Nations Apart

“Pops, can we go visit Italy this summer? I have a social studies course on it next September.”

How could I refuse?

“Lex, if you want to understand a country better, you should compare it to another completely different in character. How about if we start in Switzerland and end in Italy?”

Arriving at our downtown Zurich hotel by taxi from the airport, we were not met by a glamorous, smiling, cosmetic-laden receptionist in her twenties, but a man in his thirties wearing a grey suit with every crease in line. He was as stiff as cardboard. Everything was formal and to the point. No smile. No words of welcome.

Zurich became our home base as we travelled by train to various towns and sites in Switzerland on day trips.

Our first excursion was to the lovely medieval town of Lucerne. Set beside a lake, we had to traverse an ancient narrow wooden zig-zag pedestrian bridge to enter the town. The whole length of the bridge was covered in a wooden sloped roof. Why? To guard the city. If invaders arrived, local archers would man the bridge and fend them off. The roof protected them from arrows. The narrowness of the bridge prevented a mass attack on the town.

Crossing the main square, Laura espied a gift store. It displayed various handmade Swiss cuckoo clocks. Since a child in the Philippines, Laura’s dream was to visit Switzerland and purchase such a clock. The store was full of them in every size and colour. Naively, I asked the elderly owner “Are there any for sale?” She glared at me.” We do NOT have sales. EVER.”

The clock cost hundreds of dollars. There was a saving grace. The 20%+ sales tax could be refunded as we were visitors. “Do you have a refund tax form?  We are leaving for Italy next, by train.”

“No sir. I will write you our standard invoice. Present it on the train to the Italian border customs and let them stamp it for you to process.” No smile, no have a pleasant trip. Nada.

On our last day, we lost our way to the train station. Loaded with luggage, egging Laura and the boys on, I asked a severe looking woman the direction. “Why are you talking so quickly? Why this rush of words? We do not behave that way in Switzerland.” With that dressing down, she haughtily divulged her information in crisp, economic sentences.

Aboard the train, I accidently bumped into a St Bernard dog, laying to one side. The dog didn’t yelp, but docilely moved away. “What a well-trained dog you have,” I commented to the owners.

“Of course. We are Swiss. We have to fully train our dogs to get a permit to keep them.”

On the way to Italy, I anxiously searched the train for border officials. There were none. No one inspected our passports. We could have been uninvited refugees. Italy didn’t seem to mind.

In Venice, we were privileged to reside in a hotel, steps away from St Mark’s Square. Everywhere we went we were greeted as long-lost friends and family. Each time, my credit card seemed to shrink. Everything cost double of that in Switzerland. There was no strict price for anything. Instead of us approaching a shop, vendors would come out from every direction plying us with knickknacks we didn’t need. In the square, we visited the oldest café— Caffè Florian. I asked for a cassata ice cream—one that I ate in Africa as a child in the only Italian restaurant in town. “No problem, sir.” He promptly returned with it.

“How come it isn’t on your menu?”  He demurred “We call it Spumoni.”  In Switzerland nothing was done to sell you or sway you. If you didn’t ask for something precisely, you got nothing. Beneath the Italian’s charm and flamboyance, he was there to take whatever he could from us. What was a matter of survival to the Italians, was a matter of form to the Swiss.

We left for home, almost bankrupt.

Years later, what are my lasting memories of that trip?  A blur of grey, clockwork people in Switzerland. A late-night stroll in the centre of Venice. All the tourists have retreated from the city. A fog develops. Beside the canal, a covered gondola is parked. Far from the madding crowd of the day, there is utter silence, save for the occasional lapping of water. You are transported back centuries in awe.

How the Wes was Won

Wes was the most charming client in my menagerie of accounting clients— a great charm causing me the utmost stress and anxiety.

Accounting records were not handed over until almost the very last day of the taxman’s deadline. When shown the completed statements and returns, he would woe the fact I had calculated his taxes too low. My ulcers mounted each time we met.

Wes once created a business card for me. I instantly fell in love with it. True, by the time I received the cards (for free), that business no longer existed.

I deliberately chose to take him to Aladdin’s Casbah, filled with hookahs and belly dancers to ask his favour.

“It would be my pleasure to create your book cover.”

“But I also need illustrations for each chapter.”

He read my book once. He read my book twice. And came back with his proposal.

My brilliant book traversed exotic cities to enchanted islands. I envisaged an illustration of an ancient aqueduct or the glittering skyline of Dubai.

What did I get? A bathtub stuck on a hill.

In all my book, I had dedicated two sentences to this sighting. Wes chose it to represent the whole book.

On my travels in Cyprus, returning home on a bus after a hot and terribly disappointing day, I fell asleep. Suddenly waking up, I saw a white bathtub stuck halfway up a hill. Thought I was hallucinating until some scrawny goats came and dipped their heads into the tub.

It was being used as a trough.

“Don’t you see. The tub is you—always the outsider sticking out from the crowd. The goats are your readers, sipping from your trough of stories.”

The cover depicted a parched yellow background, a brown grass-shorn hillside with an oversized bathtub plumped in the foreground. A hideous giant ”A” hung over the whole drawing standing for Aphrodite, the book title.

I wanted to cry.

But the novelist was not for turning.

Months passed, accumulating a dozen variations on the theme. Nothing stuck.

Late one night he called. “Eureka. Can we meet?”

It was as though another artist had stepped into his shoes. A whirlwind of curves and images—a strawberry, Comet 4 jet, playing cards—all images drawn from my writing and melded together.

Boy did it work—the only book cover to draw my readers in AFTER they had read all the chapters, to spot the icons Wes had produced and match them, in their minds, to each story.

“Wes Baby, now do me a quick sketch as a frontispiece for each chapter. Something simple.“

He drew a Tintinesque cartoon of my first chapter.

The chapter was set in Cyprus, with vistas of a two-thousand-year-old aqueduct, a “high class” Indian restaurant ensconced in the basement of a dark building which” stood like a Victorian Grande Dame in mourning.”

What did he choose? Me sitting in a large, plush leather sofa, Crocs on my feet, reading a newspaper advert about a cheap excursion to Cyprus.  The very beginning of my journey. So obvious but overlooked by anyone else.

This picture was filled with the minutia of a hundred details and framed like a work of art. Wes had gone out of his way to explore the history of Cyprus and its horde of conquerors. He created twelve different frames, one for each chapter.

Each frame was based on the designs used by a conquering civilization. I had only asked for a quick sketch. Wes added the chapter title across a twisted banner atop each frame to match the book cover.

Beneath, he had placed a quote from the chapter: “What do you mean am I for real?’

The Most Precious Gift of All

Taking Chris to buy a suit for graduation, we took a shortcut through an alleyway that linked the downtown parking lot to the mall.

Out of a large garbage container, a head popped up. It was a homeless man rummaging through a restaurant’s swill, searching for food.

“What are you doing?” I asked. The man took fright, scrambling out of the six-foot-high container. “Nothing,” he replied.

Wrinkled and unshaved, wearing a once white T-shirt spattered with grease, the old man began to retreat backwards.  “Hey! Hold on,” I insisted.

