• English - Romance

    Love at Signal 47

    June 27, 2025 - By 

    Sneha Chanda 1 Every evening around six-thirty, the city of Bangalore sighed under its own weight—horns honked like dissonant jazz, autos swerved with divine confidence, and a dusty orange sun drooped behind the concrete skyline. Priti, on her midnight-blue scooter, found herself once again halted at the same red light near Indiranagar, officially labelled Signal No. 47. It was a notorious pause point, where the signal stubbornly lingered for a full hundred and twenty seconds, enough for people to check their phones, vendors to sell corn-on-the-cob, and traffic to swell into a stubborn sea. For Priti, it had become a…

  • English - Suspense

    The Nawab’s Mirror

    June 27, 2025 - By 

    Manav Chouhan Chapter 1: The Letter from Chowk The rain had barely stopped drumming against the windows when Meher Chaudhary found the envelope waiting on the windowsill of her Delhi studio, damp but intact, as though it had arrived with the storm itself. Its paper was of an oddly antique texture—off-white and fibrous, sealed with wax that bore an insignia she didn’t recognize. Her name was written in precise Devanagari script, the kind used in legal documents a century ago. Curious and mildly amused, she opened it, half-expecting an invitation to an art exhibition or a forgotten commission. But the…

  • English - Romance

    Across the Courtline

    June 27, 2025 - By 

    Rhea Dutt Part 1: The First Serve The first time Aarav saw Mira, she was smashing a shuttlecock across the net with such precision that it left her opponent frozen. It wasn’t love at first sight—not yet. It was something sharper. Intrigue. Aarav, the newly recruited assistant coach at St. Augustine Sports Academy, had arrived straight from the national training camp, carrying with him the calm confidence of someone who had nothing left to prove on the court. Mira, on the other hand, was fiery, competitive, and unapologetically ambitious. She didn’t notice him at first. Her focus was the tournament…

  • English - Young Adult

    Glass Wings

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Ishita Desai Chapter 1: The Lighthouse Girl The sea was never still in Nila’s world. It breathed and broke and whispered, even in its quietest hours, and from the narrow balcony of the lighthouse, she watched it endlessly. The whitewashed tower stood like a forgotten guardian on the edge of the cliff, half-smothered in wild vines and coconut palms. The village below barely noticed its light anymore; satellite dishes had replaced the stars, and the lighthouse had become a relic, much like her. Nila turned sixteen that morning. There were no friends to wish her, no school group singing out…

  • Crime - English

    Redial

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Part 1: The Dead Number Rehan Mehta’s phone buzzed once. Then again. Then it stopped. Half-asleep, he groaned and turned over in bed, pulling the blanket over his head. The digital clock on his desk blinked 2:13 AM in a harsh red glow. Whoever it was could wait. But then he saw the notification: 1 new voicemail from Unknown Number. He sat up. Unknown numbers weren’t unusual in his line of work — Rehan was an investigative journalist for The Daily Ledger. But voicemails at 2 AM? That was new. He plugged in his headphones and hit play. Static. Then…

  • Hindi - Horror

    भूतहिया कुआँ

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    अनामिका चौधरी पटना यूनिवर्सिटी की लाइब्रेरी में उस दिन कुछ अजीब सा सन्नाटा था। रीतू ने अपनी डायरी में अंतिम लाइन लिखी—“लोककथाओं में सिर्फ डर नहीं होता, इतिहास भी छिपा होता है।” उसे अगले सप्ताह फील्ड वर्क के लिए सुभाषपुर जाना था—बिहार के बरौनी ज़िले का एक छोटा-सा गाँव, जहाँ आज़ादी से पहले के ज़मींदारों की हवेलियाँ अब खंडहर बन चुकी थीं। लेकिन उसका असली मकसद था—“भूतहिया कुआँ”। उस कुएँ की कथा सुनकर ही उसका रिसर्च टॉपिक तय हुआ था। कहा जाता था कि हर साल सावन की पहली अमावस्या की रात, उस सूखे कुएँ से एक औरत की कराह…

  • Crime - English - Travel

    Shadows on the Salt

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Nitish Joshi One The desert shimmered like an illusion, an expanse of white and gold stretching endlessly under the early winter sun. From above, the Rann of Kutch looked like a cracked mirror, its salt flats fragmented into wild geometries — but down here on the ground, it felt alive with movement, heat, and secret rhythms. The wind dragged dry whispers across the land as the colors of the Rann Utsav unfolded like a fever dream — turbans spinning in the breeze, mirror-work lehengas glittering, the scent of fried fafda and jaggery jalebi wafting from the festival stalls. Kabir Pathak,…

  • English - Horror

    The Fifth Room at Windmere Lodge

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Sohini Das The car stopped in front of the rusted gates of Windmere Lodge with a hiss, steam rising faintly from the bonnet like breath on a cold mirror. Devika Rao stepped out, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Mussoorie in late October was crueler than she’d expected. The sun had vanished behind a sheet of dull grey clouds, and even the pine trees looked like shadows painted against a darkening canvas. She looked up at the lodge — a two-storied colonial building half-swallowed by ivy and memory. The windows were arched, curtained in velvet too heavy for the…

  • English - Fiction

    Strings Attached

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Ishaan Talwar Part 1: The First Note The first time Aryan strummed his guitar on the old green bench outside the Fine Arts Block, the sun was melting into the Delhi skyline and the air smelled of samosas from the canteen. He wasn’t playing for anyone. He never did. But someone was always listening. That evening, it was Tara—the girl with the nose ring and the journal full of angry poetry. She was standing near the rusted railing, scribbling something when his chords cut through the dusk like the beginning of something they didn’t yet know was coming. He looked…

  • English - Romance

    When Power Meets Passion

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Ashmita Khan Part 1: The Debate The air-conditioning inside the NDTV studio was just enough to keep nerves hidden under silk and suit fabric. Aarushi Singh adjusted the collar of her rust-red handloom kurta, her fingers lightly grazing the gold brooch that bore her father’s party symbol—two clasped hands in a rising sun. It wasn’t just decoration. It was legacy. Across from her sat Ishaan Rizvi, crisp in a blue blazer, his notes neatly stacked, untouched. He didn’t need them. He never did. His reputation as the Opposition’s silent strategist had made him a reluctant star of the night’s “Youth…