Poem by Anju Devadas R D: ‘someone once said / the soul is lighter than breath / but the soil keeps secrets / the sky cannot hold.’
Personal Essay by Prachi Sharma: ‘My father pauses in every retelling of this tale. He wants me to see it. A man in the uniform of an Indian working for the English, in a village courtyard in the late 1920s, his face turning to one side from the force of an open palm. The villagers watching. The Daroga’s hand going to his cheek. A pigeon somewhere on the roof, taking off.’
A poem by Sayani Mukherjee: ‘where Jargons kept our brew alive and we sat cross legged with armours high up from howling screams’
A poem by John Copley Alter: ‘what was indigenous / in our childhood’s garden? became / native, mother tongue—our flora— / blossoming…’
Poetry by Sarvesh Wahie: “Humans seeded in comfort of their jackets / Murmur about, isolated in looming stillness”
The problematic representation of women in many recent Telugu blockbusters like Peddi and the Pushpa films have stoked controversy. When mainstream commercial cinema consistently turns the sexualisation of women into entertainment, who should be responsible for the world these images help create? By Sumithra Prasanna