The man looked uncannily like my late father. Dad had been the most dapper in suits and ties, clean-shaven with a dazzling smile. He always reminded me of Clark Gable, one of many movie stars we would watch together in a dozen cinemas at home in Africa. 

Living on his own, Dad would visit us weekly bearing groceries and favourite snacks for my boys. One day he didn’t show up. Calling him several times—getting no answer—Laura and I panicked and went to his home. The building superintendent let us into his apartment. There was Dad, staring out with vacant eyes, unshaven, his wrinkled suit spattered with stains, at a table piled with half-eaten food. Oh! the smell of that rotting food.

It was dementia in its severest form. The condition had seized him within a matter of weeks. Dad had that same haunted look I saw in the face of the homeless man who was cautiously retreating from me. I searched my pocket, came up with a $20 bill, and handed it over to him.

The gaze on Christopher’s face was as bewildered as the one on the homeless man. “Pops, why did you do that?” 

“To give him hope—that perhaps tomorrow, he’ll find someone else able to feed him and help him out. Chris, it’s the most precious gift you can give …HOPE.”

Better Than Me

The biggest mistake of my life was teaching The Monster to play Gin Rummy. It was Nanny, my English foster mum who first taught me the game as a child. Recalling those days through adult eyes, I now realize it was a way to spend time with me , all the while asking how my school day had been. In the guise of playing, I would open my heart to her of anything bothering me.

This strategy completely backfired on The Monster. Competitive to his eye teeth, The Monster soon learned to thrash me every session. The game escalated into betting, losing me up to ten dollars a month, which I could ill afford.

One day, he smugly commented ”Pops, I’m so much better than you.” My answer floored him, gaining me a few rounds of advantage. “Of course you are. That’s my job.”

Thirty years after emigrating to Canada, I received a Facebook message from Anne, Nanny’s granddaughter. “Em, it’s brilliant to find you again. We always talk about you.” I had lost touch when my business in Canada collapsed, and our home was foreclosed on. Anne ended with “You tell your boys they have a family here anytime they come.”

Her message brought tears to my eyes. In their home, amid a rough-and-tumble council housing estate, I found a haven of love and belonging. What would my life have been if somehow, Mabel or Lou, Nanny’s neighbours , had fostered me instead. My life, culminating in a thirty-year marriage and two kids, half-a world-away in Canada, would never have been. That spirit of undiluted generosity and love once shown me as a child still existed and shone even more in Anne.

I can picture Nanny looking over my shoulder, perusing Anne’s message, smiling to herself. “Yes. Much better than me.”

And You Think Golf is Tough

Finally, I was free… at least for the summer. Laura had taken the boys home with her to the Philippines. I was left a bachelor.

On my first Thursday evening alone, I rushed to my Scrabble club—a place I hadn’t visited for years. Remarkably, nothing had changed. All the usual suspects were present and recruiting for The North American Championship, to be held at Reno this coming summer.

“Why don’t you come? We’re sharing a minivan and hotel rooms. It’ll be cheap.” Without a second thought, I complied. After all, a vacation in the desert would do me good.

All went well until the first day of the tournament. I hadn’t played Scrabble for a decade. Expecting to play in the fourth division, I was hauled to my senses by a colleague. “Congrats, you’re in the top division. You just made it in bottom place.” The organization had reinstated the rating I last had when I stopped playing tournaments.

On my first day, I entered a palatial casino ballroom—the largest in Reno. There were hundreds of tables, row upon row, regimented like an ancient Roman army phalanx beneath the over bright, overheated, overpoweringly mighty chandelier. It was my first tournament away from Calgary and I had drawn the top player. I began to tremble.

It was like the prelude to ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral.’ My opponent arrived with a swagger, offered a perfunctory handshake, then completely ignored me as he laid out his paraphernalia—tile tracking sheets, various felt pens and biro—then set and reset the time clock. I looked down at my own half-chewed pen, hoping it wouldn’t smudge or run out of ink. I willed my hands to stop shaking.

We drew for first. The champion drew an F. I drew an E. The player closer to A would begin.

I stared at my tiles in disbelief. No vowels. Now what? Convention dictated keeping at least two tiles. I exchanged them all, forfeiting my turn and any advantage in going first.

The champ glared at me, communicating his disdain for my decision. He played a 36 pointer.

My new rack—AUUIIIE. There was nowhere on the board to play more than two letters. The maximum I’d score was 6. I changed all my tiles again.

The number one player continued his annihilation, playing JOES for 40 points. Thankfully, despite an open board, he still hadn’t found a Bingo—using all his tiles to earn a 50 point bonus.

For the third time, I reviewed my new rack of tiles. Glory be! A blank appeared, which I could use as any letter. And I found a Bingo AND a spot to place it, provided my opponent didn’t block it. He didn’t.

A 92-point play! Now I was only 20 points behind.

Adrenalin rushed through me. I had a fighting chance. My tiles were improving. If I could score at least 30 points in the next two turns and prevent the champ from playing a Bingo, I could win.

Word by word, I advanced on him.

My final turn—I was 22 points behind. I had five tiles left: MYAF and O. I found it! And a spot to play it. FOAMY for 31 points.

The champion challenged.

On a challenge, both parties walk to the Word Judge to determine the word good or not— to avoid any tampering.

The champ refused to budge from his seat, making me walk all down the line of tables alone. The other players all turned to look at me, wondering what was wrong.

Of course, the word was good—even a novice knew it. The champ had deliberately insulted me in retaliation for his loss.

The champion could barely sign the official tally slip acknowledging his defeat. The man’s hands were clenched into fists.

“Where are you from?” he spat out in barely guttural American.

“From Calgary.”

“Where’s that?”

I told him and, in return, asked “ Where are you from?”

“New York!”

“Where’s that?“

Journey Cake

If I had to join a two-hour-long queue, my favourite would be waiting in line at Lynden Pindling Airport in Nassau, The Bahamas, a day before Christmas Eve.

Imagine a freezing, wind-swept desolate Canadian winter. Then imagine the welcoming arms of Caribbean warmth. The weather so perfect that it isn’t part of daily conversation. That you are comfortable and sweatless day or night in the same shorts and T-shirt. You fly in over a dozen shades of sea—from azure to deep emerald and the plane lands between fronds of palm trees. You enter a cavern of endless tourists waiting to pass through immigration, on their way to a holiday looked forward to all year with glee.

The hall is humming as tourists sway to the rhythms of Christmas carols played by a steel band on a stage in a corner—their sound so loud it can be heard on Bay St., 10 kilometres away.

Our annual Christmas getaway began a decade ago. Laura had to visit The Philippines to nurse her dying mum. It was too far to uproot the kids from Canada and be back in ten days for start of school.

“What are you going to do while I’m away?” Laura asked.

Bahamas was a magic word producing “Oohs” and “Aahs” from everyone who had been there. Then there was Atlantis, on  an island separated from Nassau, with one of the largest waterparks in the world, including a shark tank through which you dove down a glass tunnel. It was an instant hit with my two boys.

With no family in Calgary we were able to dispense with cooking and family chores—Atlantis became our annual dream getaway.

