The ‘magic of sound’ has an inherent healing power. Akhila Damodaran reports why many Indians are seeking music therapy to cope with the stress of a particularly painful year.

Poetry and art by Jharna Sanyal and Partha Pratim Roy: ‘Sometimes I walk out of my skin / in search of the duck pond where / moss green water plays with thirsty branches’.

Christopher Raja’s memoir Into the Suburbs: A Migrant’s Story is a tale of isolation, not just from a place, but also from family, and in some ways, from the self. - by Kanika Jain.

COVID-19 has again put the failures of our health care system in the spotlight. Shefali Saldanha argues that an overhaul should bring to the forefront the conversation about preventing sickness, before treating the survivors of our failed health policy.

Kochi-based multilingual pop-folk band When Chai Met Toast discusses their first Hindi track, upcoming album and connecting with fans amid the pandemic - by Barkha Kumari

Photo Essay: 13 years ago, Siddharth Jain visited the largest animal fair in the world in Sonepur (Bihar), discovering the contrast of mythology and trade, and life and death, under the auspicious full moon.

A poem by Karan Madhok: “i have time to ask why i have time, / to contemplate this sudden nothingness.”

Photo Essay: Amidst the gorgeous Himalayan backdrop in the hamlet of Landour (Mussoorie) Gopala Krishna finds strange beauty in the old Bazaar, where history has long stood still for the local community.

Contributors to the anthology Open Your Eyes Vinita Agrawal, Gayatri Chawla, Alex Josephy, and Sudeep Sen, join us in a panel for the Golchakkar Series to discuss what it means to use poetry and literature as a response to climate change.

Why Shashi Tharoor’s satirical 1989 masterpiece The Great Indian Novel—which married India’s recent history with The Mahabharata—is as relevant as ever in today’s polarising times. - by Atulya Pathak

How a for-profit society creates not just joblessness, productivity cults, and work anxiety, but also other forms of inequality, leading to a mental health crisis in the country. - By Sadaf Vidah

The MX Player web-series Aashram (2020) follows a similar blueprint in tackling India’s fascination with seductive, flawed godmen—mysticism, sex, violence, and masala—without daring to truly examine the deeper roots of society’s discontents. - by Harshita Murarka.