Poetry by Sana Ahmad: ‘Why more poems are created at cemeteries rather than nurseries; and the living seek to write the voices of the dead.’

An overpopulated trip to Kedarkantha made Aman Panwar reflect on the dangerous rise of ‘tourist-trekkers’ in the Himalaya, where unprepared throngs are destructing the natural habitat and profits are being made at the cost of environment.

Poetry by Karan Madhok: ‘the plants once shared an iridescent home / but nothing on the balcony survives / exposed under the naked rays’

Original poetry and art by Shamayita Sen: ‘whirring ceiling fan / performing Kathak tarana in solitude’

Poetry by Shivangi Mishra: ‘The calm stillness of those frosty mornings of yesterdays / Still echo in my dreams, / Ruffled within a distant silhouette of past’

Poems by Kashiana Singh: ‘meanwhile, you stir life / into us, our faces cupped / in the folds of your / turmeric stained / hands – / held by a firm wrist / draped / in a beaded rosary’

‘I simply mean: our image of forever / Is not forever, the way a painting / Of an ocean is not wet.’

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.

Short story by Aishwarya Khale: ‘When I thought about the past, I thought about memory. I wondered if Mr Shinde would forget us, like shattered dolls collapsing through the broken chambers of his mind.’

Personal essay by K. S. Subramanian: ‘For the first three months of severe lockdown everyone was getting used to the eerie silence on the roads and the breeze blowing with an inherent message—stay put where you are.’

Poems by Rahana K. Ismail: ‘they say you could / map out migration by how / games change hands—hands tiny in hope, / searching a piece of it in the other’.

Poems by Anuradha Vijayakrishnan: ‘One imagines the other in the empty place at the table, walking / through a blazing sunlit door / or leaving silently, melting into absence.’