Poem by Aaqib Khatibi: ‘I see them drifting along the smoke by the ocean / to lavish lands which are mine no more’.

Matchmaking can be a tricky exercise, especially for cats. In a poignant essay, Barnali Ray Shukla shares the story of Zorro and Ginger, and the complex fissures of politics and morality that tug apart a pucca rishta.

Ghazals by Amrit Lal “Ishrat” Madhok, translated from Urdu by Karan Madhok: ‘Are we mere companions, or do we swim / Together in the fountains of heaven, waters blue?’

Two poems by Santasree Chaudhuri: ‘Blissful acceptance / Staring at the moon / with an empty stomach.’

Short story by Samia Ahmed: ‘This is not an introduction, it’s a mating ritual. I am twenty-four and ripe for marriage.’

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

Girar is a streaming novel by Kiran Bhat which will take place in 365 different corners of the planet. “A New Year” is an excerpt from the first instalment of Girar, setting up the premise on the first day of the Kannada New Year.

In the late 2000s, Karan Madhok left home to travel alone around India, living off a backpack, sleeping in trains, searching for more of his country, and finding more parts of himself. In a photo-essay, he recalls why this ‘bharat darshan’ was the best experience of his life.

A poem by Sonya Nair: “My grandfather lay / leaving daughter and a son / and their assorted children / in his wake”

Paromita Patranobish was a 13-year-old on the rooftop in Durgapur when a meteor shower changed her life, birthing a love of stargazing: ‘That night, 22 years ago, I understood the universe as a living, pulsating ecosystem… the Leonid shower had me as a witness to the power of worlds infinitely beyond my finite one.’

Short story by Adrija Chatterjee: ‘The first time Aashi came home, he could feel her existence lurking precariously in a space that separated the two continents.’

The story of life through images: vivid, harsh, and warm, happy and sorrowful, colourful and violent. Here are some recent pieces of original art by Sanjay Basak.