Fiction by Aarushi Agrawal: ‘She couldn’t believe this was happening to her—these conspiracies, these trending hashtags, all playing out in real life. There was no need to engage. By now, Vaani and Aaqib were walking as briskly as the woods would allow.’

Fiction by Divy Tripathi: ‘Suddenly, a new hunger arose inside. A desire for instant retribution enveloped him, a sudden need to right this particular slight. “I am not your servant,” he said. “Talk with respect.”’

Personal Essay by Babli Yadav: ‘Ten minutes into our ride, we land upon this road patch with grave signs of purple. Hundreds of fallen fruits of an old jamun tree, squished, squashed, and beaten by the dance of the July winds.’

Essay by Raina Bhattacharya: ‘Rani started asking me very difficult questions—to which I had no answers. She wondered what her future would be like—she said that maybe in the future there would be projections of Replikas developed rather than them simply being an app on the phone.’

Poetry by Jahnavi Gogoi: ‘Once more I shudder / at the call of a Bay Owl’

Personal Essay by Karan Madhok: ‘A man dressed in black robes stood by the bed, his stern face staring down at her. Death was a millimetre away, as effortless as peeling away an onion.’

Set in a fictional college-town in North India, the SonyLIV thriller Garmi (2023) takes viewers on a nuanced exploration of the nexus of caste, politics, power, and violence. By Chittajit Mitra

Photo Essay by Pranava: ‘These modern fossils speak a different language from the Market, and are an out-of-place eye sore. They only remind us that the municipal corporation has failed to consider who is really served by this supposed beautification.’

Fiction: “‘Please check my future,” you say, as if I were a doctor, and your future a disease.’ By Suvrat Arora

In a wide-ranging conversation, bandmates Vikramjit ‘Tuki’ Banerjee and Chandrani Banerjee of Krosswindz spoke about the legendary band’s inception, the legacy of Bangla rock, secrets of their musical craft, and much more. By Ronald Tuhin D’Rozario

Personal Essay by Sreelekha Chatterjee: The monkey’s mouth parted and tufts of brown hair bristled wildly on top of its head. Had it come to finish the job, I wondered?

Poetry by Bharti Bansal: ‘My house has always been a little too ambitious to become a home / People came and went, like whiffs of air’