On arriving, our winter clothes dumped in our room, we escaped to Anthony’s, the only locally owned restaurant on Paradise Island. While my family ordered conch chowder and pan-fried grouper, I satisfied myself with a large bowl of Anthony’s Cuban bean soup. The soup was splendid, but the accompanying Johnnie cake was what I had longed for all winter. It was sponge-like, an inch high, stuffed with olives, red peppers and exuding a host of spices. It was always freshly baked and steaming, as it landed on our table.

Many times, I asked who “Johnnie” was. No one knew.

As a budding travel writer, it never occurred to me to write about our Christmas sojourn. As enjoyable and relaxing as The Atlantis was, the packed crowds at peak season smacked too much of being in the centre of Disneyland.

A few weeks ago, waiting for a client to show up, I mindlessly googled “Johnnie Cake-etymology”. It was originally called “Journey Cake”. When travelling from one island to another to seek their fortune, the islanders would bake and take this cake with them to sustain them for up to a fortnight.

It was then I got the urge to write a book about The Bahamas.

Unlike other writers, I need a title before I start to write, rather than the other way round. “Journey Cake” was perfect. All my books compare and contrast eccentrics and situations  I meet on my travels and those in my past.

If The Bahamas was to be my main theme, what could I compare it and contrast it with? How about my last seven years’ struggle to write and publish my books, meeting the odd Calgarians I enlisted on the way?

And so my fourth book begins where I started “If I had to join a two-hour-long queue, where would it be?”

Navalny: A Man in a Hurry

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny was always in a hurry.

In 2013, he gave up practicing law to run in the Moscow mayoral election against Putin’s favoured man. Navalny lost yet captured 27% of the vote. He immediately vowed to run again. He was imprisoned twice to deter him from running for the Presidency of Russia, citing Putin’s corrupt regime.  Each time he was released, he shot out like a bullet. His spirit wouldn’t allow him to rest on his laurels. Against all advice, he founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation. In 2020 he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent and evacuated to Berlin.

Many advised Navalny not to return to Russia for the sake of his life, his family and work—to have the patience to wait for the “right opportunity”. He could not wait. By pausing, he feared being made irrelevant and redundant in his homeland, by his own people. With neither the physical nor monetary power to match Putin’s apparatchik, he rolled the dice once again, hoping against hope that his presence and personal sacrifice would ignite a revolution.

It’s too early to tell, yet there must be a million armchair pundits whispering, “I told you so”.

I remember another lawyer I met in 1982.  Her husband had died recently leaving her wealth enough to power shop every day, dabble in family law for a few hours and return home.

She was in her early thirties.  “Stop frittering your life away. Do something worthwhile,” I urged. Unfortunately, she listened to me. Within a decade, she had helped found a political party that eventually won her country’s general election.

At the age of 14, a boy of a single mother learned to drive a car by himself. His purpose? To take his mum to work, then park the car blocks from his school and enter without being noticed. Bit by bit, from part-time construction work to pay his way through university, he built a half-a-billion-dollar real estate empire with a 1,000 employees. 

As far as I could tell, neither waited for the “right opportunity” to show up. By sheer will and purpose, they forced that opportunity out into the open.

Like many millions of Russians praying for Navalny’s soul, I hope that he too will have kicked the door open wide enough to inspire others to believe in the impossible.

Eureka

Recently, a friend texted me “Just reached Anaheim. It’s flooded all over. My five-year-old will be so disappointed.”

I replied “You will all remember this for the rest of your lives. After all, isn’t that what holidays are about? Everlasting memories—good or bad.”

It may have sounded flippant, but there was a hard nugget of truth within.

Many moons ago, I had lost our home and possessions through foreclosure and near bankruptcy. My two boys were then one year and two years old. From their age of five, my whole family wistfully reminded me of how wonderful it would be to visit Disneyland. Refusing to go bankrupt, with no prospects in sight, all I could think of was having us collect empty bottles and save the change. Everywhere we went, Christopher, the younger would carry a plastic Safeway bag, whizzing from one garbage bin to another collecting what he could, much to the embarrassment of his mother.

By the time my elder son had reached the age of eleven, we had collected nearly $4,000 to make this trip.

We chose summer as we would have plenty of time to reach our destination. We couldn’t afford airfare and banked on driving from Calgary to Disneyland, slumming it in the cheapest motels we could find along the way.

One night, the inevitable happened. There was no room to be found anywhere.

Having lost my way, we had arrived in Eureka, California around 9 p.m. There was an all-US junior high school annual basketball tournament that weekend. Because of my wrong turn somewhere, we hadn’t eaten since the afternoon. One after the other we were buffeted from one motel to another, going down in scale and safety each time.

Eventually we ended up at the Palomino. It was a Spanish style 8-apartment house, with an open-air parking space underneath the suites. On the outside, the walls were white stuccoed and stippled. So filthy were they—all we could see was a yellowish-brown exterior.

There was only one room left, at the exorbitant price of US $20.

As we opened it, our door stuck in the jungle of bright green, wall-to-wall shag carpeting. We encountered cockroaches in the kitchen sink and spiders on the walls, which were filthier than even the exterior.

It was near 10 p.m.  We had to feed the kids.

The caretaker/receptionist pointed out a Jamaican restaurant that we could walk to. Each step was a terrifying exercise of looking over our shoulders to make sure no one was following, to rob us. We entered a dark den populated with Latinos and made the mistake of asking for a menu. “Jerk chicken and rice with peas. $10,” came the swift reply.

Whether it was hunger or fright, the boys ate their food with gusto. Though hesitant at first, their parents gobbled down the only nourishing meal of the day. 

We blew all our money in two days at Disneyland and barely reached home with a dollar in hand. But at least, as parents, we had done our duty.

Never once was Disneyland ever mentioned by the boys.

When asked by their school friends or anyone else “Where did you go on holiday?” They instantly answered “EUREKA!!!”

A Toast to the Romantic

The Romantic Grocery and Gift Emporium stood on a pedestal of steps, four feet above the ground, in the heart of Pyla, a tiny fishing village on the coast of Cyprus. The Emporium would have had a breathtaking view of the endless Mediterranean under a cloudless, moonlit sky, were it not for a clump of hotels, a curious combination of modern concrete and incorrigibly lovely hedgerowed and manicured mansions, built across the road and divorcing it from the sea.

Hotels like the Golden Bay, Sandy Beach and Lordos gave the Romantic its reason for being, providing it with a congregation of thousands during the peak summer season. But this village landmark was more than a purveyor of goodies and knick-knacks. White plastic garden chairs and wooden benches adorned its entrance and side. Husbands and wives and grandparents guzzled cans of beer or bit into ice cream bars on a stick as children encircled them, still in bikinis and swimsuits in the sultry evening air, whooping, playing ball or patting balloons into the sky. It was the cheapest form of entertainment for families on a budget vacation. 

Outside the Romantic, the air hummed with lively conversation, but I could understand none of it. Could it be Russian? Bulgarian, perhaps? Every once in a while, I thought I detected German as well. Inside the Romantic, it seemed that someone had switched channels. Now, the same animated voices spoke to me in Greek, the language of gossip between the store owners and their assistants.

