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?’

Short story by Nandan: ‘“There is no point in all that,” Shankaran lazily shrugged his shoulders, “Anyway, what’s there in a waterfall?’

A poem by Shaurya Pathania: ‘just the sight / of your spit’s spite / being unswallowed / from your throat’

Saurabh Sharma explores the rising wave of propaganda anti-Muslim music on Indian airwaves, songs filled with jingoism, religious bigotry, and xenophobia masquerading as art.

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…’

Finding the highest highs in the deepest depths, India’s finest Freediver Mario Fernandes hopes to spark greater interest in the country in the sport of diving and marine conservation. By Bindu Gopal Rao

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.’

Srinagar-based rapper Ahmer spoke to The Chakkar about how a deeper examination of his own community, culture, and history helped jolt him out of his comfort zone, and inspire his ambitious sophomore LP, Azli. By Karan Madhok

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.

Dhani Muniz looks back at a masterpiece of cross-cultural curation, Miles From India, a one-of-a-kind document of two traditions bonding over a shared appreciation and recognition of the language of a true musical maverick.

What’s The Chakkar? Episode 23: We’re reading books by Jayanth Kaikini and Ernest Cline; watching the film Darlings; and listening to music by Parekh & Singh. Featuring Shaista Vaishnav, Prateek Santram, and Anurag Tagat. Hosted by Karan Madhok.

In Vauhini Vara’s debut novel, the story of the eponymous King Rao is part of larger questions of human creativity and meaning in a transhumanist world, where life is data-fied, and sentience, thought, emotion and ethics are mere products of automated and arbitrary calculations. By Paromita Patranobish