Marnina (Avirup) spoke to representatives from Queer organizations at the 2024 Kolkata Book Fair about the experience of hosting their stalls, seeking diversity in Indian publishing, and much more.

In interaction with contemporary South Asian art, Jahnabi Mitra asks, how can artists truly help with climate change action? What larger purpose can these works serve? Or do they end up normalizing the dystopic times ahead?

Personal Essay by Mallika Bhaumik: At the Bengali festival for the goddess, the pomp and grandeur involved in the worship of ‘Nari Shakti’ is in stark contrast to the apathy shown towards the Durgas whom we come across every day.

Distortions and intimacy, revulsions and beauty: Celebrating the art of one of India’s great masters—Jogen Chowdhury—whose work continues to provide new insights to our world. By Medha Dutta Yadav

The pandemic presented fraught challenges to our connections with the rest of humanity, the people and acquaintances in our world. In her personal photo-essay, Sufia Khatoon attempts to forge links with the strangers with whom we share our breaths.

Under the isolation and layers of stress brought upon by the pandemic, many are turning to the old comfort of personal letters—handwritten and otherwise—to find hope, solace, and connection. By Akhila Damodadran

Photo Gallery: Images of a Kolkata left behind, as another Kolkata paces ahead. By Amal Shihabudeen

Photo-essay: In long walks across Kolkata, Sufia Khatoon comes across lives in motion, lives continuously moving forward, each person an immortal story that fuels the city and adds to its history.

Five poems by Gopal Lahiri: ‘somewhere the curling script of history hangs over / the old crossword book of migration’.

Megha Majumdar’s debut novel A Burning is a study in media and myth-making, of an India that is no longer an imagined community with the same news-reading rituals, but a collection of nations, each with their own interpretation of reality - by Kanika Jain.

Two poems by Mallika Bhaumik: ‘The vagueness of love runs down / the steps of a baoli, / we could have been born sometime in future, / time yet to be born to us’.

In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar reports on the searing flames that ignite the ambitions of aspiring Indians—or destroy them. Review by Karan Madhok.