I remember noticing the same flip of the switch when as a boy in Africa, led by the hand to our mosque. At its entrance, African street vendors spoke Swahili, while inside, I listened to Arabic chants and prayers. As my father bowed and diligently kissed the floor, my thoughts focused on goodies I would ask for from the vendors outside—palm hearts of coconut, roasted peanuts and exotic gulabis, balls of thin fruit smelling of rosewater.

Tonight, at the Romantic, it was strawberry parfait washed down with Coca-Cola amid a congregation animated by the same delicious and intoxicating mix of joy and satisfaction.

How to Fail an Interview with Flying Colours

Having written the first chapter of my book Chasing Aphrodite, I now searched for an editor. Two answered my call.

The first was a 30-year-old blond, lissome beauty. She lived in the area and could come to my home. Perfect. 

“What are your rates?”

“$62.50 per hour plus tax.”

“What a weird rate.”

“I attended a business class, and they computed it for me.”

There was one more candidate.

Instead of describing her service with enthusiasm, her response to my ad was short and sweet.

“I charge $45 an hour.”

With that kind of an opener (and ender) did I really want to meet her?

Doris had no car and lived in the boonies. Could I come to her? We set an appointment at 2.30 p.m. the next day at a Good Earth café. I was leaving for England two days later and had promised to give my chosen interviewee the go-ahead before I left.

At 2 p.m. the next day, I called Doris to say I was on my way. She’d forgotten the appointment. Why did I agree to reschedule the next day? I don’t know.

She turned up—a dumpy, imperious dowager 

“My rates are $45 per hour. What software do you use?”

“None. Only a handwritten notebook.” She grimaced.

“Well, as you’re here, we might as well look at it, I suppose,” inspecting me like a schoolmarm catching a truant.

The trouble was, with a page full of crow’s feet squiggles and half the words crossed out, even I couldn’t read my writing. 

She studied the first page. I held my breath. She studied the next page…. and the one after. I had written this one story seven years ago and never revisited it.

She flung the first page at me.

“Read this! “ 

“ ….they seated me at a table like some parcel expected to be picked up the next day. 

“You know what that is?“ she demanded sternly. Before I could reply, she answered, ”it’s an iconic phrase.”

From monosyllabic sentences, she now burst into a torrent of words and ideas.

“This is what we’re going to do.”

I was back to being a child taking off on an aeroplane, my stomach left behind as my body hurtled into space.

The thirty-year-old lissome and oh so accommodating beauty was left in the dust.

The Wonder of Youth

Talking of restaurants, Europe isn’t like back home in Calgary. Despite being branded “Cowtown”, you can find whatever cuisine your heart desires, from Uzbek to Indonesian. In Spain, it seems every restaurant serves Spanish fare. It’s the same all over Europe. After 23 days in Spain, my family longed for some hearty Chinese food.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer Spanish? Our courtyard hosts an award-winning restaurant?”, the shocked concierge asked. Once convinced I was serious, he crinkled his nose but continued. “Our Chinatown is five minutes away.”  With a little more cajoling, he divulged the address and directions.

At seven, in front of our hotel in Granada, we crossed Via Colon, and walked two streets down.

The wide, brightly lit, treelined boulevard was all aglitter with parading fashionistas. Abruptly, we entered a dark, foggy alleyway. Imagine a 19th century dockyard district in London or Liverpool. Shadows loomed in and out of sight—ethereal, never concrete. The alley ended at Restaurante Chino Estrella Oriental. Its windows were barred with deep-red metal filigree. Thick red and gold curtains prevented any peek within. I hesitated momentarily, waiting for a go-ahead from Laura before heaving open the heavy metal door. I glanced around. There were no customers.

A teenager in an elegant silver and black cheongsam greeted us.. “May I h..h..help you?”, in hardly recognizable English. Her appearance, her courage to speak despite a stutter, in what would have been a third language after Chinese and Spanish, filled me with admiration, impressing me more than the restaurant ever would, being the stereotype of every small-town, Western-Oriental in the world, including Calgary. To prove the point, its menu shone with such delights as sweet ‘n’ sour this or fried that.

Having eaten our fill, she brought us more tea. I couldn’t help but ask “How long have you been open?”

“My parents and I ca..ca..came from mainland China five years ago,” she explained.”Mum and Dad can only speak Mandarin. While they cook, I serve. I’m their only child.”

“You must be in high school?”

“Yes. I’m taking my finals this year.”

“If you work here all evening, when do you study?”

“We close at 9 p.m., I study while my parents clean up.”

I detected neither hesitation nor embarrassment in her, despite the handicap I had unthinkingly bestowed upon her. It apparently wasn’t a concern to her.

I eyed her with growing curiosity. What was her ambition? Surely not to stay working at the Estrella all her life.

When it came, her answer knocked me for six.

“I’m going to be a speech therapist. Help others overcome their stuttering.”

I Don’t Like Mondays

Come what may, Team 2 of Collins Barrow, Chartered Accountants met religiously each Monday morning at 8.30 a.m. sharp. No one arrived late.

On that morning, during my first winter in Calgary, Canada, I had five blocks to walk to my office. This ‘Siberian’ weather forced me to dress in an Inuit-style goose down Hudson’s Bay Parka—a long wide scarf wrapped around my head, like an Egyptian mummy. It was topped by a thick hood, edged in fur.

The bright sunshine and clear blue sky made the -40˚C weather deceptively inviting, but deadly if you weren’t dressed appropriately. Mere minutes of exposure of any part of your skin led to frostbite or worse. I walked with clumsy, robotic steps and as the frigid air entered my hood, it turned to mist against my glasses and instantly froze, making them opaque. Wearing inch-thick gloves I couldn’t take off, I hazarded my way along the streets, blind, confused and bitterly cold. Fifteen minutes later, panic set in. I still hadn’t reached my office. For a minute, I removed my hood and glasses to find my bearings. I had overshot my target and was even farther away from my office than when I started out. It was now 8.45.

Finally, I barged blindly into the oversized boardroom, still in my parka and Arctic gloves, my glasses refusing to de-mist. I tottered into the nearest empty chair, half-an-hour late. The meeting of twenty people shuddered to a halt.

John Collins, the senior partner, glared at me and started in with a list of questions.

“Have you touched base with Mrs.Ryder?” The boss stood in front of a blackboard, pointing his chalk at me, while the next in line to be questioned studied their notes anxiously.

Coming from England, I had no clue about baseball idioms. “I’ve even scored a home run, but to no avail.” I said—meaning that after several calls, I had finally got her, but she still hadn’t prepared the information needed. Several snickers and a guffaw escaped before they were silenced by Collins.

“How is the audit of Westwind Hotel coming along with Gary?” Wasn’t it supposed to finish last week?” He looked from Gary back to me.

Meanwhile, my discarded parka was dripping water onto a chair and part of the conference table. My boots had made a puddle on the expensive, blue-grey plush carpet.

Gary attempted a rescue but failed miserably. “Sir, I think we’ve discovered a fraud.”

