BLASPHEAR by Sohail Rauf: Religion, Fear, and the Cost of Silence
Set against a backdrop of religious abuse and suffocating intolerance, Sohali Rauf’s Blasphear is a sharp commentary on the ideas of nationhood, and how its intangible forces act as blind shepherds, leading the masses down paths they cannot question. By Amritesh Mukherjee
Short story by Debi Mukherjee: “Unlike the little girls I see outside temples, draped in their pano bhaju’s stringing garlands of Marigolds, I dare not play with the flowers in our garden. Papa cautions me against the rows of Mogras, Shoe-flowers, Frangipanis and a multitude of others. He says that I must not be lured by a flower’s fragrance.”