• Crime - English

    The Burning Ghat

    August 5, 2025 - By 

    Vijoy Menon Part 1: Ashes That Speak The smoke rose like a slow, coiled prayer — grey and indifferent, curling against the dimming sky. At Manikarnika Ghat, the fires had no time to rest. One pyre faded, another was lit. Wood cracked, bones whispered, and the Ganges swallowed the silence of the dead with the same patience it gave the living. The priests moved like phantoms in ochre robes, their hands blackened with ghee and soot. No one cried here. Grief had long since turned into muscle memory. Devkant Mishra stood by the edge of the river, his white dhoti…

  • Crime - English - Suspense

    The Architect’s Alibi

    July 20, 2025 - By 

    Meghna Rao 1 The skies over Bengaluru were unusually clear that Thursday morning as dignitaries, media personnel, and shareholders gathered beneath a white canopy set up in front of the city’s newest architectural marvel—Skyrise X. Towering fifty-four stories high, its glass façade shimmered like a knife under sunlight, cutting through the skyline of the tech capital with defiant elegance. Designed by the legendary Arvind Raghavan and funded by real estate giant R&R Infrastructures, the building was hailed as the future of vertical urban living—complete with rooftop gardens, automated energy grids, and helipad access. Cameras flashed, champagne flowed, and applause erupted…

  • Hindi - क्राइम कहानियाँ

    काली खदान की चीख

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    शिवांगी राणा 1 कालाजोर। झारखंड-बिहार की सीमा पर बसा एक छोटा-सा कस्बा, जो अब धीरे-धीरे एक कोयला साम्राज्य की अंधेरी गहराइयों में समा चुका है। सूरज की पहली किरणें भी यहाँ की काली मिट्टी में अपना रंग खो देती थीं। एक समय था जब यहाँ जीवन था—खेत, मेले, और बच्चों की किलकारियाँ। अब हर कोने से सिर्फ एक ही आवाज़ आती थी—डंपर की घरघराहट, मशीनों की चरमराहट और… खदानों से उठती एक लंबी थकान भरी साँस। आईपीएस अधिकारी अवनि राय जब ट्रेन से उतरीं, तो सबसे पहले उन्होंने वही साँस सुनी—जैसे किसी ज़िंदा शहर के सीने पर कोयले की मोटी…

  • English - Non- Fiction

    The Final Objection

    June 22, 2025 - By 

    Neelesh Arora Part 1: The Widow in Red The rain had begun at dusk, steady and indifferent, as if the city hadn’t just lost one of its most powerful women. Meher Singh lay sprawled across her marble floor, the crimson pooling around her head like a rose wilting in reverse. Her silk robe, the color of old rubies, glistened under the dim lights of her Walkeshwar apartment. The cordless landline still hung off the hook, mid-call to someone who’d never answered. Detective Inspector Jayant Rawte had seen worse in his years with the Mumbai Homicide Bureau, but something about this…

  • 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 - Suspense

    The Crimson Lotus

    June 16, 2025 - By 

    The First Bloom The body was found just after dawn, lying sprawled in the middle of a crumbling courtyard in North Kolkata’s Ahiritola. A shriveled banyan tree stood sentinel over the scene, its roots crawling like veins across the red bricks. A milkman had stumbled upon it first, his cries waking the neighbors before the police could cordon off the area. ACP Ishaan Roy crouched next to the corpse, his sharp eyes tracing the placement of the limbs, the faint smudge of red near the mouth, the cuts too clean to be spontaneous. A fresh lotus flower, blood-soaked but otherwise…