Short story by Michelle D’costa: ‘A man had overdosed that day. Jude remembers the tattoo on the OD guy’s bicep: A dragon spitting fire which held three symbols, Om, a cross, and a star cradled in a crescent moon.’

Short story by Asha Jyothi: ‘I don’t know what in the world I was thinking, but I look directly at him, and he holds my gaze, and looks at my naked teeth. “Pyar kiya, koi chori nahi ki.” I have loved, not committed a theft.’

A poem by Sonali Chanda: ‘The mystery still remains / in the petals of marigolds, / in the peels of oranges that I kept / the mysteries living in me.’

A poem by Sayani Mukherjee: ‘Bring back solemn thoughts / Night’s carpe diem of mahogany sighs’

Short story by Mehreen Ahmed: ‘As soon as she stepped out of the cubicle, the ‘ghost’ disappeared. Perhaps, it was an optical illusion. Like a rainbow where people saw only the colours, not the water particles behind the veil.’

In a special anthology curated by Ronald Tuhin D’Rozario, nineteen luminary Indian poets respond to the winter through verse. ‘In this odour of detachment, December somehow develops a quiet stir of emptiness inside. It gently teaches the importance of slowness, just like dropping a semicolon between sentences.’

Poetry by Debarati Sen: ‘The world is but a granule of sand / seeping fast through my fingers.’

Poetry by Kavita Parwani Talib: ‘Is this a sign that I’m not completely biodegradable? / Because I leave a hesitant carbon footprint / In my distributed plasticity?’

Photo Gallery: A year after another Kumbh Mela, Karan Madhok visits Haridwar to explore a city deeply immersed in the juxtaposition of religion and commerce.

Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘a blue heron meditates on water / Between his still rapture and this place you / and I are more than tourists’

Short story by Ramya Srinivasan: ‘AX09 reminded Otto of all things that he hated about the job. All that craving for power had ultimately led to complete powerlessness. The lack of free will. The helplessness of being a puppet in someone else’s hands.’

Personal Essay by Karna: ‘I was adept in two subjects demanding two utterly distinct kinds of engagement: one gave me insights into culture, society, language, and human beings; the other perhaps anticipated that I would prefer the mind to the body.’