Sahil Joshi Chapter 1 – The Escape The road from Delhi to Himachal was long, winding, and mercilessly steep in places, but for Naina Mehta it felt like a necessary unspooling of the tightly wound knots inside her. Every turn that took her further from the horns, the deadlines, and the gray concrete haze of the city was a small act of release. Sitting by the window of the cab, she pressed her forehead against the cool glass, inhaling the sharp scent of pine that drifted in whenever the driver lowered his window. It had been years since she had…
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Pavan Deshmukh 1 Aisha Kapoor stepped off the small propeller plane onto Goa’s sun-warmed tarmac, feeling the first twinge of relief in weeks. London, with its grey skies, endless deadlines, and polite pretenses, had begun to suffocate her. The sabbatical she had taken from her demanding PR firm was supposed to be a pause, a chance to breathe, and perhaps even to find pieces of herself that had been buried under boardroom meetings and social obligations. She hailed a small taxi, the air already fragrant with salt and blooming hibiscus, and wound along narrow roads lined with swaying palms, colorful…
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Rahul Shukla 1 The night was quiet, with only the occasional hum of crickets breaking the stillness, when Rivan Malhotra and Aaryel Sen sneaked out of their homes to meet beneath the old banyan tree at the edge of their neighborhood. They were twelve then, armed with nothing but a pocketknife borrowed from Rivan’s uncle and the unshakable certainty that childhood often gifts. The tree stood massive and eternal, its roots crawling across the ground like veins, its branches spreading out wide enough to hold their secrets. With fumbling hands and suppressed giggles, they carved their names into the bark—clumsy,…
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Maya Dutta Episode 1 – The Missed Train The evening air of Kolkata carried the smell of coal-dust and roasted peanuts, that particular mixture that only Howrah Station seemed capable of holding together. The great iron ribs of the terminal arched above rows of restless passengers, each waiting for their escape or return. Ananya clutched the strap of her canvas bag tighter and quickened her pace, weaving between porters balancing luggage on their heads and families herding sleepy children. The announcement blared across the platform—her train had begun moving. By the time she reached the edge, breathless, the coaches were…
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Maya Sen Part 1 — The Departure The morning I left, the city was still half-asleep, a pale wash of yellow light stretching over cracked pavements and shuttered tea stalls. My backpack, slung awkwardly over one shoulder, seemed heavier with every step I took, not because of the clothes and notebooks packed inside but because of the invisible weight of hesitation. I had never truly left home before—yes, there had been short trips to the mountains or the sea, always with family or friends, but never like this, never with no return ticket, never with the open road stretching like…
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Rohan Banerjee Part 1: Viral Villain Raj Mehta believed in three things: breakfast before tweets, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on everything, and the sanctity of the last slice. The first two had kept him mostly sane. The third was about to ruin his life. It happened at a café in Lajpat Nagar that insisted on calling the waiter a “pizza sommelier.” Raj was reviewing their new menu for his channel, Raj On A Plate, which, if we’re honest, was a modest plate. Not fine china. More like a laminated thali. The café had one wood-fired Margherita left…
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Eira Sen Part 1: The Crackling The rain always came suddenly in her town, not like the timid drizzles that brushed over other places but like an argument with the sky itself. That evening, Tara was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her grandmother’s living room, tracing lines on her notebook when the storm struck. The shutters rattled, the lights flickered, and the smell of wet earth rushed in through the gaps under the door. Beside her, on the wooden cabinet that had been in the house longer than she had, stood the old Philips radio. Its red dial and…
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Rishabh Malhotra The train wound its way up from Siliguri like a slow-breathing animal, dragging itself through tunnels and ridges until the landscape turned from dust and plains into green shadows and mist. Aanya pressed her forehead against the glass of the narrow window and felt the chill bite through. The air smelled different here—pine, wet earth, smoke rising from unseen chimneys. She had always imagined Darjeeling to be painted in postcards: toy train whistles, Kanchenjunga glowing in the distance, laughter of tourists around Mall Road. But this time, she wasn’t here for postcards or tourist guides. She was here…
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Arvind Kashyap Part 1 – The Case Begins The rain had been coming down on Kolkata for three days straight, the kind that didn’t wash the city clean but left it sticky and smelling of wet dust, fish, and petrol. Arjun Sen sat in his office above a shuttered sweet shop on Bentinck Street, nursing his fourth cup of watery tea and wondering whether he should pawn his old Nikon camera. Once, he had been the man behind front-page scoops, the journalist who broke the stories others were too scared to touch. Now he chased cheating husbands through dimly lit…
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1 The mist rolled in heavy that night over Shobhabazar, clinging to the crumbling walls of century-old houses and hanging like a curtain in the narrow lanes where time seemed frozen. It was here, in the heart of North Kolkata’s labyrinth, that the silence was broken by the shrill cry of a milk vendor who stumbled upon the body. Bimal “Banker” Ghosh, a man known in whispers as both a petty moneylender and a sly informant of his younger years, lay sprawled in the mud, his throat slit with chilling precision. The flickering glow of a dim streetlamp caught the…