Other Waters

1. A journey of self discovery. A spiritual quest.
2. Two opposing yet parallel world's of New York and Benaras in India explored.

Maya is an accomplished psychiatric resident with a supportive boyfriend, loving family, and bustling New York social life. When her grandmother dies in India, a family squabble over property ignites a curse that drifts across continents and threatens Maya's life. Or so her father says - Maya (being a modern woman, an American, and a doctor) doesn't believe in curses, Brahman, or otherwise. But then a series of calamities befalls her family, her career and relationship both falter, and Maya starts to worry. She hopes a trip back to India with her best friend, Heidi, will enable her to remove the curse, save her family, and put her own life back in order.

Thus begins a journey into Maya's parallel worlds - New York and an India filled with loving and annoying relatives, vivid colours, and superstitious customs she doesn't, and does, believe in. But her time in India isn't just a visit home or a chance to explore the strengthening and suffocating bonds of family, it's also the beginning of a cathartic quest toward forging one identity out of two cultures.

Eleni N. Gage is raised in Greece and the United States. She received an undergraduate degree in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, The American Scholar, Elle, and Real Simple among other publications, and her memoir, North of Ithaka, was published by St. Martin's Press.

She currently lives in Miami Beach with her husband and her daughter.