Sometimes the most memorable part of travel isn't the monuments or food, it's the people. In The Kindness of Tunisia, I reflect on my journey through Tunisia's museums, mosques, synagogue, Roman ruins, and medinas, and how the warmth, generosity, and hospitality of the Tunisian people reshaped my understanding of the country. Through the lens of an artist, museum designer, and interfaith chaplain, I explore why approaching cultures with curiosity and respect opens doors that youtube/social media never can.

Sacred art in Hinduism is not content, it is lineage, discipline, and devotion. From temple sculptors who fast before carving a murti (not idol) to Arabic calligraphers who write as prayer, sacred art is an embodied act of reverence rooted in scripture and ritual. When AI reshapes deities to conform to Western beauty standards, it distorts theology and self-perception because algorithms may replicate form, but they cannot replicate lineage, love, or spiritual intention.

Valentine’s Day is not a Western invention.

Long before modern culture reduced love to consumption and spectacle, Hindu philosophy understood desire, intimacy, sex, and sensuality as sacred forces, paths toward balance, knowledge, self love, relationships, and spiritual union.

In this essay, I unpack how scriptures like the Kāmasūtra and stories of Lord Shiva, Goddess Parvati, and Lord Kamadeva were never about indulgence or vulgarity, but about love as cosmic power, distorted by colonization, fetishization, and misunderstanding. How modern culture suffers from generational and cultural trauma which leads to conservative societies when our actual faith is accepting, open, and at its core love. From Bhakti (devotion) poetry to temple art, from queer divinity to embodied devotion, this is a reclaiming of what love was always meant to be.

This is education the world urgently needs, now more than ever. Let’s reclaim our histories and narratives!