• Crime - English

    Mirror of Shadow

    Sujan Ganguly 1 The rain had just begun to tap lightly against the wrought-iron balconies of Ballygunge’s aging colonial mansions when Ayesha Dutta was last seen. It was a quiet Wednesday afternoon in late July, and the streets of the upscale South Kolkata neighborhood glistened with monsoon stillness. Ayesha, seventeen and self-possessed beyond her years, had told her mother she was going to visit a friend to discuss a school literary project. Instead, she walked into the ivy-covered gates of Ananda Apartments — a five-story heritage building, once home to freedom fighters and now to retired bureaucrats, eccentric artists, and…

  • English - Suspense

    The Red Veil of Kaiserbagh

    Isha Mirza 1 Rhea Sen stepped off the dusty evening train into the heart of Lucknow, her senses immediately overwhelmed by the city’s curious blend of melancholy grandeur and stubborn life. Rickshaws rattled past the faded gates of old nawabi havelis, and the air carried the scent of marigolds, incense, and the distant, lingering sweetness of attar. As an art historian specializing in forgotten women of the Awadh court, she had dreamed of this moment for years: to walk the same stone paths once graced by courtesans whose dances whispered through history only in half-remembered couplets and brittle letters. Rhea…