• English - Young Adult

    The Kite of Dreams

    September 2, 2025 - By 

    Nikhil Pandey 1 The sun hung low over Ahmedabad, spilling its amber glow across the rooftops that seemed to stretch endlessly into the horizon. Every terrace was alive with color, movement, and laughter, the city preparing for the festival of Uttarayan. High above, kites of all shapes and hues fought against the playful gusts, dancing, dipping, and climbing as though the sky itself had been turned into a battlefield of dreams. Fifteen-year-old Aarav Patel leaned against the cool wall of his family’s terrace, the hum of the city below and the chorus of voices above filling his ears. His eyes…

  • English - Young Adult

    Almost, Always

    September 1, 2025 - By 

    Rahul Shukla 1 The night was quiet, with only the occasional hum of crickets breaking the stillness, when Rivan Malhotra and Aaryel Sen sneaked out of their homes to meet beneath the old banyan tree at the edge of their neighborhood. They were twelve then, armed with nothing but a pocketknife borrowed from Rivan’s uncle and the unshakable certainty that childhood often gifts. The tree stood massive and eternal, its roots crawling across the ground like veins, its branches spreading out wide enough to hold their secrets. With fumbling hands and suppressed giggles, they carved their names into the bark—clumsy,…

  • English - Young Adult

    Voices in the Rain

    September 1, 2025 - By 

    Eira Sen Part 1: The Crackling The rain always came suddenly in her town, not like the timid drizzles that brushed over other places but like an argument with the sky itself. That evening, Tara was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her grandmother’s living room, tracing lines on her notebook when the storm struck. The shutters rattled, the lights flickered, and the smell of wet earth rushed in through the gaps under the door. Beside her, on the wooden cabinet that had been in the house longer than she had, stood the old Philips radio. Its red dial and…

  • English - Young Adult

    Hashtag Hero

    August 30, 2025 - By 

    Ipsita Sharma One Kunal Malhotra sat at his cluttered study desk, a half-finished math assignment spread before him, the pages filled with doodles instead of equations. His hair was messy, his eyes half-closed, but the frustration boiling inside him refused to let him sleep. Tomorrow was another Monday—another week of endless homework, boring classes, and that dreadful morning assembly where students stood like robots reciting prayers they barely believed in. He opened his phone, intending to scroll aimlessly through memes until sleep took over, but something inside him snapped. Instead of laughing at someone else’s jokes, he turned the camera…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Midnight Cycle

    August 29, 2025 - By 

    Nikhil Varma 1 The night was hushed, the tech city’s towers glowing like watchful giants against the deep blue sky, when Vihaan Mehta quietly wheeled his bicycle out of the garage. The faint hum of air-conditioners and the occasional flicker of a neon sign were the only sounds breaking the silence. Vihaan, his mind heavy with equations and career expectations drilled into him by his parents, pedaled out into the open streets with a sense of release that was almost intoxicating. Each push of the pedal loosened the chains of suffocating responsibility. His heart raced, not with fear of being…

  • English - Young Adult

    Skyline Dreams

    August 28, 2025 - By 

    Niharika Gupta Chapter 1: Dreams Grounded Rohan Mehra sat cross-legged on the floor of his small Bangalore bedroom, his sketchbook balanced carefully on his knees. The hum of the ceiling fan above mingled with the faint noise of traffic from the streets outside, but he barely noticed; his world existed inside the fine pencil lines and rough outlines of wings and engines. Each page of his notebook bore traces of his obsession—wing spans carefully measured, landing gears penciled in with painstaking detail, and the occasional coffee stain from late-night work when he had refused to let sleep interrupt his imagination.…

  • English - Young Adult

    Notes Between the Pages

    August 27, 2025 - By 

    Arunesh Roy The last bell at school had just rung when Ananya slipped through the crowded lanes of College Street, a place she often escaped to when the chatter of her classmates felt too sharp for her quiet thoughts. The street was alive with its usual symphony—hawkers calling out offers, the clatter of trams in the distance, and the faint whiff of roasted peanuts mixing with the musty perfume of old books. Here, she felt both invisible and at home. Booksellers leaned against their stalls, surrounded by mountains of second-hand volumes stacked in haphazard towers that looked as though they…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Last Locker

    August 27, 2025 - By 

    Maya Kapoor The Key in the Notebook The day it happened was one of those sticky afternoons when the corridors of Crestwood High smelled faintly of chalk dust and disinfectant, and my hands were still ink-stained from the chemistry exam I had nearly failed. I remember because the bell had just rung, scattering students like restless birds, and I was still sitting in my seat, stuffing my calculator and a half-finished answer sheet into my bag, when something thin and metallic slipped from between the pages of my notebook and clinked against the floor. At first I thought it was…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Infinite Playlist of Ruhi Sen

    August 26, 2025 - By 

    Aanya Deshpande Part 1 – Rooftop Strings The city was heavy with heat that night, even though the monsoon had broken weeks ago. Ruhi Sen pushed open the creaky terrace door of their old two-storied house in Ballygunge, her guitar clutched tightly against her chest. Downstairs, her father’s voice still echoed from dinner, rising above the clatter of utensils: “Focus, Ruhi. No more distractions. IIT is not a joke.” Her mother had nodded in silent agreement. But here, on the rooftop, she was free. The sky hung low, thick with stars blurred by smog, and the distant hum of traffic…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Glass Horizon

    August 25, 2025 - By 

    Aaratrika Roy The evening the horizon cracked, the sea smelled like rusted coins and wet moss, and the sky wore the color of old bruises, and I stood on the seawall gripping my father’s compass like it might point me toward a version of myself that wasn’t stuck between everybody’s pity and my own silence; gulls shrieked overhead, kids played cricket on the sand with a plastic bat that had lost its stickers years ago, Naina texted three times to ask if I was still “brooding like a Victorian ghost” and I didn’t answer because the word brooding felt exactly…