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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...