A Jasmine Trail
Fiction by Urmi Chakravorty: ‘She lived in a community where a woman could cement her position only after she bore children. Without a biological offspring, her worth was limited: she was like another supermarket product, destined to be discarded after a brief shelf life.’
Black Water and Black Hearts: The Politics of Citizenship in KAALA PAANI
The medical survival thriller Kaala Paani (2023) explores the dehumanization of indigenous communities through the prism of politics, development, and a dangerous pandemic in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. By Anusha Prakash
Ink(ed) on Flat Surfaces: A Show on Studio Practice
Featuring artwork by some of India’s greatest artists, “Ink” at New Delhi’s Gallery Espace plays the role of a catalyst in thinking beyond the normative practices of art-making, art showcasing, and curatorial interventions. By Satarupa Bhattacharya
With Great Ease: A Celebration of T.S. Satyan’s Photographic Gaze
An exhibition of work by T.S. Satyan—dubbed ‘the father of photojournalism in India—presents him as an image maker who found lightness and joy in chaos. By Bindu Gopal Rao
A Synthesis of Physics and Poetry
Linda Ashok’s Sharpless 29 is a collection that marries precise scientific theories to metaphors of both mundane and extraordinary human questions, all interspersed with witty and rich poetic ornaments. By Nivedita Dey
“Renewals” and other poems by Sunil Sharma
Poetry by Sunil Sharma: ‘The moment // compresses the competing / time-zones and geographies; // unites the widely-apart views / into / a single landscape of converged / colours.’
The Remedy
Fiction by Samruddhi Ghodgaonkar: ‘When my foot slipped, I felt a familiar sense of suspension, the weightlessness of a social pariah, a suspension that now waited with a terrible consequence.’
Mightier than the Bullet: The Writings of Julio Riberio
In Hope for Sanity, a collection of columns filled with nuggets of wisdom, empathy, and advice, decorated former policeman Julio Riberio emerges as a “conscience keeper” for our nation. By Karan Madhok
Arundhati Roy: A Troublemaker Needed for our Troubled Times
Arundhati Roy’s storytelling illuminates the desires to split open the human grids that characterize our world, and fulfil her yearning for a particular kind of homeland: a gentler, stiller, less hypocritical, and less transactional place. By Saba Karim Khan
Resident Alien
Poem by Ankit Raj Ojha: ‘North Indian colleagues treat me as equal, / yet the demeaning bhaiye surfaces often / when they speak of Biharis not me.’
Revolution on the Airwaves: An Account of India’s Tumultuous Radio History
In Radio for the Millions: Hindi-Urdu Broadcasting Across Borders, Isabel Huacuja Alonso demonstrates how radio created transnational communities of listeners and broadcasters, who defied colonial and postcolonial governments’ stranglehold over the medium and maneuvered it for their own purposes. By Sohel Sarkar