Issue 11: Spring 2018
 |
Fiction |
|
Mountains In Her Eyes
The automatic doors suddenly jump open and a batch of Indian passengers come through, bedraggled from their journey. Their eyes scan the crowds on either side of the aisle, in search of loved ones. A few minutes later, a new batch appears, and amongst them is Annapurna.
In Exile
Soon it would be Bohag Bihu then! The letter had most certainly brought on these thoughts. His mother had probably woven twenty gamusas on the loom by now. He imagined her sitting by the kitchen shed, sliding the shuttle and pulling in the reed. Ratul watched the kite dip and sway and reach out till it was little more than a speck.
Chaawri Bazaar
“You make me late every morning,” Azhar said, shaking his head in exasperation, as he saw Seema skipping over the front steps, shouldering her school bag, her braids bouncing with her walk.
“What can I do,” she said, “I need to wait for my turn to bathe.”
Azhar looked her up and down, pretending to be surprised, “This is after bathing?”
She made a mocking face, “Don’t worry, you look like no prince either.”
Defiance
“This is how my life is clearly marked – pre and post-eight – an age that defined the rest of my life; when the only window which I had into Abbu’s world closed on me.”
|
Poetry |
|
On the Last Night in Dhaka, Bangladesh
After a morning highway ride
to Savar, passing roadside piles
of white bags stuffed
with broadcloth pockets,
gingham shirt fronts,
denim lapels—tons
of cotton remains
from factories—
Curfewed Friday
Things were different once
The cleft sky wouldn’t burden
my leaking skull.
During the famine of addresses
I inhabited some square feet.
Polly-Mango
After the last bell sang release
we poured out of school
onto open street like an undisciplined army
Girls in rust
convent school uniforms
(skirts: knee-length socks: knee-length
nail polish: you’re going straight to hell)
|
Essays & Interviews |
|
An Interview with Amulya Malladi
Roots, Music
Mumbai Noir – Bombay and Its Underworld As Seen Through Literature
|
Reviews |
|
Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey by Lopa Banerjee
There is a sense of happiness in forgetting. But the acts of forgetting and remembering are inseparable. There can be no remembering without forgetting, and vice versa. The distance between the two is a language – the language of memory.
A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena
The fresh, outlandish opening of the novel that shatters the usual expectations associated with this sub-genre and foregrounds its narrative design, is definitely one of its highlights.
Polymorphism by Indira Chandrashekhar
Casts a net of stories in which her narratives slip through like eels among the reeds of reality, keeping her readers in swift pursuit.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
It is an epitaph in the form of a novel written by Paul Kalanithi for his own burial – an epitaph negotiating death, ensuring his memory lives on in time, creating a profound impact on anyone who visits it.
|
Art |
|
Sreedevi Gummuluri
Despite a rough start and a secretive past, Krishna chooses to live in the moment and inspires everyone through his strong will and wisdom.
Kamolika Roy Chowdhury
On a quiet afternoon, when a lull prevailed all over and most birds and animals had withdrawn to shady hideouts to escape from the hot afternoon sun, a mother elephant carefully guarding its calf, escorted it to this waterhole for a drink.
Location: Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
Date: October, 2014
Shruthi Chandrasekaran
…an affirmation of the joy that already exists in my life; and I am excited and happy to find that other people share these joys…So here it is, and I hope it reminds you to carry with you the bursts of happiness and colour that occur alongside the burden of functioning.
