Short story by Parthosarothy Mukherji: ‘“This is not a Miss Bum Bum contest,” Ash declared to his reluctant collaborators. “This is dignity through exposure. Democracy through anonymity. Art for the masses—by displaying their asses.”’

Poetry by Paromita Patranobish: ‘A comet catches fire, she knows / It is her plexus exhaling / The ghost of trauma, / This is the closest she will / Come to maternity’

Creative Nonfiction by Shivangi Mishra: ‘The street neatly divides the forest landscape into two almost symmetrical halves, but would the creatures of the wild adhere to road etiquette? In the human world, boundaries bespeak identity, and boundaries help masquerade.’

Short Story by Soham Guha: ‘She will not know the scent of freshly sown grass, the fragrance of blooming flowers, the sound of breaking waves, the songs of birds, the hymns of cicadas, the taste of ripening mangoes, the warmth of the earth. She will never know her home like me.’

Short story by Aditi Dasgupta: ‘Families didn’t merely eat; they communed with their past. Meals were tapestries woven from memory, where each ingredient carried the weight of ancestors, where every bite was a step into history.’

Poetry by Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan: ‘Pressing my ear to the ground / straining to hear / the universe speak. / The faintest tremor / of the butterfly wing’

Poetry by Anushka Chavan: ‘Will you drag me onto the shore, or should I become the tide? / Will you bring me home, to the river, / Or will I be lost in the hills once more?’

Photo Essay by Karan Madhok: ‘I’m still feeling the nasha of this place the next morning; it’s a glow of inner joy, a celebration of each scintilla of being alive. I feel the feathery wafts of mountain breeze, see the clear horizon appearing after the night’s downpour, and watch farm animals grazing on grass, soaking in the morning sun.’

Poetry by Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan: ‘somewhere, / in the quiet / of this new world, / a new rhythm / begins to hum.’

Poem by Manasha Sharma: ‘stumbling and mumbling it shows itself / in a half unscathed smile / in ragged dirty clothes, / my love homes itself before it gathers space.’

A letter to a friend lost carelessly: ‘With shut eyes, I see you and then myself, rushing around in strange, centripetal circles. Lost souls in fish bowls, swimming around a quiet and darkened running-track’ By Ayaan Halder

The Great Nicobar Betrayal (2024) is essential reading for anyone concerned about India’s ecological future and the future of our species on Earth. Tansy Troy discusses the collection with an inspired set of illustrations of the island’s many breathtaking species.