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Road Trips
No matter when or where or how I now travel, I find that I am forever trying to replicate - but am only seldom able to - the pleasures I encountered on family road-trips during my childhood. Not coincidentally, each of those outings consisted of inexpensive delights:...
Previous Posts
The Burning Bush
The Old Testament revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, contains this story: ‘The angel of the Lord appeared to [Moses] in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush...
“I’ll Survive …!”
Under normal circumstances, the go-ahead from the Department of Justice for the Legal First-Aid Clinic project I had proposed would have been a thrill of a lifetime for a 32-year old law student....
David & Goliath
I felt like Rip Van Winkle, for more reasons than the obvious one, when I landed in Cuba the first time. Of course, in this case, it wasn’t I who had been asleep for a few decades. Cuba, in a sense,...
The Laws of Zumera – Squirrel Away
“But how can Zumera afford to do all of this? With a population of less than half a million. You discourage tourism. And there’s no industrial complex in sight! There must be a catch to it.” Jochi...
The Laws of Zumera – The Social Contract
I knew I was walking on egg-shells. After all, how does one argue with one’s father-in-law? Rather than get into how wrong I thought it was to deprive an entire population of the fruits of progress,...
Touched By An Angel
My pet peeve over which I’m known to often rant and rail is the Big Ugly that Niagara Falls has been turned into, especially by us Canadians who have control of the lion’s share that falls north of...
Down Memory Lane
At every turn of the year, a flock of relatives would turn up in Patna during the three-day gurpurab celebrations to billet with us. Guru Gobind Singh's birthday was a big draw because the old part...
The Gatekeeper
I’d only recently competed my LSAT exam (Law School Admission Test) and had scored impressively in it. Next step: apply to a law school. Not long thereafter, I was driving by the University of...
Wise Fool
It is said that the only wise men you will find in Shakespeare’s plays are fools. “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit,” one of his characters quips. Another exclaims: “this fellow’s wise enough...
The Laws of Zumera – Look Ma, No Cars
Lazing over breakfast, Maya and I got talking about taking some time off to spend a few days away. We considered the options. Maya thought renting a cabin on the outer periphery, atop one of the...
Seventeen Coffees To Go
This story goes back more than a third of a century. It was a mid-winter evening and we had gathered, for the last time on this eight-week long / once a week course for our 7 to 10 pm class. The...
What’s In A Street Name?
What’s in a street name? Is there some importance to the proper naming of streets - or all of our public places, for that matter? Let me take one example - of how Canada, my own country, deals with...
Election Campaign
The two of us stood on the podium before half of the school’s 450 students. Hugh was to speak first in an attempt to convince everybody as to which one of the two of us they should elect as...
Timeless India
1976. I was back in India for a 3-month long holiday, traveling to places I had missed out on while growing up in the country. New Delhi, where I was staying with my in-laws (I was married then),...
The Fire of Learning
It was a lazy, relaxed, fall Saturday morning in the early 1990s when my daughter and I, a single parent, were living in Guelph. I was sitting up in bed, a cup of tea in one hand, a newspaper spread...
In The Maw of A Monster
My plate was full in 1985. I had just started practicing as a litigation lawyer. I had only recently taken on responsibilities as a single parent. And, on top of everything else, the daily news...
Books By Sher
