In the solo play Adhura, Vivek Vijayakumaran explores how, even as we idolise historical and mythological figures, life tests the ideals they embody. Do these tests still liberate us, or do they become burdens that make it harder to make choices? By Sravasti Datta

Poems by Aardhra Chandran: ‘Concrete trucks rumble past his fence, shaking the loose teeth / in his jaw, spitting black diesel smoke onto his holy basil plant. // He measures his life not in years, but in missing trees—/The neem chopped for wood, the mango that died of thirst.’

‘To exist fully as an artist and human, one must be seen, heard, read, and acknowledged’: Farah Ahamed explores Satyajit Ray’s Charulata through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir.