Auschwitz

  1   “Along the train tracks a group of Jewish boys were singing. It was magical. I hated them. How dare they let magic into this living hell? And then, I saw her. I saw the woman who would become my wife posing for a photo at the gates of Auschwitz.”   2  …

The Four B’s of Budapest – IV – Buzz

Are cities defined by their people or are the people defined by their city? It’s a hard question to answer. Almost as hard as the nature vs. nurture question. It is most probably a mixture of the two. The city and its inhabitants are bound in an unbreakable dance that shapes and moulds each in…

3 Tips On How To Eat Local

  And why is it important to eat local when you’re abroad? Why not just go where fellow tourists go, in places made by locals, for tourists? These are run-of-the-mill questions that inspire an existential answer. At least, if you’re existentially minded. And if you travel, you probably are, even if you don’t know it….

5 Lessons Learned After Running Away From Toledo

  Ever notice the apathy on the faces of people who say, about a holiday, or an experience, even a marriage: “Been there, done that?” No one says that to brag or celebrate; it’s dry sarcasm meant to topple and politely insult. I was never one for clichés. I don’t like tired expressions. And yet,…

Poems From Where We Would Never Tread

  Syrian Butterfly   Butterfly, buffet your wings sea-ward A unicorn on the salted winds, Leave behind the garden wall soaked in gunpowder. Why do you stay, in the bloodied dirt Where bombs make beds out of children? Sweet yellow butterfly, fly, migrate!     Stifling Conceit in Concentration Camp   My mother used to…

Destinations Made Sacred By Literature

    “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Ernest Hemingway, The Moveable Feast             “India, the new myth–a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled…

Poems of Coming and Going

  Beside An Empty Suitcase   Rider on a horse of air A battle beckons over what horizon I am beside my empty suitcase of adolescent zeal Hoping I will never have to fill it A centaur without the horse to ride I linger in the caress of a memory as yet unmade And I…

The Best of Travel Fiction

    Before getting into the literature first a little justification I feel necessary. Few of us can explain, in any profound manner, why it is that the travel bug bit them. To be fair, it’s not something that needs explaining – it’s a happy accident and no one grumbles much about it. But I…

Poems of a Rome Unseen

Ode to Chestnut Sellers   It’s dangerous to want What you’ve never wanted before.   I walked out into the Roman twilight And heard love songs sung By the sellers of roasted chestnuts And I loved whatever they loved.   I wanted the same apartment With the same shrouded lover That they wanted in a…