Baba Haji Checking into the hotel in London, I was filled with excitement and sadness at the same time. It had been decades since I had last seen my Dai (uncle) Homayoun. The difference now was that his life partner of 50 plus years, Khal-eh (auntie) Shahin would not be with him. She had recently died in a car accident. When I heard a gentle knock on the door, I quickly opened it. Dai stepped forward, buried his head in my arms, and quietly wept. This was not the Dai Homayoun that I knew. A man whose physical stance yelled, ‘try me!’ A man who had withstood months of solitary confinement and physical torture under the Khomeini regime. This was someone else. An older man who was broken. An older man who had lost his North Star. Dai was someone who always turned everything upside down, and made fun of people being too emotional. For example when Mooness joon (his grandmother and my great grandmother) died, he questioned why I was being sad. He suggested that we meet up at t...
Photo by Clark Alcantara @clarkos29 Social Media & Sense of Self(ie) By Zahra Dowlatabadi Exploring Balboa Park in San Diego, I suddenly found myself in one of those “frozen space moments” which is fairly common in Southern California. A celebrity has been spotted and the immediate world is caught up in between disbelief, awe and what to do next? It turns out that I walked into an event organized by #BalboaParkMeetup, an Instagram posting that has invited photographers and aspiring models to show up on the bridge at 3:00 pm. The average age of participants was mid-teens to early 20s. In attendance were passers-by, lookie-loos, photographers and models of all shapes and sizes in colorful wigs, full make-up and eclectic clothing! It was a seamless event organized through social media with all types of people arriving or passing through, with minimal control over who will do what and for how long. Witnessing the excitement around me, it is c...