me to see Dr. Ihsan, and he would work his miracle, as always. Ahmed piled newspapers in the passenger seat of his car. ‘I don’t want you peeing in my car!’ he sneered –he was not too happy that he had been burdened with the task of taking me to Dr. Ihsan’s downtown office. ‘I can’t pee, you idiot! That’s why you’re taking me!’ I retorted. I cannot remember what Dr. Ihsan did, but it worked. I was more than eager to use the restroom at his office. It was the biggest relief I had experienced in my whole life. That was years ago.
Yesterday, Mama told me that, ‘insurgents’ had kidnapped Dr. Ihsan. He had been taking a ‘back street’ as he normally does back from his office to avoid the numerous ‘American’ checkpoints. The street had been somewhat busy. Suddenly, a car rear-ended him, another pulled up in front of his car, while two others pulled over on both sides, blocking it completely. Yet another five cars surrounded the scene. Traffic stopped, and vehicles started to flee in diverse directions regardless of the flow. Ten people jumped out of the cars. Two pointed a gun at his head. Within minutes, he had been pushed into one of the cars, blindfolded, and his wrists shackled. The butt of a gun forced his head down.
All along, his blindfold was never removed. Through the thin material, he could discern that their destination was an abandoned house in the countryside. His captors wasted no time in revealing their intentions. They wanted a ransom; 300 US thousand dollars.
Dr. Ihsan offered to give them the details of his bank accounts in the UK, Jordan and Iraq. ‘I do not have that amount of money. You can check the balances, and if you discover otherwise, it’s all yours’. ‘But you charge so much per visit!’ they insisted. Sadly, they did not know that Dr. Ihsan did not charge the poor in Baghdad, a single ‘fils’. And the poor were many in Baghdad, and formed the majority of his patients.
In the meantime, a call had been made to Aunty Sevem, and she had been able to raise 100 thousand US dollars. ‘He’s very sick,’ she pleaded, over the phone. ‘He’s under the best care,’ came the grim reply.
Eventually, Dr. Ihsan lost 100 thousand dollars, but he won his freedom. He used all the wisdom that was so familiar of his character. ‘I’m 75 years old’, he had impressed upon his captors. ‘I am not afraid to die. I have lived a long life. I do not fear death. I have faith’. ‘We’ll slaughter you like a sheep!’ they had screamed back at him, in anger at his defiance. In response, he had asked for water to perform his ablution before prayer. ‘I rarely miss my prayers, and I do not want to miss any prayers now’, he told them calmly. ‘You want what?’ one of them had exclaimed. The ridicule in the question surprised Dr. Ihsan. If his captors were members of the 'religiously extreme' insurgency, where had their ‘religious’ values gone? He soon came to find they did not have any. And if the money was going to support the resistance, as they claimed, why was he overhearing differently? He could hear them talk when they thought he wasn’t listening. Yet, Dr. Ihsan recognized the attitude, style, and ‘jargon’ of the ‘intelligence’ personnel of the ex-regime. He had been detained before by the ex-regime, so it was not difficult for him to recognize the type of people that were incarcerating him again, only in different circumstances.
‘I was summoned to Bremer’s office’ when the CPA took power, he said to Mama. ‘I didn’t go. I wasn’t going to talk to the occupation. His assistant then came to visit me. I remember asking him, “What have you done? What do you expect now that have dismantled the entire security system of a sovereign country?”…He looked me in the face and remained silent. He had nothing to say…’