English
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The Final Over
Asish Kumar Chapter One: The Collapse The roar of the crowd at Wankhede Stadium was deafening, a cyclone of noise and anticipation as the scoreboard blinked “19.5 overs – 164/7.” One ball left. Five runs needed. And standing at the crease, helmet tilted back slightly under the blistering floodlights, was Punit Shekhawat—the poster boy of…
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The Drummers of Devikulam
Aritra Sen Chapter 1: The road to Devikulam wound like a serpent through the mist-laced hills of Kerala, each bend revealing a new secret of the land—clusters of tea bushes in perfect symmetry, skeletal trees clawing at the grey sky, and occasional shrines draped in red cloth and turmeric-smudged stone. Dr. Anirudh Menon sat in…
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Swipe Left for Sitar
Pritha Paul 1 Niharika Rao had precisely three rules in life: never eat cold idlis, never disrespect a raag, and never—ever—download a dating app. Unfortunately, on a humid Thursday morning in Bengaluru, two out of those three rules were broken. She sat cross-legged on her reed mat, sitar resting on her lap, and her forehead…
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The Idol Thief of Kanchipuram
Aniruddh Iyer Chapter 1: Shadows of the Bronze The morning air in Kanchipuram was heavy with a strange silence, one that usually didn’t belong in the bustling temple town. The sun had barely risen over the ancient skyline of gopurams, and the air still smelled faintly of incense and jasmine. At the revered Kailasanathar Temple,…
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The Sky Below Us
Kiaan Ray 1 They said the Earth was dead. No roots stirred beneath the dust, no rivers flowed with memory, and no horizon ever changed. In the Loftworlds, that was the gospel. Up here, above the clouds, survival didn’t depend on soil or sun, but on filters, floating engines, and fear. Aira Sen had never…
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The Eighth Door
Ishani Varma Part 1: Arrival at St. Elora’s The jeep rattled up the winding path as mist bled through the pine trees like a silent ghost. Ananya Roy pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane, watching the outline of the valley shift and disappear. Below, the Nilgiris rolled in endless folds of green-grey, but up…
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Life in the Emergency Ward
Soumyadeep Dutta The fluorescent lights above flickered like tired eyelids, buzzing faintly over rows of rusting stretchers and sweat-drenched bodies. It was 7:58 a.m. when I stepped into the emergency ward of Nilratna Chatterjee Memorial Government Hospital for the first time as a junior resident. My stethoscope clung around my neck like a nervous talisman,…
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The Fifth Protocol
Neel Kashyap Part 1: The Minister Who Knew Too Much The monsoon had arrived early in New Delhi, but the rain did little to cool the simmering corridors of power. The South Block offices glistened under streetlights, guarded by protocol and paranoia. At 2:03 a.m., a white government Scorpio pulled into the back entrance of…
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The Accountant’s Game
Dilip Joshi 1 The spreadsheets didn’t scream. They whispered. Subtle inconsistencies in formatting, curious repetition in transaction references, and the strange appearance of a dormant offshore subsidiary—“VKL Capital Holdings (Cayman)”—that had shown no activity for nearly four years suddenly blinking back to life with a $212 million transfer flagged under “legacy adjustments.” To most eyes…
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STATIC
One The city never truly slept, but it had moments—between the honks and the hum of late-night traffic—where the silence stretched long enough to pretend. It was during those hollow hours, somewhere between midnight and 3 a.m., that Arjun Malik sat in the rusting studio of 93.7 FM, alone but for the hum of old…
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Layover at Midnight
Rajesh Agarwal 1 Mira Kaul stepped off the plane from Pune with her sketchbook clutched so tightly in her hand that the cover bent slightly at the corners, the soft paper bruised by the pressure of her restless thumb. The Bangalore Airport smelled of strong coffee, polished floors, and quiet anticipation—a place caught somewhere between…
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The Third Locker
Chayan Ghoshal Chapter 1: The Letter The newsroom smelled of overbrewed coffee and paper dust—an aging beast barely held together by buzzing tube lights and worn-out keyboards. Subhasree Roy sat in the far-left corner, tapping absentmindedly on her laptop, staring at an unfinished draft on land scam allegations against a corporator who would likely never…