What Possessed Me

Beloved Daughter

With the mad frenzy of Christmas and the upcoming trip to India, I'm sad that I'm going to miss Fazal Sheikh's show, Ladli (Beloved Daughter) at the Princeton University Art Museum. Fazal Sheikh is a photographer-activist whose exhibition documents the lives of women and girls living in the margins of modern India. His beautiful portraits tell the untold stories of cloistered widows, abandoned girls, and women in the grip of domestic violence and sex slavery.









If you're in the New York area, you can see the show until January 6th, but you can also view the photographs and commentary on the online edition of his heartbreaking book, Ladli, or buy it here.

Something lovely

I’m getting married in Mumbai, said the Indian princess. Will you come?

Yes. Is the Pope Catholic?

We booked our tickets. We got our jabs, our meds, our books with pretty pictures. We planned for the unplannable India.

In a few days, Fauxhawk and I will leave for an adventure.

Severals days of wedding ceremonies, with some time to wander the streets of Bombay...





We’ll head north to discover Rajasthan…



...the colors of Udaipur...







...and the blue city of Jodhpur.







We’ll make our way through the vibrant circus of Delhi...





And admire love made visible in Agra.



Have you been to India? Tell me what you liked best. Tell me what you can't forget.


Photo credits: Bombay, Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Uttar Pradesh - Steve McCurry; Udaipur - Steven Caudill, Delhi - Stuart Freedman

Tempting the gods

Yesterday I wrote what I thought was a glib and witty post about jealousy and envying the lives of others. The post was ill-conceived and shabby, even by my own (low) standards. I woke up several times in the night, realizing that what was meant to be lighthearted and self-deprecating could have been misinterpreted as mean-spirited and hurtful by someone I respect and admire greatly. So, at 6am, I got out of bed, deleted it, and felt miserable about the whole thing.

I seem to be very unwise lately. And ungrateful.

Any armchair psychologist would say that envy is at its most voracious when it finds a gaping hole to crawl into. Though my post was written tongue-in-cheek – the product of a melodramatic moan with a friend as we compared our lives to the lives of others - I can’t pretend that I didn’t believe it just a little bit when I said (rather dramatically), “My life is hopeless with no sign of professional fulfillment in sight.” It’s true that I feel a bit hopeless about the direction my professional life is taking me. It’s true that my professional life is directing me – not the other way around – and that sometimes I feel like I’m on a train that I can’t get off of. (I’m not going to worry, for the moment, about all the bad sentence construction in this paragraph. Just go with it.) The amazing thing about joining the blogosphere has been the exposure to people who are passionate about what they do, and I am, every day, inspired by my fellow bloggers. I envy their drive, their focus, their love of what they do. I’m still searching for that passion. I want my life to mean something. And all the time I am aware that a job and a life with “meaning” is a luxury for most. Somewhere along the line, I developed a sense of entitlement that I find somewhat distasteful.

Lying in bed last night, I had the sinking feeling that complaining about my life was spitting in the eye of fortune and that all my bitching would prompt Poseidon to stir up another shit-storm like the one I gurgled through in July, August and September. The thing is, for the first time in a very long time, my shit is mostly in order. After so many months of turbulence and angst and bafflement, things are stabilizing and finally getting good. I am endlessly grateful for this - and feeling rather ashamed about complaining, even in jest. I would itemize my blessings, but since doing so invites the evil eye and tempts the gods, I will dedicate the next post to something lovely that’s about to happen.

But before I do that, I will spit twice, turn counter-clockwise three times and throw some salt over my left shoulder. One can’t be too careful.