• English - Romance

    Velvet Nights

    August 21, 2025 - By 

    Serene Kapoor Part 1 — The Invitation The city was still shimmering with the restless energy of twilight when Maya closed her laptop. The amber glow of streetlights was slipping into her apartment, mingling with the fragrance of sandalwood she had lit earlier. She leaned back in her chair, her body aching from the day, but her mind was alive with something else entirely—a message that had arrived just hours ago. The envelope had been thick, the kind that demanded attention. Inside was a cream-colored card embossed with an unfamiliar crest, edges gilded like something from another century. The handwriting—sleek,…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Sky Between Buildings

    August 21, 2025 - By 

    Kyra D’Souza Part 1 – The Rooftop Silence The city never really sleeps, but there are these odd hours when even the traffic feels like it’s breathing slow. Three in the morning, maybe four. You don’t check the clock because if you do, you’ll be reminded that life is running faster than you are, and you’re not ready to feel guilty again. So you let time blur, let the empty streets below hum like background music. On the rooftop of an old building where the paint has peeled into random maps, I sit with my knees pulled up, cigarette unlit…

  • Crime - English - Suspense

    Ganges Murders

    August 21, 2025 - By 

    Sudarshan Tripathi 1 The first light of dawn spread over Varanasi, turning the Ganges into a molten ribbon of gold and crimson. Dashashwamedh Ghat was just waking—priests arranging lamps for the day’s rituals, pilgrims dipping themselves into the sacred waters, and vendors setting up their stalls along the steps. The city breathed a timeless rhythm, as if each sunrise repeated the same prayer uttered for thousands of years. But on this particular morning, the serenity of the river was broken by a shrill cry from a boatman. His small wooden boat bobbed unevenly as he leaned over the edge, staring…

  • English - Romance

    Strings of the Sitar

    August 21, 2025 - By 

    Sonalika Sharma 1 The room was dim except for the soft golden glow of a brass lamp near the window, its flickering flame casting wavering shadows across the cream-colored walls of the apartment. The sitar rested across Ananya’s lap like an extension of her own body, its polished surface gleaming faintly as her fingers moved across the strings with precise familiarity. Outside, the chaotic hum of Delhi—the distant horns, the whir of rickshaws, the laughter of neighbors—seemed muffled inside this cocoon of practice. She bent slightly forward, her brow furrowed in concentration, listening not just with her ears but with…

  • Comedy - English

    Boss, Interrupted

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Sudesh Rao   Harsh Gupta had always imagined his life would pass quietly between spreadsheets, half-drunk cups of tea, and the occasional team lunch where no one remembered his name, and that was perfectly fine with him because invisibility was his survival strategy in the large and chaotic Gurgaon office of Midas Synergy Solutions, a company that did everything and nothing at once, surviving on buzzwords and investor slides. He was a man who entered meetings late enough to avoid introductions and left early enough to avoid being assigned tasks, a man who owned three identical shirts in pale blue…

  • English - Suspense

    The Vanishing Sketch

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Arjun Mehta Part 1 – The Disappearance The Delhi Metro was alive with its usual evening rush—voices overlapping, the metallic shriek of sliding doors, hurried footsteps pounding the tiled platforms. Inside the swaying compartments, the city pressed itself into tight spaces, strangers brushing shoulders, the air thick with the scent of perfume, sweat, and the faint metallic tang of rails. Rhea Kapoor moved through the crowd with practiced ease, her leather satchel slung diagonally across her body, her eyes hidden behind a pair of round glasses. At thirty-four, she was one of the country’s most fearless investigative journalists, but here…

  • Crime - English

    The Goa Beach Murders

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Pinaki Verma 1 The Goan sun dipped low into the Arabian Sea, painting the horizon with fiery streaks of orange and crimson as Anjuna beach slowly came alive with tourists gathering for the evening. Arjun Sen leaned back on the creaking wooden chair outside his shack, the smell of charred prawns and kingfish mixing with the salty air. Once, he had carried a badge, a gun, and the weight of justice on his shoulders; now he carried trays of seafood and glasses of feni to strangers. To most, he was just another shack owner—dark glasses hiding tired eyes, hair flecked…

  • English - Romance

    Hearts on the Field

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Elena Ray The First Match The campus was alive with a kind of energy that only a sports festival could bring. Banners of bright colors fluttered in the late March wind, and the entire cricket ground glowed under the warmth of the early afternoon sun. Students crowded the stands, voices rising in a chorus of cheers, laughter, and that familiar rhythm of drums that echoed across the field. For most, it was just another inter-college cricket tournament. For Meera Kapoor, however, it was a story waiting to be told. She sat at the very edge of the press box, her…

  • English - Young Adult

    Cloud Atlas Café

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Neha Banerjee The Rooftop That Wasn’t There Aarav didn’t mean to miss the last train. It just happened, like most of his mistakes—small, accidental, and irreversible. One late night line of code at work turned into another, and another, until he looked up at the time glowing on his cracked phone screen and realized the metro gates would already be shuttering. He left the office anyway, stepping out into a city that was still awake but somehow lonelier for it, the neon lights buzzing like a swarm of mechanical fireflies. The streets of New Delhi after midnight weren’t empty; they…

  • English - Romance

    Between Two Flames

    August 20, 2025 - By 

    Selena Arora The rain had been falling all afternoon, soaking the city into a muted gray. Through the wide glass windows of the café, Ananya watched the drops streak down in endless lines, blurring the streetlights into ribbons of amber. She stirred her coffee slowly, not because it needed stirring but because her hands needed something to do. Her wedding ring caught the glow of the lamp above, a delicate reminder of promises once made with fire in her chest, promises now grown pale with repetition. It was on afternoons like this that loneliness pressed the hardest, despite the fact…