• English - Romance

    Letters Across the Monsoon

    August 14, 2025 - By 

    Anindita Sen Part 1 – The Postbox by the Pier The sea had been restless all week, its surface shifting in colours that belonged more to a mood than to the sky—dull pewter in the mornings, then a bruised green by afternoon, then turning almost black by evening when the horizon swallowed the sun whole. Mira Basu walked along the narrow pier each day after school, not because she had errands to run there but because the smell of salt and the sound of waves striking the wooden posts felt like a private conversation she could not hear anywhere else.…

  • Crime - English

    The Accountant’s Funeral

    August 13, 2025 - By 

    R. K. Menon Chapter 1 The morning traffic on Outer Ring Road was its usual symphony of blaring horns, impatient engines, and the occasional curse shouted through helmet visors. Somewhere between a lumbering BMTC bus and a swerving goods carrier, Prakash Nayak’s modest grey scooter skidded. The police report would later write it up as a tragic but routine road mishap—oil slick on the asphalt, sudden brake, impact with a divider, helmet cracked clean through. For the few bystanders who stopped, he was just another middle-aged man in an ill-fitting formal shirt and worn office trousers, carrying a black backpack…

  • English - Romance

    Rooftop at Midnight

    August 13, 2025 - By 

    Ishita Anand 1 The boxes were still stacked haphazardly in Tara Mehra’s living room, their cardboard edges curling slightly from the humidity of a late-August evening in Hyderabad. She’d spent the whole day unpacking—kitchen first, then her books, then her sketchbooks and pencils—yet the apartment still felt like a halfway house between strangers. From the balcony, she could see the crowded lanes of Banjara Hills curling away into the distance, car headlights already threading the roads as the day’s last sunlight gave way to neon. The air was heavy with the smell of rain that hadn’t yet fallen, and somewhere…

  • Crime - English

    Tandoor City

    August 12, 2025 - By 

    Manav Kashyap Chapter 1: The streets of Delhi were alive with the usual nighttime chaos—autos honking in frustration, chai stalls glowing under dim bulbs, and the muffled thrum of bike engines weaving between traffic. Rohan Batra leaned against a cracked wall outside a crowded momo stall in Lajpat Nagar, filming his closing shot for the day’s vlog. His channel, Hidden Heat, had once been his pride, a place where he exposed forgotten street food legends and secret recipes, but lately, the views had plateaued. The city’s food scene was becoming more curated, more polished, and he knew that unless he…

  • English - Young Adult

    Chai & Chalk Dust

    August 12, 2025 - By 

    Ananya Pradhan One The mist clung thickly to the hills of Darjeeling that September evening, wrapping the sleepy town in a soft, silver-gray blanket. Outside the gates of St. Augustine’s Hill School, where ancient pines swayed gently in the cool breeze, Anaya Gurung tended the modest tea stall her mother had set up years ago. The worn wooden counter was streaked with years of spilled chai and chalk dust, a testament to its humble history. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the streetlamps flickered on, casting pools of warm yellow light on the wet cobblestones. Anaya moved with quiet…

  • English - Horror

    The Saree That Walked

    August 12, 2025 - By 

    Sampriti Bhattacharya 1 The train slid into Varanasi Junction under a pale winter sun, its light already filtered through a haze of incense smoke, dust, and the faint smell of the Ganga carried on the morning air. Arpita Sen stepped onto the platform, her leather satchel hanging heavily at her side, filled with notebooks, sketching pencils, and rolls of acid-free paper for documenting antique textiles. She had been commissioned by a heritage trust in Kolkata to research and archive rare Banarasi silk traditions, a project that felt as much like a pilgrimage as a professional assignment. Outside the station, the…

  • Crime - English

    The Fog Heist

    August 11, 2025 - By 

    Sahir Kaul Chapter 1 The night air in Surat carried the faint scent of the Tapi River and the metallic hum of industry, but inside the towering facade of the Shree Omkar Luxury Vault, silence reigned. The building’s polished marble lobby gleamed under low security lighting, the air-conditioned chill a stark contrast to the humid streets outside. At 11:48 p.m., a black SUV glided into the underground parking bay, its windows tinted beyond regulation. Three figures emerged, faces hidden behind sleek, black half-masks, their movements precise and unhurried. They passed through the biometric scanner using codes that should have been…

  • English - Horror

    Puppet Strings

    August 11, 2025 - By 

    Amrita Lakhani Chapter 1 – Return to the Haveli The late afternoon sun draped the Rajasthani landscape in molten gold as Meera Rathore’s jeep rolled through the dusty road leading to her ancestral village. The air was thick with the scent of dry earth and marigold garlands strung outside small houses in preparation for an upcoming festival. For Meera, a heritage researcher who had spent years in Jaipur’s archives and museums, this trip was meant to be purely academic — an opportunity to document traditional kathputli puppet-making in its most authentic form. Yet, as the outline of the Rathore haveli…

  • Crime - English

    The Silk Bazaar Murders

    August 10, 2025 - By 

    Meher Afroz One The night in Chowk bazaar was unusually still, the usual sounds of late-night chai vendors and distant azaan fading into an uneasy silence. Narrow lanes twisted between century-old havelis, their carved wooden balconies casting long shadows under flickering streetlamps. The warm smell of cardamom and fried samosas lingered faintly, but in one particular lane, the air was heavy with something else — dread. At the far end stood Rashid Ali’s loom house, a modest workshop known among weavers for its perfection in the rare “shadow work” chikankari stitch. Tonight, however, the place seemed frozen in time, the…

  • English - Suspense

    72 Hours in Bhopal

    August 10, 2025 - By 

    Kabir Anand 1 The old ceiling fan in Detective Inspector Meenal Rathore’s apartment made a dry, rhythmic creak as it turned in the summer night heat. She sat at her desk in a sleeveless kurta, case files spread open, a mug of cold tea forgotten at her elbow. The city outside was quieter than usual, its usual honking and scooter rumbles dulled at this hour. Her phone buzzed sharply at exactly midnight, the screen flashing an unknown number. She answered out of habit, expecting a drunken domestic complaint or a false alarm. Instead, a low, carefully measured voice came through…