Category: Life & Times
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Living in a Cannabis-Friendly Condominium
The email from the building management had an innocuous subject line. It read: Owner Survey. Typically, surveys are not my thing; but this one was different. The building management rarely sent surveys out. As I read through the questionnaire and the attached “explanatory letter,” I realized that it was a feeler of sorts. The condo…
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Recreational Marijuana: When the Government Sells Pot
After a lengthy political approval process, the Canadian Government recently legalized recreational marijuana. Considering that marijuana has been illegal in Canada since 1923, It’s kind of a big deal! Effective October 17, 2018, you can walk into a designated store and buy marijuana like you would buy beer and cigarettes. As various players such as…
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Meatless burgers and alcohol-free beer?
Imagine showing up for a barbecue where they serve you meatless burgers and alcohol-free beer! As someone who likes burgers juicy and beer medium-bodied, I am confused. It all started with some research into “meatless” meats. It was for a blog post on the subject of business disruption facing the meat industry. In case you…
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Bye-Bye Byron – A Matter of Life and Death
It turned out to be a matter of life and death… “You should have won that match,” I said, as Byron came off the squash court. He had just wrapped up a closely-contested house-league match in which he lost 2–3 to an opponent who I felt was less skilled than him. I was early for…
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Falling off a ladder – When adversity strikes
Last week my sister-in-law fell off a ladder. It wasn’t a “ha! ha! you fell down,” kind of fall. As the stabilizing bar on the aluminium step ladder gave way, she fell one way while her limbs, pinned under the ladder, went the other. She ended up in a hospital “Emergency” where she remained in…
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Laughter is the best medicine!
Many people believe that laughter is the best medicine — it makes us feel good. It is something that we can share with others over great distances, or face to face in crowded spaces. Guillaume Benjamin Duchenne, a French Neurologist of the 1800s era, first noted the difference between a genuine and spontaneous laugh…
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Where you live should not decide whether you live or die
I was excited. Nearly two years to the day after we received my daughter Anakha’s diagnosis, I came across another child with the same rare condition. Not a nameless statistic in a medical journal, but a real-life little girl, with a name and face. Someone else just like Anakha! Then, out of the blue, I…
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When travel and fitness don’t go together
For someone who travels a fair bit, I have never hit the gym at a hotel. Occasionally, I do check out the hotel swimming pool, mostly to grab a beer by the poolside. I am not proud of it. But, the reality is that I have always struggled with balancing travel and fitness routines. Hence…
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Couldn’t we all just get along?
The past thirty days took me to four places of worship in four different cities. Each one belonged to a different religion – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu. The church, the mosque, and the temples felt peaceful and serene. I was there during non-worship hours. I did not pray in any of them. And yet,…
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The things vs experiences dilemma
Driving an expensive car was part of my persona, or so I thought. A few years ago when my daughter suggested that I trade in my fully-loaded BMW X5 for a Toyota Prius Hybrid, I resisted. As a mid-level associate in a New York City Law firm, she didn’t care to own a car. It…