• Crime - English

    Beneath the Grapevines

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Shruti Salgaonkar Chapter 1: The Quiet Vineyard The sun had just begun to retreat behind the Sahyadris, casting a burnt-orange glow across the rolling vineyards of Nashik. The air smelled of ripening grapes and spring dust. Inspector Arvind Deshmukh parked his white Bolero at the edge of the Kadam estate and stepped out. The place was too quiet for a house that had just reported a death. A constable approached. “Sir, victim is Rohit Kadam. Forty-two. Winemaker. Found dead in bed by his wife, Meera Kadam. No signs of forced entry. Door was locked from the inside.” Arvind nodded without…

  • English - Horror

    The Milk Teeth

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Partha Deb One The jeep rattled along the muddy road, its tires groaning under the weight of city luggage packed high with gadgets, snacks, and books. Arjun Mehta, all of eleven and glowing with the defiance only a Mumbai boy could carry, pressed his face against the dusty window. Rain-patterned fog rolled across the hills like a slumbering beast. His parents had waved him off with hopeful smiles, convinced that a few weeks with his grandmother in the village of Nandpur would break his screen addiction. But as the trees closed in and the modern world blurred into mist and…

  • Comedy - English

    The Unfortunate Adventures of Mr. Biswas and the Wi-Fi Router

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Amit Bhattacharya Chapter 1: The Morning the Lights Died It was a Thursday morning like any other in the quiet neighbourhood of Lakshmi Niwas Cooperative Housing Society. The air was already heavy with humidity and promise—promise of yet another gloriously uneventful day. Birds chirped, autos honked, and pressure cookers whistled in unison like they’d all rehearsed a morning raga. In Flat 5C, Mr. Aniruddha Biswas stood in his kitchen, peering suspiciously into the refrigerator. He did this often—not because there was anything mysterious inside, but because at 64, routine was a sacred thing. Open fridge, scratch head, sigh dramatically. That…

  • Comedy - English

    The Yoga Cult

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Mridul Sharma 1 Aditi Sharma stared at her laptop screen as if sheer willpower could make the pending presentation design itself, but the only thing her willpower achieved was making her eye twitch for the third time that week. The Gurgaon office was as loud as ever — colleagues banged away at keyboards like they were fighting off demons, someone’s phone blared a Bollywood remix ringtone on loop, and from the adjacent cubicle came the unmistakable sound of someone noisily slurping instant noodles. Aditi exhaled, rubbed her temples, and took a sip of her now-cold black coffee, its bitterness mirroring…

  • English - Fiction

    Code, Coffee & Consequences

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Vishal Suri 1 The fluorescent light buzzed overhead as Arjun paced the narrow living room of their two-bedroom rented flat in Indiranagar, Bangalore. His glasses were fogged from the steam of the masala chai in his hand, and the laptop screen on the table blinked with the latest rejection email from a potential investor. Rajeev, sitting cross-legged on the floor, tapped furiously at his keyboard, immersed in code. He hadn’t spoken for an hour. Kabir lay stretched across the worn-out sofa, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan spinning lazily above him. No one wanted to say it, but the silence…

  • English - Horror

    The Forgotten Door

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Dev Mukherjee Chapter 1: Arrival at Dusk The forest road narrowed as they drove deeper into Kunnur, swallowed by towering eucalyptus trees on either side. The air smelled of wet bark and moss, tinged with the chill of approaching dusk. Kabir kept his eyes on the curving path, one hand gripping the wheel, the other occasionally brushing against Riya’s fingers resting on the gearstick. She was staring out the window, her camera already in her lap. “Are you sure this is the right way?” Kabir asked, voice uncertain. The GPS had long since stopped working. Riya nodded. “The caretaker said…

  • English - Romance

     Monsoon at Marine Drive

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Aarya Malik The Message The rain hadn’t stopped since dusk. It fell like memory—persistent, soft, and impossible to ignore. Marine Drive, usually buzzing with honking taxis and lovers escaping deadlines, lay blurred under a monsoon haze. The Arabian Sea raged in the distance, waves crashing against stone with the kind of wild certainty Aarav had never known in his own heart. He stood alone near the last curve of the promenade, where the streetlamp flickered every few seconds. His phone vibrated once. It wasn’t her. He stared at the message he had already sent. Come to Marine Drive. Now. Please.…

  • Crime - English

    The Last Guest: Fadeproof Files

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Ayan Chakravarty Chapter 1 morning, slipped quietly under the door of Veena Rajput’s modest Shimla cottage as if it were just another electricity bill or property notice, though nothing about it felt ordinary. The envelope was thick, creamy-white, sealed with a dark wax emblem embossed with a crest she hadn’t seen before—a snowflake enclosed within a circle of thorns. Her instincts stirred, the way they used to in her active service days when something about a clue didn’t quite fit. The note inside was written in elegant, slanted calligraphy: “Detective Veena Rajput (Retd.), You are cordially invited to Snowcrest Manor…

  • English - Fiction

    THE RED CORRIDOR

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Mohit Bansal The Death in Dhaulpur The bullet tore through the morning stillness like a scream no one wanted to hear. It was just past 8 a.m. in Dhaulpur, a dusty town carved out of the political belly of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Outside the town hall, Ramveer Bharti was standing atop a makeshift podium, his kurta slightly wrinkled, voice echoing over loudspeakers that had seen too many rallies. A crowd had gathered—farmers in faded dhotis, students with angry eyes, a few women clutching cloth bags, and some just there for the free tea. But they listened. Because when Ramveer spoke,…

  • English - Non- Fiction

    Bengal Mishti: A Sugary Chronicle

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Rituparna Ghosh Chapter 1: The Sweetest Soil The story of Bengal’s mishti begins not in a city sweet shop or royal palace, but in the soft, fertile fields where rice and sugarcane sway under a golden sun. Here, in the flat floodplains of the Ganges delta, nature gifted Bengal with everything needed to create sweetness—abundant water, rich soil, and a climate generous enough to grow grains, fruits, and palms. And so, long before the arrival of refined sugar or dairy-based sweets, Bengal already knew the art of celebrating with what it had: jaggery, coconut, and milk.   In ancient Bengal,…