Flash Fiction by Rajan Narayan: ‘And somewhere in this city, perhaps not far from where he stood, lay something that was once human, broken and beaten by the vengeance that still radiated from the piece of wood, now quivering in his tiny hands.’

Poetry by Prashant Pundir: ‘You are who I love, handmaking woolens, handmaking hope, handmaking this life, you who, with your tiny legs, walk to all the medicine stores and dog shelters and government buildings, saying: I REFUSE TO SPEAK A LANGUAGE PIROUETTED IN HATE AND ANGER’

Poetry by Goirick Brahmachari: ‘Love is like the wild lilacs, white / Apple trees over green meadows, / Riverstones I have walked over / For years— splattered, irate, broken.’

Short story by Madhurjya Goswami: ‘You ask yourself a question: How does a fallen airplane look? Does it look like a pigeon squashed to the ground, its neck askew? And the hot, unplastered room answers: well, you’ve got to see it yourself.’

Poetry by Vinita Agrawal: ‘The valley hums every summer— / the murmur of a year’s worth of wounds. // It seems nature remembers / what we’ve have tried to bury.’

Poetry by Devika Mathur: ‘Curtains fall from dawn to dusk. / A river to see her face. / Shining clouds bring flowers to her. / An admirer of nightingales and lanterns.’ 

Personal Essay by Namrata: ‘Language is meant to bring us closer. To help us say: I see you. I want to understand you. I care enough to learn your words. And when we turn language into a line in the sand and use it to exclude, to shame, to assert dominance, we forget its most sacred purpose: to connect.’

‘However, the happiness was short lived. Soon there was a knock on the door and all hope of love was lost for them. Ayush’s family had informed the police that their son had gone missing for a few hours, and they suspected he had been kidnapped by militants.’ By Arshi Javaid

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.’