• Crime - English

    The Ashram Conspiracy

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Rohit Jha Chapter 1: The Silence Breaks The sun had only just begun to crest the misty ridge of the Shivalik hills when Inspector Arvind Rawat’s car crunched across the gravel path leading into Shakti Dham Retreat. The towering teak gate, adorned with Sanskrit shlokas and brass lotus insignias, parted slowly before him, revealing manicured gardens and stone pathways shaded by deodar trees. The ashram was a place of silence—literally so, as the guests were observing a week-long vow of maun vrat, speechlessness meant to cleanse the mind. But peace was the last thing present this morning. Arvind stepped out…

  • Comedy - English

    Startup Sambar

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Tanya Mehra Part 1: Swipe Left on Sanity Mehul Mehta was the kind of man who walked into cafés with the confidence of a founder but paid for coffee with borrowed Paytm credit. On the second Tuesday of February, as the Koramangala sun turned everyone into sweating overachievers, Mehul stood outside BeanBag Labs, a co-working space that smelled like ambition and stale sandwiches. He adjusted his Zara-but-says-Gucci blazer, turned to his reflection in a glass door, and whispered, “Today, destiny gets an upgrade.” Inside, Tara Jacob sat hunched over her laptop, surrounded by four open coffee cups and a fifth…

  • English - Suspense

    Sixteen Minutes Late

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Tushar Deb 1 The night train rumbled through the sleepy heart of Bihar, its windows reflecting the ghostly blue of an almost-full moon. The Guwahati–Delhi Express was known for its long, uneventful journey through forests, fields, and forgotten towns, but no one paid attention to one particular stop: Dharmapur Junction. It wasn’t printed on any timetable. There were no signboards, no platform lights—just an old concrete slab, shrouded by neem trees and thick fog, where the train inexplicably paused for sixteen minutes every single year on the same day. On that cold February night, passengers were either snoring under woolen…

  • English - Suspense - Young Adult

    The Vanishing Filter

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Vivek Awasthi Part 1: The Filter Nobody Posted It all began with a shimmer—not in the sky, not in the water, but on Rhea Malhotra’s face, caught mid-selfie. She was seated on her bed, hair loose, sunlight filtering through the window, giving her skin a natural glow she wished she could bottle. She’d clicked dozens of photos that morning for her Instagram story—nothing out of the ordinary. But the last photo she took shimmered in a strange way the moment she applied a filter. She didn’t recall selecting it. In fact, she didn’t even recognize it. “Etherea_03,” it read, in…

  • Drama - English - Romance

    Rent a Boyfriend

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Aisha Roy Plus-One Problems Tara Sen hated weddings. Not because she was bitter about love, not even because she couldn’t tolerate rasgullas anymore—she just couldn’t stand the interrogation squad that arrived with the haldi. Her mother’s sisters. Her father’s cousins. The “So-when-are-you-next-beta?” brigade. This time, it was her cousin Sia’s wedding in Jaipur. Three days. One palace hotel. Four aunties with sharp questions and sharper judgment. Tara had already survived two of these family extravaganzas this year, but her luck was running out. She had overheard her mother whispering to Mausi on speakerphone just last week, “This time I think…

  • Crime - English

    The Cell

    June 25, 2025 - By 

    Amitava Basu Chapter 1: The Disguise The heat was dry and biting as the prison gates of Bhairavgarh creaked open, the ancient iron groaning like it was waking from a deep slumber. Asha Rane stepped through with her head lowered and shoulders slumped, wearing a plain khaki salwar kameez and a bruised expression painted with theatrical precision. Her wrists bore plastic bruises from makeup, and her gaze was dulled intentionally — years of investigative journalism had taught her how to camouflage confidence into submissive silence. She clutched her forged file of charges — embezzlement, impersonation, Section 419 — all part…

  • Crime - English

    The Silent Depth

    June 25, 2025 - By 

    Anant Chowhan Chapter 1 The indoor pool was still cloaked in shadow when Suvam Dey stepped inside the cavernous space, his footsteps echoing against the high glass walls. The air smelled sharply of chlorine and faint mildew, a familiar scent that both comforted and stung. It was just past 4:30 AM, the hour he cherished most—before the noise, before the competition, before the world crept into the stillness. He dropped his duffel near the bleachers, removed his hoodie, and looked at the water—calm, mirrorlike, awaiting only him. Suvam dove in without hesitation, slicing through the silence. Each stroke was metronomic,…

  • English - Romance

    Unspoken in Udaipur

    June 25, 2025 - By 

    Leena Roy ONE The air was thick with the scent of wet stone and jasmine as Clara Reynolds stepped off the rickety bus that had rumbled its way from Jaipur through dust, thunder, and time. Udaipur rose before her like a faded painting—its cream-colored palaces floating on mirrored lakes, its crooked alleys climbing hillsides like vines searching for sunlight. She pulled her rucksack tighter over her shoulders and adjusted the scarf around her neck, a habit she’d picked up to blend in, or perhaps to hide in. The city seemed drenched in something beyond rain—melancholy, perhaps, or memory. Raindrops clung…

  • English - Romance

    My Boss, My Ex

    June 25, 2025 - By 

    Rhea Jha The conference room was freezing, or maybe it was just her hands that had turned cold. Aisha Kapoor adjusted the cuff of her blazer for the third time in five minutes, a nervous habit she thought she’d long abandoned. The team sat around the glass table, murmurs of speculation buzzing in the air—new leadership, potential restructuring, rumors about a merger. But all Aisha could focus on was the ticking clock on the wall, inching closer to ten. Her mind wasn’t in the present, not really. It was tangled somewhere between a finance report and a memory she had…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Forest Remembers

    June 25, 2025 - By 

    Pulak Goswami Chapter 1: The Storm That Spoke The day the storm came, the air in Pranoy’s village crackled with a kind of silence that wasn’t natural. Even the herons had stopped calling from the mangrove trees, and the fishermen had returned earlier than usual, hauling their nets as if fleeing from an unseen predator. Pranoy stood barefoot at the edge of the muddy path that led to the river, watching the clouds gather like ink spilled across the sky. The water in the canals had turned a darker green, and the mangrove leaves whispered secrets to one another in…