Films like Mrs., The Great Indian Kitchen, Thappad, Dor, and more sparked widespread discussion about the value our society assigns to women’s labour and agency. Sarthak Parashar writes about how the impossible choices faced under patriarchal social obligations—in reel and real life.  

Author and journalist Sudeep Chakravarty speaks about the stories that drive him, wandering across genres, and his Delhi-based latest work, Fallen City. By Amritesh Mukherjee

Media literacy is an urgent need in a country as diverse and complex as India, where the unchecked spread of misinformation carries profound consequences for the very fabric of democracy and social harmony. By Arsalan Shamsi

For over a decade, the wildlife biologist Purnima Devi Barman has committed herself to the preservation of the greater adjutant in Assam, and has led a community-driven initiative with local women to work towards stork conservation. By Vinita Agrawal

In a world filled with abstractions, the greatest clarity in Gyan Chaturvedi’s The Madhouse (Pagalkhana) comes from the protagonist’s never-ending pursuit for escape: an escape from the Bazaar, from the dependence on commodification, from being commodified themselves. By Karan Madhok

In times of stress and anxiety, why do many of us choose the familiarity of a ‘comfort watch’—of familiar shows, plotlines, and characters? Raj Darji explores a sense of loss among abundance.

Poetry by Goirick Brahmachari: ‘Your absence floats in / Within my house of shadows, / And stale miseries, / Broken windows; breezing in / Lost islands of fog and snow.’

Flash fiction by Shaurya Pathania: ‘It was grumpy until it greeted me, he could talk; a crab in my house, a crab in my house that could talk; and that too in standard English. I wasn’t dreaming. He claimed that he had lived there for longer than he could remember.’

Manu Pillai, the author of Gods, Guns and Missionaries, speaks to Amritesh Mukherjee about history beyond monochromatic brushstrokes, the highs and lows of social media discourse, Hindu plurality, and some recommended books.

Poetry by Ajanta Paul: ‘If Bangla is the resonance / of raindrops on the soul / English is the petrichor / of poetry that emanates from / the rain-moistened earth / of my being.’

Poetry is a prayerful medium to explore complex, living concepts. Just as fruit falls from the bough to decay within earth and feed the tree, Rajorshi Patranabis’s presents the ritual of cyclical love and devotion in his new collection. By Dustin Pickering

‘Your book felt like the scent of passing months, layered with flowers, rain, spring and autumn—a scent that reached into the city’s deep burrows.’ By Sufia Khatoon