Ira Sen Part 1 – Arrival in Assam The plane dipped low over the wide, lazy sweep of the Brahmaputra, and Devika pressed her face against the oval window. The river spread like a sheet of molten steel under the September sun, streaked with islands and sandbars, its surface broken now and then by the speck of a ferry or a line of fishing boats straining against the current. She had read about it countless times—this river that carried myths and nations on its back—but nothing prepared her for its vastness. It looked less like water and more like time…
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Leena Kapor Part 1 – The Postcard The postcard arrived on a wet Thursday morning, slipped through the letterbox of her narrow London flat like any other piece of mail, but it felt heavier than its paper weight suggested. Meera bent to pick it up, brushing raindrops from its surface. The picture side showed a winter street lined with red lanterns, snow settling like ash on tiled rooftops, a kanji script curling down the right edge that she couldn’t read. She turned it over, pulse tightening, because on the back was handwriting she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. Her father’s.…