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नीता देव अध्याय 1: रंगों की चुप्पी झाँसी की गलियों में सुबह की पहली किरण जब पुराने किलों की दीवारों से टकराकर उतरती थी, तब शहर में एक धीमी-सी हलचल शुरू होती थी। पर उस हलचल से दूर, एक छोटी-सी गली में, पुराने नीले दरवाज़े के पीछे राधा अपनी दुनिया में खोई हुई बैठी थी। लकड़ी की खड़खड़ाती खिड़की से छनकर आती धूप उसकी आधी-अधूरी पेंटिंग पर पड़ रही थी, जिसमें एक लड़की एक खिड़की के भीतर बैठी आकाश को देख रही थी—कुछ वैसा ही जैसे खुद राधा थी। कलाई तक रंगों में सनी हुई, वह ब्रश को बहुत नर्मता…
Lekha Chatterjee Part 1: The First Sip of Silence It was a Tuesday morning wrapped in clouds, the kind where the sun hides not out of shyness but out of habit. Aanya padded barefoot across the wooden floor of her apartment, the chill of the early hour clinging to her skin. She liked these quiet stretches before the world pressed in with its emails and errands, before her phone began to buzz like a restless bee. She reached for the cupboard that held her teas. It was a ritual more than a craving now—a way to begin, to anchor the…
Aisha Verma Part 1 The first time Neil saw Siya, she was hurling a half-eaten vada pav at a man twice her size in front of Andheri Station. It hit the man square in the chest, splattering red chutney like a bloodstain on his white shirt. A crowd had gathered, of course. Cameras were out. Someone was live-streaming. Neil had been passing by, DSLR in hand, mind elsewhere, when the chaos sucked him in like Mumbai traffic at peak hour. “Don’t touch me!” Siya yelled, her voice sharp as a glass shard. The man, red-faced, lunged at her, but Neil…
Partho Dey Chapter 1: The Door That Shouldn’t Be There The mist rolled down the hills like spilled milk, wrapping the sleepy town of Dharagaon in a hush usually reserved for secrets. Rhea liked walking in the drizzle. It was one of the few times the world slowed down to her pace. School was closed that day, and the homestay her parents ran had no guests. She wandered up the slope behind the church, where old paths curled like forgotten thoughts through ferns and moss. It wasn’t a place people usually visited. Too damp, too wild, too ordinary. But Rhea…
Ritoban Chatterjee Chapter 1: The Stolen Queen The chandelier above the Durbar Hall shimmered like a suspended constellation, each crystal catching the firelight from antique lamps placed along the carved marble columns. Outside, the Rajasthani dusk had settled into velvet darkness, and peacocks wailed somewhere in the thorny quiet of the palace gardens. Inside, the Mahaveergarh Palace buzzed with curated charm—foreign collectors, art connoisseurs, and minor royals sipped wine and traded glances beneath centuries of fading murals. They had all come to see it—The Dream of Jodha Bai—a painting whispered about in closed circles, unseen by the public for over…
Renuka Chanda Chapter 1 It was early morning in the small town of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. The Mishra household was in complete chaos. Shrikant Mishra, the head of the family, ran around the house holding the tickets like they were some ancient treasure. “Lalita! Did you pack the pickle? We cannot eat outside food every day!” he shouted, wiping sweat from his forehead though the fan was on full speed. Lalita, his wife, stood in the kitchen stuffing the last of the theplas into steel dabbas, praying that the luggage would close. Pintu, their 12-year-old son, had already put on…
Aisha Verma Rohan Mehta did not believe in fate. He believed in laundry schedules, strong coffee, and Bluetooth headphones with decent battery life. Apartment 3R—third floor, right—had been his solo kingdom for the past eleven months, ever since he moved into the ageing but oddly charming Amar Residency in Indiranagar. It wasn’t love at first lease, but it was quiet, close to the metro, and—most importantly—his mother had approved of the vastu. It was a Thursday morning, the kind where Bangalore pretends to be cold but isn’t really, when he noticed something odd. As he reached out to pin his…
Priyanka Ved Part 1 The hospital smelled like sterile cotton and silent prayers. Meera sat on the cold plastic chair, her hands tightly clasped, knuckles pale. Her brother Aarav’s breathing was the only rhythm keeping her grounded. Machines beeped steadily beside him, like they were mocking her helplessness. “Miss Meera Singh?” A voice snapped her back. She looked up to see a middle-aged man in a tailored black suit—sleek, expensive, and utterly out of place in the dull corridor of the government hospital. “Yes?” she asked, standing up, instinctively wary. “I’m Mr. Pradhan. I work for Mr. Veer Khanna.” His…
Maya Sharma Part 1: The Last Rally in Pink The rain had stopped just minutes before the rally began. A pink haze lingered over the Kolkata skyline, smeared with leftover monsoon clouds and political slogans painted hastily across aging walls. Shanti Ghosh, dressed in her signature pink Banarasi saree with gold-threaded lotus motifs, stood on the makeshift bamboo stage at the heart of Ward 34. Her voice, usually mellow and diplomatic, now sliced through the damp air like a blade. “We are not just mothers and wives,” she said, her voice echoing across the crowd, “we are builders, protectors, and…
Avinash Chowdhury 1 The rain came down in thick silver lines as Dr. Maya Dutt stood in the old apartment’s balcony in South Kolkata, staring blankly at the street below, where the tramlines glittered like secrets in the monsoon haze. Her days had become a sterile sequence of autopsies, death reports, and the quiet hum of overhead fans in fluorescent-lit government labs, but today had broken the pattern. The courier had arrived just after she returned from the morgue—a small package, no return address, the brown paper brittle with age, sealed with a strange red wax that bore no crest,…