Poetry by Smita Agarwal: ‘The dahlias grow hawa mey— / off the air, we’d say / Down steep ravines / into which the monsoon // munificence would flow’

Fiction by Neera Kashyap: ‘The next week he, Paltu, joined the moulis. To gather honey, to pay off debts, to induce his mother to eat two meals again, to oil her hair, to soap her body, to close the door to their hut. For his father had gone, and would never return.’

Poetry by Gopi Kottoor: ‘And then, the sip / From the spoon / That’ll soon become memory, / That slowly drawn inward kiss’

Poems by Sayan Aich Bhowmik: ‘I have been told the entire cosmos of our being / Hair, skin, Tissues / Renew themselves. / The old ones dissolving in air, without pain / Much like ice melting on the kitchen shelf.’

Fiction by Anannya Nath: ‘Prosenjit forgets to react. What would he do now? How should he talk her through this? Is this what happens once you forget about being a father?’

Poems by Shreya Sharma: ‘‘i will make for you one and a hundred popsicles in each flavour you can think of. pink bubblegum big collective miracle evening and so on.’

Poems by Shome Dasgupta: ‘take me back / to the moss and crawfish, please / Krishna—take me back to moonlit / moss and claws red like tandoori / curry, soft and savory.’

Poem by Nisha Prakash: ‘Paeans don’t hold stories of / Monkeys with ripped entrails, / Only of the one on the banner / Of the wielder of the Gandiva.’

Personal Essay by Diyaa Jyothilal: ‘For the first time in my life, I would feel beautiful. I felt like a girl. I felt like I was worthy of becoming a woman one day. I spent hours staring into my bathroom mirror, gaping at my reflection, and imagining myself on the cover of Vogue.’

Poetry by Carol D’Souza: ‘it pools around my ankles most days / But now, onwards! To the elixir of evening tea’

Personal Essay by Andal Srivatsan: ‘That air is now hardened, rancid, antediluvian. It permeates through the fabric of all communities today. It hovers, egomaniacally, over some of us who want nothing but love and harmony—both excruciatingly evasive.’

Poetry by Vikram Kolmannskog: ‘here where the pressure is high / yet you remain so very sensitive, // here where you find the grassy, gritty origins / of humility and humanity.’