English
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The Last Case of Inspector Rao
Rajiv Deshmukh Chapter 1: Thirteen Days Inspector Devendra Rao stared at the brass nameplate on his desk as if it were a stranger. The letters gleamed in the late afternoon sun—bold, authoritative, and now irrelevant. “Inspector D. Rao – Crime Branch.” Thirteen days. That’s all that remained before this title would be reduced to a…
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The Black Thread
Aaryan Sen Amaan Khan believed in facts. As a forensic journalist, he had covered everything from organ trafficking in Jaipur to political assassinations in Bihar. His articles were precise, unflinching, and deeply respected—because Amaan believed there was always a logical explanation behind every mystery. That belief began to crack the day he arrived in Bhimtara,…
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The Forgotten Tribes of the Northeast
Prithvi Mukhopadhyay Chapter 1: The aircraft trembled slightly as it descended through dense rainclouds. From the tiny window, Armaan Roy caught fleeting glimpses of green — endless forests, swollen rivers, and distant ridgelines lost in mist. The runway came into view like a wet ribbon stretched across the wild earth. With a final lurch, the…
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The Last Witness
Aditya Nandan. Part 1: The Opening Argument The judge’s gavel landed with a thud, cutting through the low murmur of the packed Delhi courtroom. Justice Arunabh Sen, silver-haired and unsmiling, adjusted his glasses and surveyed the room with the calm of a man who had seen too much and believed too little. “This court is…
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Flatmates and Other Natural Disasters
Aarav Malik The Flatmate Interview from Hell Neil Patel had never considered himself particularly unlucky. He had a stable job, a reliable (if slightly moldy) flat in West London, and a wardrobe that was ninety percent navy blue. But when his longtime flatmate Raj moved out—citing “creative differences” after one too many passive-aggressive notes about…
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Ashes of Tomorrow
Rani Westwood Part 1 The sky had not been blue in seventeen years. People still talked about the last clear morning in whispers, like it was a folk tale passed down through ash-coated generations. They said the light used to feel warm, not searing. That clouds were once white and fluffy, not permanent smears of…
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Tides of Yesterday
Aria Roy 1 The bus groaned and wheezed as it rounded the final bend, the narrow coastal road lined with swaying coconut palms on one side and the endless expanse of the Arabian Sea on the other. The salty wind carried with it the smell of the ocean, tinged faintly with fish, wet sand, and…
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The Alipore Ledger
Ishaan Roychowdhury 1 It started on a Wednesday, just as the first rains of June swept across the city like a waking god shaking off centuries of sleep, drenching Alipore’s colonial bungalows and whispering down the serpentine lanes that remembered secrets better than people did. ACP Ira Basu stood beneath the broken awning of the…
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Between Lectures
A. K. Menon It started with a spilled cup of coffee and a Shakespeare quote. Dr. Aanya Roy, Head of Literature at St. Helena’s College, was pacing across the staff lounge, a worn-out copy of King Lear in one hand and a cappuccino in the other, when Dr. Kabir Mehta entered, unsuspecting, balancing his own…
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The Great Curry Catastrophe
Deepak Sharma Chapter 1: If you had asked anyone in Pimplepur a month ago who Rajeev Banerjee was, they might’ve said, “Wasn’t he the boy who tried to bake a pizza on the car bonnet in Class 8?” Or, “Is he the one who added glitter to gulab jamuns thinking it was edible silver?” Yes.…
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The Silent Temple
A. K. Murugan The Forgotten Path Tamil Nadu in June was a furnace of forgotten ruins and rustling palms, but for Meera and Tara, it was another tick on their growing list of offbeat travel destinations. They had been crisscrossing India for over a year now, documenting haunted forts, strange folk rituals, and abandoned villages…
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The Whispering Forest
Risa Kharkongor Part 1 The clouds hung low over Mawlynnong, like thick blankets of cotton pressing gently upon the treetops, as if they were listening to a secret only the forest knew. Twelve-year-old Lari Khongdup stood barefoot on the damp earth, feeling the mud cling to her toes, the scent of moss, bamboo, and wild…