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 minutes to exit. Here, I had to take a ten-minute “people mover” underground...

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 ran to his side and knelt beside him until a medico arrived. That kid...

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 Philippines to attend to her dying mum, while I was lumbered with two...

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. You’re an Ismaili and a local businessman.” “What do you want me do with...

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 using language that can really move people. Some writers and authors...

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, had an enviable class size of 8. Within this close-knit community,...

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 woken up by the steward. “We are landing in twenty minutes. Please...

The scene—a warm, sunny summer Sunday afternoon, amid a chorus of homespun English accents—could have been anywhere on the coast of Cornwall or Devon. But it wasn’t. This narrow strip of ochre sand peered out at me from the far corner of the English Forces Base,...

Last week, as I spring-cleaned, I came across an essay written by my son Chris. It began: “My dad was the only dad who drove my brother and me to school every day from grades 1 to 12. He took so much pride in this because it was usually just mothers who drove their...

It was a mistake. Coming home one evening, I slumped into an armchair beside Mum. “Can’t go on this way. I’m so depressed. No-one at work likes me. I’m failing all my exams. How can I become an accountant when I can’t even add up? Can I go see a psychiatrist?” At that...