I'm now based in Dubai, but will be traveling in and out throughout the year. I'm also only 2 hours from India ( Read more... )

I spent Sunday and Monday adapting my essay, Kalighat, into a five-minute story to tell at The Moth StorySLAM in Chicago last night ( Read more... )

Thrilled to bits that my essay on Christmas and zebras was published today in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune!

Christmas for me is stressful enough that I spend it out of the country whenever possible. Spain or Mexico, with beautiful lights and Christmas markets in cathedral squares, are good compromises - I get the pretty parts of ( Read more... )

North Indian men wear ( Read more... )

Manikarnika is the burning ghat. Here in Varanasi, a ghat is steps leading down to the river, large stone stairs in the river bank. There are ghats for miles, each with significance based on the temple it’s near, or the Indian historical or mythical figure it’s named for. There are evening rituals, aarti, at several of the ghats-synchronized ( Read more... )

Today is technically a travel day, but I don’t fly until after midnight so I’m enjoying my last day in a pretty apartment in a fun neighborhood. I love it when there’s a vegetable market on the way to the train station!

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Travel Tip: Be tight with your money at the beginning of the trip, when you’re still high-energy and making discoveries about ( Read more... )

Women definitely win the clothing lottery in India. Salwaar khameez come in every color of the rainbow, styles from calf-length dresses covered in sequins and swirls to thigh-length plain tunic tops, and you usually buy all three pieces at once. If you do get separates at a mall, or go to a “matching store” to get your dupatta (the scarf normally ( Read more... )

I think I have a new definition for “Third World”: it’s where it’s cheaper to hire a person than buy, rent or build a machine.

In Varanasi, I do my laundry in the shower bucket and then hire the woman on the corner to iron it. Ten rupees per item-about twenty cents. At my hotel, a thirteen-year-old boy starts on the third floor and sweeps the dirt ( Read more... )

I wrote this poem in Varanasi, India, a few days ago, and read it at a poetry reading held by the students of Benares Hindu University. The theme of the reading was Identity And Crisis.___________________________________________________ ( Read more... )

Varanasi is one of the seven holiest cities in Hinduism, the oldest continually-occupied city in the world, and a tourist magnet for Indians and backpackers alike. Over a million tourists a year come to the city on the Ganges, to bathe in the river at dawn, watch the evening aarti ceremony with synchronized fire-waving and chanting, and fend off ( Read more... )