a collection of short literary or philosophical extracts
Not all ideas fit neatly into the pages of a book. When I see, hear or read something that moves me—a news story, a snippet of conversation, a musical phrase, a storyline or cityscape—I capture the thoughts it provokes by jotting them down. From art and sports—whether Wimbledon or the World Cup—to politics, love and war, all topics have the potential to spark my imagination.
When I was born, Dar-es-Salaam (Arabic for Haven of Peace) was an idyllic harbour on the coast of East Africa. After an absence of forty years, only a chance sojourn in Dubai and an advert in the...
“Hon, some good news,” Laura exclaimed one day while we were dating. “All my brothers and sisters are returning to the Philippines this Christmas. If I go, what will you do?” “If they’re all coming,...
Enjoy the view. Dream a little.
I landed at the newly minted Emirates terminal in Dubai after a thirteen-hour flight from Seattle. I expected this billion-dollar edifice to run as efficiently as Hong Kong, which took twenty...
Watching Wimbledon this week, I witnessed the most remarkable sight. A kid was playing a senior player in the tournament. His opponent slipped on the grass, twisting his ankle. The boy immediately...
It was supposed to be our day off, lounging beside the pool of the Sandy Beach Hotel, in the town of Pyla on the coast of Cyprus, overlooking the glistening Mediterranean. Laura had vanished to the...
A few years ago, a friend of mine, a director of Calgary Economic Development, called me up. “We have an American Ismaili Muslim business delegation visiting us for a week. Can you act as host....
I do not like to fail. Whatever goals I’ve set I’ve always achieved. I’ve done so by believing there was always a way. You just have to find the right path. Some writers and authors have a knack for...
We chose the Delta West Academy for our kids because the school taught from pre-school to Grade 12, and its pupils totalled a mere hundred. My boys, going through the system twenty-one months apart,...
Recently, I was almost kicked out of Singapore within ten minutes of arriving. It had been a long and continual sleep-interrupted journey—a sixteen-hour flight from Vancouver. Once again, I was...
RECENT POSTS
Emil Rem, an eccentric accountant becomes a writer of eccentric characters, in exotic locales—each chapter taking us on a trip into his fascinating twisted world. Born to a close knit, middle class Muslim East Indian family in Dar-es-Salam, Africa in the 50’s, he is then moved to Maidenhead England at the age of five. The next twenty years are spent shuttling between England and East Africa, wearing a St. Christopher’s cross one minute and attending church, to wearing a green armband and attending Muslim religious classes in Africa the next. Moving to Canada, marrying a woman from the Philippines and having two boys only adds further texture to his stories.
We would love to send you the complete chapter from our upcoming book The Vanished Gardens of Cordova. Sign up and I will send you the chapter entitled Cathedral in the Dark along with its beautiful illustrations.