A hush fell over the room. All eyes focused on us. Gary began to twitch.

I could tell what they were all thinking—some kook from England and his sidekick, both recently hired—were a week over budget, already doubling the audit fee. Our excuse, the discovery of a fraud that no one at Collins Barrow had found a trace of in the past three years of auditing.

“I want you both in my office immediately. This meeting is over.”

Band of Angels

Christmas in Calgary is not always full of cheer. Relying on its oil industry, the city suffers intense cycles of boom and bust.

One year, I lost both my business and family home. I had been unemployed for months. Shortly before Christmas, a chance came for me to work in Edmonton for six weeks. Edmonton was a three-hour drive from Calgary. It meant leaving my wife Laura behind to take care of our two toddlers while I was away.

It was Christmas Eve as I arrived in Calgary at the Greyhound bus terminal.

Despite the blizzard outside, I was smiling. I carried $1,600 in cash, enough for my family to celebrate Christmas after all—being a Filipina, the season was the highlight of the year for Laura.

Stepping off the bus, the -40ºC winds hit me full in the face. Through the whiteout, I spotted a taxi, ran to it and jumped in.

The taxi driver was sullen, his Arabic face a bush of dark hair. So anxious to hug my family, I counted the fare in advance. As the taxi halted, I handed the driver some notes, telling him to keep the change. By his looks, there was no point in wishing him a Merry Christmas.

My joy at reuniting with my family turned to bitter weeping. I had left my wallet with all my money in the cab. Contending with the whiteout, full of excitement at being home, I had paid no attention to the cab company name, or who the driver was. I had ruined our family Christmas. All my work in Edmonton had come to nought.

The next day, someone called. “ Did you leave your wallet in my cab?” the gruff, highly accented caller asked. “Can I deliver it to you?” Thankfully, my wallet had contained my business card. All my cash was returned. The cabbie refused to accept any reward.

Every year, be they Christian, Muslim, or Jew, angels at Christmas come to remind me of the miracle of compassion.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

I Shoulda Listened to Mum

“Son,” she said. “Stop dreaming of becoming a writer. Be an accountant. You’ll always have a job and pay your bills.”

At the tender age of 60, I decided to rebel. Now I’m miserable and broke. Why? Because I allowed writing to possess me.

It’s a woeful addiction. And there’s no Writers Anonymous to turn to.

On its completion, Vanished Gardens brought a whoop of joy from me. It became my third opus. Warm climes, ancient sites, quirky characters all enchant me. I wrote about a summer family holiday spent in England, Gibraltar and Andalusia, Spain.

My vignettes always compare and contrast the present to the past, mainly through characters I meet and those once met. To contrast against the bleak Heart of New York, this, my third book Vanished Gardens was meant to regale you with humour. Instead, once again, the writing took over and demanded its own direction. 

 “The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
-Omar Khayyam

Vanished Gardens took on the role of bittersweet memories—the struggle to survive and escape the world of accounting and our last family trip together. One after another, the stories became a giddy rollercoaster of amusement one moment, pathos the next. I, like my readers, had no clue where the writing would take me. But the takeaway was always a silver lining—no matter how outrageous were the slings and arrows of fortune, sunshine always prevailed.

May sunshine prevail upon you too, and gratitude overcome you at the end.

Love Kills

Joel died today of a drug overdose. Or, to be politically correct, from “substance abuse”. How can you remain “politically correct” over the death of a twenty-six-year-old due to horrendous choices? Joel was Filipino, a close friend of our son Chris, and was known to us since childhood. Joel left behind a four-year-old daughter by his fiancée.

Like all human beings culled in their prime, I could pretend how wonderful he was, how smart he was and what a bright future lay ahead of him. In my anger, my thoughts turn from a sweet, respectful, softly spoken teen to a walking zombie one minute, a raging bull the next.

You could tell from his behaviour whether he was holding off on drugs—he would be sullen and glazed-eyed—but when on drugs a bouncing personality full of overwhelming mirth. When recovering from temporary withdrawal hands shaking, shouting, cursing at a voice within him, his stare pierced through you. All this obtained from a freely available float of drugs in a university, where the faculty closed its eyes, denied, and never intervened. Publicity would ruin business.

How does a kid brought up in a circle of loving parents within a close network of kin, who lodges at home while attending university, come to this end?

As bystanders, attending all family gatherings—Filipinos seem to have these affairs weekly—my family could see the creeping change in Joel soon after he left high school. Our son Chris stuck with him to the end. No other ‘good’ friends did.

You could ask for no greater love than from a Filipina mother toward her brood. Perhaps that love killed. No matter how often my wife talked to her, bringing home what Chris passed on to us about Joel, his mum refused to listen. Through all Joel’s life, she poured love on top of love onto him like syrup over a pancake. Joel absorbed it all, abusing that love by manipulation, charm and lying to get his way. When eventually those tactics wore thin, he would use violence—either toward her or smashing things in the house to intimidate.

His mother’s course was always to appease. To preserve peace in the home. To resort to prayers. In the end, what did all this achieve? An early funeral with all its hysteria.

What would any of us have done in the circumstance? Lay down strict rules? Summon the police and have him taken away? Put him in rehab? Refuse to pay his tuition until he overcame his habit? Force him to leave university and its pernicious influence? We could all speculate.

Love kills. The more unconditional, the more destructive. 

A Real Angle

As a child in England, every Sunday afternoon, I was sat at a table by my foster mum to pen a letter to my divorced dad in Africa.

“Dear Father, I hope this letter finds you in good health.”

In return, I would receive a typewritten answer from him.

The flimsy paper bore holes from the excessive energy he transmitted through his keyboard. His enthusiasm overcame every rule of syntax and spelling in the English language, sometimes with startling effect.

A few days ago, I came across his last letter to me sent years ago. I was in Calgary, Canada by then and was about to marry. He was slaving in a furniture factory three thousand miles away in Toronto.

Dad wrote about my Fui—his sister—the only surviving member of his family, but for me.

He recalled our happy times in Africa when I would return from my schooling in England for the summer.

My father was more mischievous than his eight-year-old son. Knowing I didn’t like it, he would always ask his sister to make me hot milk. My Fui made sure I drank it all as “hot milk and almonds made you sleep well.”

As I sat at her dining table, I inevitably kicked a cat. My Fui was famous for feeding strays in the neighbourhood. At night they would seek sustenance and shelter in her home.

It took ages to finish my milk. Halfway through, my Fui would top it up. Her sparkling smile was totally guileless. She was never told of my aversion. The only way to avoid drinking it all, was to take my time. As I sat, neighbours would come in and chat, drawn to her warm welcome.

As they talked, my father distracted for a moment, I would surreptitiously deliver my milk to the cats beneath my table.

Fuima emigrated with her family to Toronto. She could speak no English and was isolated at home while her family went to work. Instead of lamenting, she had her son make a list in Gujarati, her native tongue, of all the elderly Indian women of her community living in the area and their telephone numbers. Many were left alone all day. Some lived by themselves. My Fui would call them daily to make sure they were well and ask if they needed help. If they did, she would use her charm to call others to assist them.

