Remembrance
A personal essay by Mukta Malini: ‘Now, at twenty-one, I draw bodies: bodies that its owner probably hates, but a lover would describe it as squishy, bodies like soggy noodles and bodies like Manda peetha, bodies like sushi.’
Rituals of Living: Six Poems by Aashika Suresh
Poetry by Aashika Suresh: ‘you arrive at my front door / in dirty jeans and a kurta, clutching / a shovel and a pitchfork.’
A Museum of Sweet Memories
Personal Essay by Bharti Bansal: ‘I think I indeed am born in the family of angry, rebellious people who love as strongly as they can. Our loved ones carve paths for each other, or else, how can we ever find where the trail starts and ends?’
Niagara, O roar again!
Short story by Nandan: ‘“There is no point in all that,” Shankaran lazily shrugged his shoulders, “Anyway, what’s there in a waterfall?’
The History Of An Entire Nation
A poem by Ashish Kumar Singh: ‘…even though we have always slept that way, this big word none of us knew the meaning of, made us afraid and we let you bring other hefty men to fix what you said was broken…’
The Curse of Beauty: The last letter of Gopi Kishan Purohit, my grandfather
Personal Essay by Aseem Sundan: ‘I remember both the man and his art as a montage of arbitrarily-arranged memories of all seasons and sentiments. Each unique in its way, some of them a fragment of his youth, some of his absurdity, some of his longing, and some just of beauty.’
Of Mahalaya, Memories, and Moksha
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.
A Street Taught Me How to Count
Poetry by Shivangi Mishra: ‘Forgetful of two lithe directions, that damned street, / Faced and faced not in retreat, / Turning its back on dense civilisation’