Niharika Sen 1 The sky over Delhi had been sulking since morning, draped in heavy grey clouds that threatened to spill at any moment. Connaught Place bustled beneath it, the circular heart of the capital moving in its usual rhythm—cars honking in chorus, office-goers pacing down colonnades, street vendors shouting their evening rates, and college students lazing on the central park’s damp benches. It was somewhere between four and five in the afternoon when the skies gave in. First, a misty drizzle, then sheets of warm rain fell, catching the crowd mid-stride. People ducked under awnings, ducked into cafés, and…
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Anika Rao Part 1: The Taste of Irani Chai The clock struck six as Meher adjusted the silver jhumkas dangling from her ears, their soft chime blending into the evening azaan that echoed from the nearby Mecca Masjid. She stood by the rusted iron railings of the Charminar terrace, inhaling the scent of kebabs, rose attar, and the sharp, dusty wind that always carried whispers of stories untold. Hyderabad in December was always like this—cool, crowded, humming with history. And Meher, a 26-year-old calligraphy artist, found herself here every Thursday, sketchbook in hand, waiting to draw strangers and perhaps meet…
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Maanvi Shah The conference room was too cold for summer, like most VC firms that mistook temperature control for control in general. Rhea Mehta crossed her legs, stilettos clicking lightly as she adjusted her seat, eyes steady on the projected slide deck. “You’re up,” she said, voice clipped, betraying no emotion. Across the glossy table stood a lanky young man in jeans and a faded hoodie—unapologetically casual in a room full of silk blouses and cufflinks. He stepped forward, opened his laptop, and clicked the remote. “My name is Arjun Iyer,” he began, his voice a blend of caffeine and…
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Avni Sharma Cut. Camera. Chaos. Adil Mehta hated networking events. He hated the artificial laughter, the overflowing wine glasses, the desperate smiles hiding behind even more desperate scripts. But tonight, he had no choice. His rent was due, his bank balance read like a horror story, and his last script — a coming-of-age story about a grieving magician — had been rejected with a “Nice tone, but not marketable.” So he stood awkwardly at the corner of the Film Writers Guild mixer, nursing a warm soda and mentally rewriting every regret of his life. That’s when it happened. A shout,…
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Pritha Paul 1 Niharika Rao had precisely three rules in life: never eat cold idlis, never disrespect a raag, and never—ever—download a dating app. Unfortunately, on a humid Thursday morning in Bengaluru, two out of those three rules were broken. She sat cross-legged on her reed mat, sitar resting on her lap, and her forehead twitching in disbelief as her best friend Sonal leaned over with a smug smile. “Kultr,” Sonal said proudly, flashing the app’s screen. “Culture-only dating. No shirtless gym bros, just people who know who Mirza Ghalib is.” Niharika glared. “This is cultural heresy. I play raags,…
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Sanika Mehra Part 1 – The Truce Dress The first time I saw him, he was standing at the far end of the room like a statue carved out of contempt. Arjun Singh—my husband by decree, my enemy by blood—wore a black silk sherwani that looked like it had been stitched out of shadows. His eyes didn’t flicker when I walked in, dressed in bridal red and drenched in humiliation. He didn’t reach out, didn’t smile, didn’t nod. Just watched. As if he was trying to remember who I reminded him of. Maybe a girl in a firing range. Maybe…
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Amit Paul Chapter 1: The Snowlight Frame The sky above Spiti was a cruel, beautiful thing—too blue to trust. Arjun Rawat had been walking for hours, boots crunching softly over a thin crust of ice, camera slung across his chest like a talisman. He wasn’t just another tourist in search of selfies on mountain ridges; he was chasing something quieter, something lost. Delhi had drained him—clients who wanted glamour edits, weddings that looked like Bollywood trailers, and a personal life reduced to text message apologies. So when his friend mentioned a forgotten shepherd’s trail between Kaza and Chandratal that locals…
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Tara Mitra Part 1 — The First Gaze The sky over Goa wasn’t just blue—it was bold, like a canvas splashed with reckless abandon. Rhea stepped into the quiet artist residency nestled between palms and silence, her duffel slung over one shoulder and her thoughts as heavy as clay. She had come here to escape, to disconnect, to breathe. After fifteen years in Mumbai’s blistering art scene, she wanted to sculpt something not for a client or a gallery, but for herself. Something raw. Something honest. She wasn’t prepared to meet Ayan. He was leaning against the porch railing when…
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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…
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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…