One day, I received the news in Calgary that Fuima had died. In accordance with Muslim burial rites, her funeral would take place immediately. I rushed to attend, taking a taxi from Toronto airport to the address given me. There was no way I could enter the mosque. Both it and its courtyard were chock-a-block with mourners. It seemed the whole of Toronto had come to pay their respect. Incredible, as she was neither rich nor socially high-ranking. 

In his letter, Dad reminisced on how much Fuima gave of herself to others, unstintingly.  In his customary habit of demolishing English spelling beyond recognition, he concluded “Your aunt was a real angle.”

Lost and Found in Zanzibar

As a teenager, I once accompanied a family friend on a dhow to Zanzibar. We stayed with locals at their home in Stone Town.

The town was built by Omani Arabs on their conquest of the island, centuries ago. Narrow, unlit, labyrinthine streets, the width of alleyways, divided one set of white, stone homes from another, each a twin of the other.

It was seven in the evening on a Friday, the sun had already set, when I ventured out and immediately found myself lost.

Wandering in the dark, directionless, I finally gave up and knocked on the nearest door. Typical of Zanzibar, it was a massive affair of carved, weathered mahogany embellished with a thousand brass tacks.

A century old voice from behind the door demanded to know my business and where I came from. The interrogation continued—what was my name? At my answer, a final test of my credentials…

“Ya Ali Madat,” the voice behind the door croaked.

“Mowlali Madat,” I instinctively replied.

Only fellow members of my minor Muslim sect would have understood “May Ali (their first prophet) bless you.” And the reciprocal response, “May Ali bless you, too.”

I had unwittingly stumbled upon my community’s mosque in Zanzibar.

A door within the main portal, hidden by the encrusted brass tacks, creaked open.

In the faltering light, I stepped into a courtyard, encompassed on three sides by a two-storey building. Its surrounding verandah was broken in several places, as was its outside staircase.

The old man led me to a corner where several elderly companions awaited us. Amid the rot and decay, barely able to sit cross-legged on this, the mosque’s most important day of the week, they were dressed in their finest garb—once-white suits now yellowed with age, shirts frayed at the collar, thin black ties that skewed back aslant, despite continuous efforts to keep them straight. They wore carmine red tarbooshes furnished with black satin tassels to one side. There were no women. This huddle of six was the only remnant of a congregation of thousands that had been driven away by the ruling sheik.

Once again, they asked me my full name—that of my parents and grandparents. Then, without further ado, they recited the history and incidents of three generations of my Indian family.

I never visited them again, yet remember them always, convinced that my travels would once again lead me to an old man waiting in a courtyard, guarded by a massive door, waiting to tell me who I am and where I came from.

Marrying My Best Friend

A restaurant review led me to The Indian Tearoom in Calgary, enticing me with “the best East Indian snacks and tea in town.”

To my surprise, the food wasn’t East Indian but East African, from Dar-es-Salaam where I was born. The tearoom reacquainted me with all my childhood favourites.

In a community devoid of television, evenings in Tanzania were spent competing in robust games of Carrom, our version of pool, with my dad, uncles, and cousins. Entering the tearoom on a rainy Friday afternoon, my eyes lit up. Someone was playing the same game. “Can I help you,” he asked.

Thus began our weekly Carrom sessions, Hamid walloping me each time. Obviously, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. Perhaps my dad and uncles had let me win. Our games were so intense, we hardly spoke.

Over months, I gleaned snippets of information about my adversary—Hamid was a world-class squash player, had attended Carleton University for journalism but dropped out, he was taking a break assisting his parents who were lifelong restauranteurs—how long for, he didn’t know.

One afternoon, as I was laser-focused on a delicate off-the-cushion shot, he asked “What’re you doing tomorrow?” Highly unusual. Concentrating on my shot, I blurted, “Nothing.”

“Can you MC my wedding reception?” Having completely botched my shot, I gradually realized what he was asking. “What do you mean MC your wedding? I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend. How can I make a speech? I don’t know you.”

He smirked. “You’ll do just fine.”

Saturday arrived. Luckily, I wasn’t invited to the mosque, only to the hotel reception thereafter. The time was conveniently set at noon. The location, a few blocks from my apartment. The reception was in a hall at the back of a Holiday Inn, overlooking a swimming pool. To my chagrin, I had overslept, arriving twenty minutes late. The hall door was locked. Dressed to the nines, I had to enter the room through the swimming pool area.

The whole room stared as I sat beside the groom. All around me were dozens of tables. East Indians sat at all of them except one—the groom’s. Beside Hamid sat, not an Indian princess wrapped in a sari, but a white girl. Beside her, an elderly white woman, presumably her mother.

Hamid nudged me to make a speech. Knowing neither the groom nor his bride, I had nothing to say. In desperation, I started. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have all known Hamid for years. Would any of you like to say a few words about him?” There was utter silence. No whispering , no hubbub, no conversation, only scowls on everyone’s face.

I plucked up my courage and turned to an Indian lady in her forties sitting at our table, praying she was an aunt.

“You must have so many stories to tell about Hamid.” Before she could refuse, I handed her the microphone, scurrying back to my seat. Silent for a minute, she rose like Medusa from her chair.

“That Hamid, lazy like anything. His parents spoil him. He waste time as journalist. For what? Now he marries white. Why not nice Indian girl?” She promptly sat down, throwing the mike on the table in disgust.

I continued to solicit a speaker. An elderly man stood up at the other end of the room. Coughing uncontrollably, he harangued Hamid for five minutes. People clapped in agreement. Now there was a line up to filch the mike. People began to shove each other. Quietude was broken asunder. I felt a storm coming, leading to fisticuffs. Quietly, I maneuvered myself backwards, tripping over someone’s handbag. As attention diverted, I turned and fled by way of the pool.

It took weeks to pluck up my courage to revisit The Indian Tearoom. Although we resumed our games, the reception was never mentioned again.

Hamid and I have been besties ever since.

Synchronicity

My most memorable ending of a book is from The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje:

While recuperating in Italy, on the aftermath of World War II, a couple meet and fall in love. The man returns to his native India, the woman to Canada.

At the end of the book, Kirpal is cycling home to his wife, son and daughter. Inexplicably, he remembers his parting days in Italy.. and Hana. He wonders how she is.

Sitting at dinner, he watches his daughter struggling with her cutlery, trying to hold the large weapons in her small hands.

Meanwhile, Hana is at a party. She too falls into remembering the man who read her poems in Italy. She wonders how he is.

Her shoulder touches the edge of a cupboard and a glass dislodges.

Kirpal’s left hand swoops down and catches the dropped fork an inch from the floor and gently passes it into the fingers of his daughter, a wrinkle at the edge of his eyes behind his spectacles.

A few days ago, I received an email from Anne in England. She was part of my English foster family, whom I had left forty years ago to emigrate to Canada.

“Emil, it was brilliant to find you again. We think of you always.”

“I’ve thought of you too, constantly.”

At that moment I couldn’t help but wonder if, at any time, she too had dislodged a glass at the same instant I retrieved a fork dropped by my child at dinner.

