The Chakkar - Indian Arts Review

9 September 2026

What’s in a name? India has a long history of rebranding cities, streets, and buildings to reflect the political influence of the time. Instead of this empty tokenism, Vipin Labroo argues for the country to shift priorities towards its more pressing concerns.

My Place Under the Staircase

Flash fiction by Shaurya Pathania: ‘It was grumpy until it greeted me, he could talk; a crab in my house, a crab in my house that could talk; and that too in standard English. I wasn’t dreaming. He claimed that he had lived there for longer than he could remember.’

The Obvious

Short Story by Ananda Kumar: ‘He saw the black hairy tops of their heads, less like decked on top of each other, and more like the Siamese version of foreheads stuck together, threatening to break skin and bleed to death, if one were to try pulling them apart.’

An Outing

Fiction by Karthik Krishnan: ‘Her mother had told her that a flower-carrier never died. The flowers were a promise of life, she had said. They touched her with their perfume, imbuing her with foreverness.’