Art, catharsis, and colourful calamities—Tamizh Ponni shares a collection of original digital paintings created over the lockdown.

Flash Fiction by Zalma A.: ‘She knew there was another possibility. Surrender. Or submit. Yes, submit. It’s a more positive word. Optimism. In tragedy.’

A poem by Akash Sinha: ‘I've been sleeping on the soggy cardboard on the used side of your lips’

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

Poetry and art by Tamizh Ponni ‘the world will never get to know / one frightful naked truth / that the mirror and its muse / were beyond repair, forever scarred.’

Photo Gallery: Traversing across a labyrinth of water from Alappuzha to Kochi, the canals, lakes, and lagoons that form the serene backwaters of Kerala. By Karan Madhok

Short story by Ramzauva Chhakchhuak: ‘People in the neighborhood didn’t even care if Bala was looking straight at them. It was as if he didn’t exist.’

A poem by Karan Madhok: ‘there are a million other things / you could do besides breathing / the outside air, / asbestos and apathy / make a heady cocktail’

Six poems by John Copley Alter: ‘Three ages ago you were / wrestling with mortality, my brother. / Today you are open in my mind like / a score of music, a keyboard, waiting.’

Poem by Amya Roy: ‘You rested in our rainbow, / too many silences sit across us, / staring in our eyes, / waiting for us to speak.’

‘I was overcome with fear and awe, witness to a power I could feel but couldn’t comprehend’. In another account of his adventures in the Garhwal Himalaya, Zachary Conrad recalls a treacherous trek to Sahastra Tal.

Two poems by Antara Mukherjee: ‘The war cry has long bled the emblem, all sons / Headless heap now, trumpetless coronation’