• English - Young Adult

    When We Danced That Summer

    July 14, 2025 - By 

    Ira Mehrotra The Town That Smelled of Salt and Silence The train screeched to a stop like it wasn’t ready to let go of Rihan Bose. He stepped down onto the sun-bleached platform of Kavar, a small town that clung to the southern coastline like a secret. The salty wind stung his skin, and gulls screamed overhead as if announcing his arrival. Not that anyone was listening. It was the kind of town where nothing ever really happened. And that was precisely the point. Aunty Kamala, his grandmother’s housekeeper, was the only one waiting. She waved half-heartedly, holding a paper…

  • English - Young Adult

    Paper Boats in Powai Lake

    July 13, 2025 - By 

    Avni Kapoor One The school bell echoed through the marbled corridors of Ridgeway High, its chime too polished, too clinical—like the rest of the campus. Shaurya Mehta stepped out of the black BMW, his school blazer immaculately pressed, his expression unreadable. His driver wished him luck, but Shaurya barely nodded, already scanning the building as if preparing for battle. He walked through the glass doors, passing walls lined with motivational quotes and student achievement photos that featured kids just like him—groomed, rich, expected to shine. On the opposite end, a girl sprinted across the gate in scuffed sneakers and a…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Dance of Dreams

    July 9, 2025 - By 

    Divya Iyer (1) Anika sat quietly in the corner of her room, the soft glow of the evening sun filtering through the curtains, casting a golden hue on the worn pages of her Bharatanatyam manual. Her feet itched to move, her body longed for the rhythm, the dance that had been a part of her soul since childhood. But today, like every other day, she resisted. The sounds of her parents’ voices drifted from the living room, filled with the usual discussions of exams, school assignments, and future plans. Her father, Vishwanath, was in one of his moods—insisting that she…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Song of the Peacock

    July 9, 2025 - By 

    Vikram Nair Chapter 1: The Flute’s Call The sun hung low over the village of Vypin, casting long shadows across the palm-fringed backwaters that glimmered like silver ribbons. Arjun, a boy of sixteen, stood on the rickety dock, watching the fishermen return with their daily catch. The salty breeze tousled his unruly hair, and the familiar scent of the river filled his lungs. Yet, despite the peaceful scene around him, Arjun felt a deep sense of restlessness. His heart was not in the daily grind of fishing that his family had been bound to for generations. While his father, Raghavan,…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Monsoon Letterbox

    July 4, 2025 - By 

    Aarohi Jadhav Chapter 1: Rain, Reluctance, and Rust The bus ride to Dapoli was as grey and endless as the monsoon clouds that followed it. Vanya Kale sat hunched beside the window, her earbuds silent, the phone in her lap long out of charge. Her mother’s hurried goodbye still echoed in her ears — “It’s just for a month, sweetheart. He’s your grandfather, not a ghost.” But to Vanya, it was all the same. Her grandfather, Arvind Kale, a once-famous Marathi poet, now lived alone in a crumbling house overlooking the sea, speaking to no one and surrounded by furniture…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Playlist Project

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    Mayurakshi Deb One Jay Malhotra walked through the tiled corridors of St. Cecilia’s High School as if he were moving through static—half there, half not. Students passed in waves: some laughing, some shouting, some drowning in their own phones. He kept his earbuds in but played no music, just the illusion of sound to avoid conversations. Mondays were the worst. The sky outside hung like a faded grey hoodie, and inside his chest, the same damp silence coiled tightly. Jay moved to his locker, avoiding eye contact, already rehearsing excuses for why he hadn’t finished his chemistry worksheet. He spun…

  • English - Young Adult

    The Yearbook Lie

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    Part 1: The Caption That Shouldn’t Exist The bell rang for the last time that Friday afternoon, and the hallways of Lakemount High flooded with bodies—seniors hollering, juniors buzzing, lockers slamming shut like punctuation marks on a chaotic sentence. Avani Kapoor walked slower than most, her earbuds in, her playlist whispering solace. She didn’t need to rush. No one was waiting for her at the front gate. No one ever was. She stopped by the main office to pick up her copy of the senior yearbook, sliding her name onto the clipboard with practiced awkwardness. “One copy left, Kapoor,” said…

  • English - Young Adult

    Paper Tigers

    June 29, 2025 - By 

    Tarun Roy Chowdhury 1 Priyajit Sen always felt something breathing beneath the skin of Kolkata—a slow, unseen pulse carried by the rusted tramlines, the cracked facades of colonial buildings, and the tangled mess of alleyways where stories clung like moss on old bricks. At sixteen, he had grown used to slipping away after school, sketchbook in hand, to wander the city’s hidden veins. It was on one such humid afternoon, when the smell of wet books and tea leaves hung thick over College Street, that he stepped into a dusty secondhand bookstore tucked between a tea stall and a shuttered…

  • English - Young Adult

    Layover at Midnight

    June 28, 2025 - By 

    Rajesh Agarwal 1 Mira Kaul stepped off the plane from Pune with her sketchbook clutched so tightly in her hand that the cover bent slightly at the corners, the soft paper bruised by the pressure of her restless thumb. The Bangalore Airport smelled of strong coffee, polished floors, and quiet anticipation—a place caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, where strangers sat hunched over phones, and neon signs cast pools of sterile light across tired faces. Her connecting flight to Chennai wouldn’t leave until dawn, which meant six long hours of wandering in a place that wasn’t quite hers, surrounded by…

  • English - Young Adult

    Glass Wings

    June 26, 2025 - By 

    Ishita Desai Chapter 1: The Lighthouse Girl The sea was never still in Nila’s world. It breathed and broke and whispered, even in its quietest hours, and from the narrow balcony of the lighthouse, she watched it endlessly. The whitewashed tower stood like a forgotten guardian on the edge of the cliff, half-smothered in wild vines and coconut palms. The village below barely noticed its light anymore; satellite dishes had replaced the stars, and the lighthouse had become a relic, much like her. Nila turned sixteen that morning. There were no friends to wish her, no school group singing out…