Yom Kippur—50 Years On

On a sunny afternoon in early October 1973, my BOAC plane landed gently on to the tarmac of Beirut Airport. I had just turned 18, finished grammar school and was about to spend the next three months travelling through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Having only pocket change, my plan was to sleep on the airport floor and walk daily to the city, returning in the evening.

All such thoughts of “sunny afternoons” and “gentle landings” were obliterated within minutes. They were replaced by the screech of fighter planes hurling themselves from dizzying heights, at impossible speeds, nose-diving into the sea and reverse-turning at the last minute. Bombs exploded. The rat-a-tat of guns was never-ending.  I hid myself in an alcove, covering my ears. I was disturbed by a soldier poking me with his rifle.  “What are you doing here?” the man demanded. “Don’t you know war has started? The Jews are destroying our undersea cable lines. This airport is going to be next. Get out of here.”

“I have nowhere to go. I have no money.“ The soldier bid me follow. He hailed a taxi, gave instruction, paid the driver, pushing me headfirst into the car and waved goodbye. This was the beginning of a week of nightmares, inducted into a Roman Catholic pension for the homeless to save my life—sharing companionship with destitutes ranging from Japanese professors stranded on their way to a dig near Latakia to Armenians hiding from army capture, never confiding to me their truth. The airport was closed—my only route of escape. Eventually a family took pity and let me share their taxi to ascend the Golan Heights into Syria, then by bus through to the coast to Basra, Iraq and then into Iran via Dharan.

A memory gleaned in a moment remains with you for life. Mine was one of Chairman Arafat addressing the UN General Assembly a year later, a gun in one hand and an olive branch in the other, declaring “Don’t let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Wherever the chairman is in his world of ether, I wonder how much regret he suffers for his failure to act, accept, and consolidate The Camp David Accords—the first and only path paved towards peace and harmony for his people. What would he think of them now—dead, unburied and left to rot? What would he have contributed to the “collateral“ butchery of babes in their cots, not in a little town of Bethlehem, but Sderot?

The Parallax of Travelling Abroad

The Galeries Lafayette in Paris is one of the most beautiful women’s fashion houses in the city.

A seven-storey building, it’s a layer cake of open galleries, one placed upon the other, topped with a stained-glass dome. It was completed in 1912 in the Art Nouveau style.

One afternoon, I took my wife to shop on the third floor. Surprisingly, the area was deserted. I saw a vacant, steel-tubed chair, sat on it and took out a book to read, resigned to while away the time as Laura looked around.

“You! Get off that chair!” It was a young twenty-year old girl hectoring whom she assumed was an elderly man in dirty shorts and a sweaty T-shirt—certainly not a respected client.

“Why? “

“It’s MY chair.” She spoke in perfect English.

“You weren’t here AND you weren’t using it. My wife is shopping and I’m waiting for her.”

“Get off that chair.” With that she hauled me off, took the chair and placed it beside her. She was the salesgirl cum cashier, always standing up and not ever using the chair.

“Where’s the manager?“

“His office is in the basement.“

Abandoning my wife, I stormed down to complain.

The man—probably in his late twenties—was the picture of a suave, cultured Parisian. He wore an exquisitely-cut dark blue, finely striped suit. His fingernails were manicured to perfection. He listened to my complaints in full, without interruption. “I will talk to her.” He apologized profusely and went back to reading his correspondence.

“I would like you to come with me now and talk to her.“

The conversation between the two was in pure and speedy French. I had spent twelve excruciating years learning French at school.

“Whatever she’s telling you is untrue. Why is she not speaking English to include me?”

The manager meted out a mild reprimand, smiled and was about to leave. I put out my hand. He wouldn’t shake it. I gave him my business card, which he took. I followed this with another attempt to shake his hand. He wouldn’t. He did this all with a deprecating smile.

The salesgirl had secured the chair behind her.

I promptly collected my wife and left. The brouhaha had left me famished.

The seventh-floor canteen offered the most delicious pastries and meals. I then needed a washroom. There was one, up a further set of stairs. However, the stairwell was barred by bright yellow tape and a notice in French “Under Construction”.  No workmen present, I took a chance.

As I left the washroom satisfied, I noticed another set of stairs leading up to an open door to the roof. I rushed upstairs, looked around and immediately fetched my reluctant wife.

The roof was the size and shape of an American football field. It was covered with artificial grass. No one was around.

WE HAD STUMBLED ON THE MOST BREATHTAKING VIEW IN THE WORLD.

In front of us, across the road was the Paris Opera House. To the left, the Louvre with its glass pyramid and beyond, Notre Dame. We took a lap, turning towards the Sacre-Cœur, and ending with an unparalleled view of the Eiffel Tower. Not one tourist blocked our view. Having taken all the pictures in the world, we crept back into the canteen unnoticed.

An hour later, laden with oversized shopping bags emblazoned with the Galeries Lafayette logo, we walked towards the large entrance doors we had come in.

Two beefy security guards pounced on us. “Sir, can you please use the basement to exit?” I blew up. “What do you mean!!! Aren’t we good enough to go through your main door?”

“Sir, look out of the window. What do you see?”

“I don’t know. A bunch of Romany children?”

“Exactly. Behind them are their gypsy parents. The children have been trained to swarm you and steal everything they can from you. We have a courtesy limousine waiting for you downstairs to take you to wherever you wish.”

This is the parallax of all travel. Expecting the smooth, you are abruptly thrown into the rough. Out of the rough, you’re suddenly presented with a view of a lifetime.

All it takes is an adjustment to your point of view.

Stayin’ Alive Part 2

It was past 11 p.m. and I was attempting to meet an accounting deadline for the following morning.

Christopher, my student son came storming into the room, “Pops, get to bed. You never stay up past 10 p.m. At your age you’ll have a heart attack.” For once, I listened to him, texted my client of a delay and fell soundly asleep.

My client didn’t mind at all.

How come my son had to remind me of the futility of untenable deadlines? Wasn’t it supposed to be me lecturing him to stop studying as it was late?

I remember earlier days, working as a controller for a real estate mogul, Joe had the tendency to call me at the end of a day and ask me to draw up proforma financials for first thing the next day. He knew it would take me all night.

But Joe had a weakness. He was a hypochondriac.

I didn’t stay up. Calling him at seven the next morning, I began with “Joe, you don’t sound well. Your voice is all throaty.”

“Oh! Perhaps you’re right. I don’t feel all that good. I think I’ll stay in bed.”

I gained three days and ample time to prepare.

How was it this evening, I had fallen into such a trap without thinking?

Perhaps we can’t postpone every deadline but often, what leads us to an early grave is of our own making.

What’s In A Name?

My parents named me Emil Kassamali Salehmohamed Remtulla.

In our small Muslim town, my middle names were that of my father and that of my grandfather, so everyone within my community knew which family I came from.

Emil was given to me to remember a German who had saved my father—then a child—from drowning. No one knew how to pronounce the name. Instead, they called me Milo (Meelo instead of Mylo) from Gerber’s powdered baby formula, and my resemblance to the face displayed on its tins.

Fleeing to the West, I shortened my last name to Rem—to conform. Thanks to my parents, I remained an Emil.

