Poet, writer, and essayist Sumana Roy speaks to Ronald Tuhin D’Rozario about the creative process, shifting between poetry and prose, and the ‘joyous riyaz’ of a literary life.

Poetry by Karan Madhok: ‘couldn’t i unsign the social contract, / a sunbathing vampire, a genie unshackled, / a pair of eyes that awake to starry nights painted / on the bedroom ceiling?’

Poetry by Pragya Dhiman: ‘Now, I find apple water in the showers when I / breathe through my mouth, its taste nostalgic, / my mind prepares a child’s orchard’

Poetry by Paromita Patranobish: ‘I learned what we / Have always known: / Continuity is the story / We tell ourselves to / Staunch the cracked / And broken skin of time.’

Photo Essay: In a visit to the Serendipity Arts Festival in Panjim, Goa, Deekshith Pai explored the political complexities of contemporary art while rediscovering his own ancestral lands.

Poetry by Kiriti Sengupta: ‘In the crematorium, / the priest asks me to / smear ghee on my / father’s skin. He ensures / the fire finds Baba luscious.’

Short Story by Ananda Kumar: ‘He saw the black hairy tops of their heads, less like decked on top of each other, and more like the Siamese version of foreheads stuck together, threatening to break skin and bleed to death, if one were to try pulling them apart.’

Fiction by Karthik Krishnan: ‘Her mother had told her that a flower-carrier never died. The flowers were a promise of life, she had said. They touched her with their perfume, imbuing her with foreverness.’

How a slow but steady collective drive is finally instrumentalizing a change in the Indian publishing landscape, giving rise to queer, Dalit, disabled, Adivasi, and other marginalized voices on the bookshelves. By Saurabh Sharma

Poetry by Kashiana Singh: ‘A canopy of desert flowers for / the darkest of his nights, marvel / of bitterroot bursting forth from / dead earth’

Observed from a lens of progressing dementia, Goldfish (2023) is a complex story of a mother and daughter’s emotional conflict, of diaspora and community, of music and joy. By Neera Kashyap

Vivek Shanbag’s novel Sakina’s Kiss (2013) features a protagonist obsessed with possession, uncomfortable in the evolving role of his masculinity, searching for meaning in a life where every answer presents a series of more confounding questions. By Karan Madhok