Under the isolation and layers of stress brought upon by the pandemic, many are turning to the old comfort of personal letters—handwritten and otherwise—to find hope, solace, and connection. By Akhila Damodadran

Poetry and art by Tamizh Ponni ‘the world will never get to know / one frightful naked truth / that the mirror and its muse / were beyond repair, forever scarred.’

Photo Gallery: Traversing across a labyrinth of water from Alappuzha to Kochi, the canals, lakes, and lagoons that form the serene backwaters of Kerala. By Karan Madhok

How does one introduce a child to the art of Raja Ravi Varma without being bogged down by the mounds of effusive praise and harsh criticism that have accumulated for over a century? Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan grapples with the question in Prince with a Paintbrush: The Story of Raja Ravi Varma.

What’s The Chakkar? Episode 9: We’re watching Ray; listening to Irfana & Taslina; reading Albert Camus and Anthony Doerr. Featuring Prateek Santram, Anurag Tagat, and Shaista Vaishnav. Hosted by Karan Madhok.

In India, our approach and understanding of mental health concerns are often further complicated by the historical weight of the caste-system and a yearning for cultural ‘purity’. By Sadaf Vidha

In his 1938 book, author Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ memorialised the life of his friend Kulli Bhaat. While positioned as a progressive text, Nirala only ends up misrepresenting Bhaat. Saurabh Sharma analyses the text from its recent English translation A Life Misspent.

Golchakkar Series - The July panel of our virtual literary talk features Shelly Bhoil and Abhay K.: Dispatches from Latin America.

Short story by Ramzauva Chhakchhuak: ‘People in the neighborhood didn’t even care if Bala was looking straight at them. It was as if he didn’t exist.’

“It’s all about building counter-culture—and skateboarding is counter-culture.” Wheeled Wings directors Divy Bhagia and Aayush Dudhiya discuss the making of their short documentary, where skateboarding became the vehicle to break barriers of caste, gender, and education. - By Deekshith Pai

A poem by Karan Madhok: ‘there are a million other things / you could do besides breathing / the outside air, / asbestos and apathy / make a heady cocktail’

In Amit Masurkar’s man-versus-wild thriller Sherni (2021), a disturbed tigress is on the loose, spreading alarm and fear. But, with critiques of industrialisation, politics, and greed, the film is instead a mirror reflecting the wilder side of humanity itself. By Nidhi Choksi Dhakan.