Lost and Found in Zanzibar

Lost and Found in Zanzibar

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Analects

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,...
Marrying My Best Friend

Marrying My Best Friend

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Analects

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...
Synchronicity

Synchronicity

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Analects

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...
Yom Kippur—50 Years On

Yom Kippur—50 Years On

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Analects

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...
The Parallax of Travelling Abroad

The Parallax of Travelling Abroad

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Analects

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...