My father was, of course, called Kassamali Salehmohamed Remtulla, in accordance with tradition. Since his mischievous school days, then becoming a cricket hero within the community, he was forever called Kassare (KASsamali SAlehmohamed REmtulla).

To honour him, I purchased the licence plate KASSARE. Even in Calgary, Canada—a universe away from Africa—elderly East Indians from Tanzania would stop me and ask after my car’s namesake.

On bringing my father over to Calgary, working as a parking lot attendant, Dad changed his beloved Kassare into Remy, because it was easier to swallow.

Unbeknownst to my Canadian colleagues, Remtulla, an Arabic name, meant Grace of God (Rhemet-Allah). Anxious to be accepted, I had chopped the name down to REM (Rapid Eye Movement).

I wonder when the likes of my pukkah Indian bank manager, with a first name of Bhaumikkumar will ever stop being called Bill.

In 1964, Robert Allen Zimmerman wrote a protest song The Times They Are a-Changin’.

He was known as Bob Dylan.

I Have This Terrible Habit… 

Of talking to strangers.

While attending night school to obtain my Canadian CPA, a fellow East Indian approached me, “Can you do my tax return?”

All I knew of the man was that he was a janitor whom I’d bump into in the washroom.

Instead of ignoring him, I impetuously replied “Yes.”

Mr. J—he NEVER allowed anyone to call him anything other than that—was one of the most miserable people you could meet, always carping.

Each year he would call me when his paperwork was ready and invite me to his home. I would have to sit in front of him and complete his and Mrs. J’s returns, while he sat across the dining room table, his arms folded, glaring at me throughout.

To compensate for her husband’s curmudgeonness, his wife cooked the tastiest Indian food I had devoured as a child. Nothing was stinted in the feast they always spread for me.

I charged nothing as it was obvious, judging by the décor, they lived from hand-to-mouth.

One year, I needed money to fund my business. When asked the perennial question “How are you?”, I flippantly retorted, “Fine, but do you have a hundred thousand dollars under your bed you could loan me?”

His answer? “Come back tomorrow.”

Next day, there on the dining room table was an envelope with my name on it. Inside, a bank draft for $100,000.

No question was asked as to when the sum would be repaid, what interest it would earn, not even a request for a promissory note.

One Christmas—the snow blizzard in Calgary was so severe—I hailed a cab to take me three blocks.

Although disappointed at the short trip, the elderly taxi driver, a Jamaican, was full of excitement for his upcoming family reunion.

He asked,“What will you be doing?”

I replied, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I don’t celebrate Christmas. I accept all presents, not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but give away nothing.  And I don’t believe in tips.”

The cabbie continued to cajole me into practicing a more generous seasonal spirit.

I refused.

On arriving, the fare was clocked at $5. I gave him a $20 tip.

The man remained speechless, probably for the rest of the day.

A recent study concluded “talking to strangers can actually strengthen our mental health and, by connecting, enrich our lives.”

Try it sometime.

Throw away your urge to complete 10,000 steps daily, wearing earphones. Instead, commune with a stranger at least once a day.

You may be surprised at the outcome.

The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

Six years ago, I began to write. When strangers asked what I did for a living, I replied “I’m a world-famous author.”

None of my books had been sold. I BELIEVED I was a world-famous writer. It would take time for others to catch on.

One day, my mother came home early from work. This was unusual as she normally worked seven long days a week, juggling three menial jobs.

“Finally, I’ve got myself a contract as a bookkeeper. And I’m being paid $30 an hour,” she beamed.

“How much work is there?” I asked.

“Seven days a week. It could last a couple of years. It’s more than I’ve ever earned.”

“Now that you have a secure job, why don’t you advertise your service for $50 per hour. If no one accepts, so what? You haven’t lost anything.“

A week later, once again, Mum arrived home early.

“What happened?”

“I lost my job.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked for a pay raise to $50—what you told me I was worth.”

“But mum, I didn’t mean…”

Mum was out of work for a month, refusing to accept any rate below $50 per hour.

She then got her rate which, two months later shot to $75.

Mum was convinced she was worth what she was asking for. Why accept anything less?

To the fans of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is NOT 42.

It is……..ATTITUDE.

You have to believe in yourself, before anyone else will believe in you.

Wasting Time

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it. It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.  I am who I am and I have the need to be.  The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

Friends, Accountants and Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears

Love Actually

One of my favourite Christmas movies, Love Actually  portrays vignettes of all aspects of love.

Babysitting my boys one evening, sending one to bed and telling the other to keep quiet or else, my mind slipped into the past when a poor working class English family took me in—my single mother unable to look after me.

My foster family had six kids and not a penny to rub between them. My mother had nothing to give them. They lived in a cheap “council” housing estate. I was five years old, just come off the boat from Africa and couldn’t speak English. To cap it all, I was the only person of colour in the whole rough and tumble neighbourhood.

In my travels I met Filipina workers, qualified with university degrees, working as caretakers or nannies for decades—sending all they earned  back home to help their parents survive, their siblings get through college—never able to save enough to go back home even for a visit.

Along a beach in Africa, a gnarled grandmother sold a dozen yams baked on a makeshift grill. Her purpose? To feed grandchildren whose parents had died of AIDS.

A taxi driver in Cyprus once loaned me 50 Euros (US $75 at that  time) as I had left my wallet at home. He even volunteered to pick me up after the movie.

What overwhelms me, when I think of each person, was not their generosity but their thinking, exercising what they thought was their unconditional duty. They never once considered their circumstances or the sacrifices that decision entailed. Almost like breathing, they reacted without giving it a second thought.

In the opening sequence to Love Actually, the voice of Hugh Grant surmises:

“When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love, actually, is all around.”

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Giving Thanks

Last night, arriving home late I made some hot chocolate and settled down to catch up on BBC’s news of the day.

Mr Putin and his merry men were amusing themselves hurling 83 missiles on cities across Ukraine. They aimed at civilian targets as the screen footage showed: a seesaw speared upright into the ground, in the middle of a gigantic crater that once represented a playground; a hole the size of a double-decker bus blown through the middle of an apartment building… I switched channels.

This morning, my shower packed in. I called my friend the plumber. “I’ll be there within the hour.”  I cursed. Now I’d be late for work. Like a wave returning from the sea, snippets of interviews from last night’s BBC kept bombarding me.

“I was lucky. I escaped with my seal bag of passport, credit cards and phone.”

“Our car got blown up before we got into it to get to work. Thank God for his mercy.”

In Chasing Aphrodite, a Filipina showed up to sit beside me on a Cypriot bus from Larnaca to Nicosia. For years she had worked six days a week. On the seventh, she was expected to wander the streets all day and not return until the evening. By the time she waited in line at Western Union to send money home to the Philippines, say a brief prayer at the local church and perhaps bump into friends at the plaza, it was time to return to work. Sitting beside me, she explained this was her red banner day. She was getting three days off in a row—the weekend and Monday—because her senile employer was visiting his son. She was off to stay with her friends-caretakers, all from her village of birth.

“How blessed I am,” she said..

Emil