Analects …
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Wasting Time
It’s Sunday, but there is no rest for the lonely accountant. I have a deadline to prepare a financial statement for Tuesday morning and twenty personal tax returns to complete by June 15 for the...
Friends, Accountants and Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears
Friends, Accountants and countrymen, lend me your ears. For I have come at this season to bury tax returns not to praise them! The good that men do is oft interred in my books. Go forth and cast...
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...
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...
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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.
