Saad Shaikh, MD

I took this photo in 2018 in Leipzig, Germany, inside Auerbachs Keller— a restaurant made famous in Goethe’s  Faust.  Mephistopheles, emissary of the Devil, stops for dinner with Faust before leading him into the underworld on his pursuit of eternal knowledge. As you can see here, outside the entrance stands a bronze sculpture capturing one of the play’s most iconic scenes: Faust and Mephistopheles entangled with drunken revelers in a moment of magical escape and escalating chaos. The figures seem caught between thrill and confusion — an emblem for humanity’s own entanglement with the seductive yet destabilizing pursuit of power and knowledge. The visit felt personally meaningful to me, not just because of the literary reference, but because I, too, had dinner there and have been on that same journey — a search for knowledge, mastery, and meaning that mirrors Faust’s own. I prefer Marlowe’s  Doctor Faustus , written nearly three hundred years earlier, maybe because it end...

The smell of spice was everywhere on this hot and humid Delhi morning: golden turmeric, deep-red chili, warm cardamom, and smoky cumin — an intoxicating blend that floated and settled on your skin. Everywhere, color danced and pulsed: saffron saris, indigo turbans, piles of chili powder bursting like embers, and sandstone buildings washed in teal and faded rose. All the while, the market buzzed with vendors calling out prices, bicycle bells ringing, and the rhythmic clatter of rickshaw wheels over stone. Color saturated the scene. Women’s saris glowed in shades of saffron, fuchsia, and peacock blue. Fresh powders were piled high in brilliant reds and golden yellows. The old buildings wore coats of time-softened paint, cracked but vivid: teal shutters, faded rose facades, bright laundry strung like prayer flags between balconies. Our guide had begun explaining the various spices, but my attention drifted — transfixed by something else. As you can see here, a young woman passed in front ...