I was sitting at my desk when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Angus Menzies, my best friend since childhood. Our plan to go canoeing near our hometown of Ottawa, Ontario, was a go.
“Got a brand-new canoe for us to use,” he wrote. “What’s your ETA?”
I replied that I’d leave work early to catch a bus to Ottawa that afternoon in July 2017. As I had arranged with my wife, Cornelia Mars, I would only be gone for 24 hours, a mini-vacation that seemed impossibly exciting after many months spent close to home helping care for our 2-year-old daughter.
I felt invigorated on the Greyhound bus a couple of hours later as it rumbled steadily onward, the forest a blur outside the window. It had been a year since I’d seen Angus. But as kids, then teenagers and into our 20s, we were inseparable, more like brothers than friends. Although we’d seen each other infrequently in recent years— both of us busy with our families and living in different cities—he never felt out of reach.
Angus was waiting in the parking lot of the run-down Ottawa bus station when I stepped off the bus into the hot sun. We hugged and climbed into his blue pickup, punk rock blasting.
He drove and we shot the breeze. I felt the mix of comfort and apprehension that develops when you’ve known someone for 30-plus years—comfort at knowing the person in some ways better than you know yourself, apprehension as you wonder if you still have anything in common. But within minutes we had settled into an easy back and forth.
If Angus was the leader of our group of friends as we navigated our teens— the rest of us paying close attention as he defeated bullies and attracted the prettiest girls, inspiring the rest of us to try to be greater versions of ourselves— then maybe I acted as a sort of consigliere, a trusted adviser.
Denne historien er fra July 2024-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra July 2024-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
ME & MY SHELF
Siddharth Kapila is a lawyer turned writer whose writing has focussed on issues surrounding Hinduism. His debut book, Tripping Down the Ganga: A Son's Exploration of Faith (Speaking Tiger) traces his seven-year-long journey along India's holiest river and his explorations into the nature of faith among believers and skeptics alike.
EMBEDDED FROM NPR
For all its flaws and shortcomings, some of which have come under the spotlight in recent years, NPR makes some of the best hardcore journalistic podcasts ever.
ANURAG MINUS VERMA PODCAST
Interview podcasts live and die not just on the strengths of the interviewer but also the range of participating guests.
WE'RE NOT KIDDING WITH MEHDI & FRIENDS
Since his exit from MSNBC, star anchor and journalist Mehdi Hasan has gone on to found Zeteo, an all-new media startup focussing on both news and analysis.
Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India by Karan Madhok (Aleph)
Karan Madhok's Ananda is a lively, three-dimensional exploration of India's past and present relationship with cannabis.
I'll Have it Here: Poems by Jeet Thayil, (Fourth Estate)
For over three decades now, Jeet Thayil has been one of India's pre-eminent Englishlanguage poets.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Penguin Random House India)
Samantha Harvey became the latest winner of the Booker Prize last month for Orbital, a short, sharp shock of a novel about a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station for a long-term mission.
She Defied All the Odds
When doctors told the McCoombes that spina bifida would severely limit their daughter's life, they refused to listen. So did the little girl
DO YOU DARE?
Two Danish businesswomen want us to start eating insects. It's good for the environment, but can consumers get over the yuck factor?
Searching for Santa Claus
Santa lives at the North Pole, right? Don't say that to the people of Rovaniemi in northern Finland