Fiction by A.G. Malavika: ‘Jinu took a deep breath and mentally steeled herself for the task ahead. They were diving into a murky world of grief, deceit, and hidden truths. And she knew that only their unyielding determination and intuition would guide them through this labyrinth.’

Fiction by Sakkho Goon: ‘Five years passed since that day. She wiped her tears when she saw him wear his father’s shoes. She was quiet as he boarded the cab to go to the airport. She read his letters but never sent a reply.’

Fiction by Aditi Chandrasekar: ‘She rubs the soap over her arms, her legs, her chest, then squeezes a dollop of shampoo and conditioner onto her palms before rubbing and lathering it on her hair. She wonders if this is what makes Shruti’s hair so luscious. Then, she thinks about Gagan, and wonders how many times they’ve showered together in this bathroom.’

In Aparna Sanyal’s Instruments of Torture, each tale is a deep dive into the abyss of human suffering, portraying characters who are not just victims of their circumstances but also complex individuals grappling with the aftermath of their traumas. By Namrata

Fiction by Chitra Gopalakrishnan: ‘Ganika is, of course, what I chose to call myself. Others in the town called me a woman of the court. Or a woman of the night.’

Fiction by Jigar Brahmbhatt: ‘Their office was fixed in time, no different from any other office: the neat partitions, cold furniture, and glass, glass, everywhere. Like a simple rule to add two numbers, the office was never going to change. Only the folks playing table tennis seemed ephemeral, like shapes made of fumes.’

Fiction by Neera Kashyap: ‘The next week he, Paltu, joined the moulis. To gather honey, to pay off debts, to induce his mother to eat two meals again, to oil her hair, to soap her body, to close the door to their hut. For his father had gone, and would never return.’

Fiction by Anannya Nath: ‘Prosenjit forgets to react. What would he do now? How should he talk her through this? Is this what happens once you forget about being a father?’

Fiction by Rijuta Pandey: “Anyway, when your life depends on a thread, you learn to weave anything out of it. You can weave even the blue sky.”

Fiction by Adrija Chatterjee: ‘For twenty-eight consecutive days, there had been no phone call from Oli’s house, from Ravti. You understand how the grave the situation is, an already unelectrified village, perhaps now shrouded in some unimaginable stillness.’

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.’