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The House of Flowers by Aruna Chakravarti

Title: Creeping Shadows: 13 Ghost Stories

Author: Aruna Chakravarti

Publisher: Penguin India

The House of Flowers

Zihan stirred in his sleep. A chill breath passing over his limbs had awakened him. He strained his eyes, still heavy with wine fumes, and looked around. Where was he? This was not his room and this wasn’t his bed. He was lying in what seemed to be a small, confined space under an ornate gilded ceiling in a bed so soft, his limbs were sinking into its depths. The sky was paling with first light and long beams from a dying moon streamed in through the open window. The fragrance of an unknown flower, wild and sweet, filled the room. 

He turned his head towards the window. Something, like an opalescent haze, was obscuring his vision. At first, he thought it was a sheet of mist. Then, before his amazed eyes, it started to take a shape and form. It became a woman. He could see her slender limbs, smooth as white satin, shimmering through the garment that swayed and billowed around her form. Diaphanous as a film of gossamer. So light, it seemed woven out of moonbeams. Her face was swathed in mist.

The figure moved from the window and came gliding towards him. He could see her face clearly now. A perfect oval with apricot shaped eyes, brows like strung bows and hair that fell down her back like a sheet of black silk. He stared at the vision of loveliness so long and hard …his eyes began to hurt. He had never seen such beauty in a woman before.

She stood by his bed for a while gazing into his eyes, then lay down, her body light as a feather against his. Taking his face in her hands, she caressed it with a tenderness that reminded him of his mother’s touch. She drew the silky strands of her floating hair all over his naked body. Across his chest and abdomen, over his genitals, thighs and legs, down to the insteps of his feet. The wildflower scent from her limbs filled his nostrils. Her kisses fluttered on his lips, soft and cold as drifting snow…

The wine, still running in his blood, quivered in his veins. His limbs, untouched by a woman before, heaved luxuriously and his eyes closed in ecstasy. He drifted away…

How long he lay in this state of bliss, he couldn’t tell. It could be minutes. It could be hours. Gradually, an uneasy feeling came over him. Something heavy was pressing against his body. It was squashing his chest and squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He moved aside but the pressure grew in intensity, driving him further and further towards the edge of the bed. And now his heart beat rapidly with an unknown dread. What was happening? Was he still asleep and this a fearful dream? Suddenly his eyes sprang open and what he saw sent currents of ice water rippling down his spine. He felt the hot blood pulsing and pounding in his ears.  A muscle twitched and shuddered in his cheek…

The reed-slim body of the woman beside him had bloated to a colossal size. Her eyes, thin slits in the vast globe of her face, glittered with hate. Her mouth was a deep red gash through which yellow teeth, long and sharp as a panther’s fangs, hung to her chin.

The mountain of flesh was growing larger and larger every moment. It was filling the bed. He would fall over the edge any moment now. A scream gathered in his lungs but froze before it could reach his throat…

Suddenly she sprang on him; her nails sharp as claws ripping the skin off his chest and thighs. Digging her teeth into the soft flesh just below the right shoulder, she bit off a large hunk. Zihan’s eyes were glazed with pain and fear. He stared mesmerized as the monstrous creature rose from the bed and swayed and shuffled towards the opposite wall. She wore a garment of sheer white muslin that swelled and surged like waves about her form. Blood dripped from her slavering mouth and fell on the floor as her great body waddled, like a gorilla’s, from side to side. And now, for the first time, Zihan saw the coffin. It was open… 

Zihan screamed. Shriek after shriek burst from the throat that had been frozen all this while, hit the walls, and sent fearful echoes all through the house. Then, exhausted and half dead from shock and loss of blood, he lay motionless, whimpering like a child.

Kueilan was a light sleeper and the first to hear the cries. They seemed to be coming from the dead girl’s room. Her heart thudded with fear as she rushed to it and flung the door open. She stood where she was for a while, her eyes glued to the coffin. It stood in the same place but the seal was broken and its open lid rested against the wall. A lily-white hand with long tapering fingers was dangling from the edge. And now the lid began to move downwards. Slowly, soundlessly, it was falling in place. In a few moments it would reach the hand and crush it. A tremor ran through Kueilan’s frame. Her mouth opened in a scream but before she could utter a sound, the hand glided over the edge and slipped into the hollow where the rest of the dead girl lay. Then, before Kueilan’s amazed eyes, the coffin closed, the seal came together and all was as it had been.

‘Published with permission from Penguin Random House India from Creeping Shadows (2026)’.

About the Book:

The stories in Creeping Shadows are spread over a vast canvas, both in terms of time span and locale. A teahouse in ancient China. A brothel in nineteenth-century Calcutta. A forest lodge in Bankura. An old mansion in Bangladesh. A university campus in today’s Delhi. Beginning as human-interest narratives, they end with sudden, unexpected twists that raise hair ends and send trickles of ice water down the spine. Here are tales of shadows, tingles and chills…

About the Author:

Aruna Chakravarti has been principal of a prestigious women’s college of Delhi University for ten years. She is also a well-known academic, creative writer and translator with eighteen published books on record. They comprise five novels, two books of short stories, two academic works and nine volumes of translation.
Her first novel, The Inheritors (published by Penguin Random House), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and her second, Jorasanko, received critical acclaim and became a bestseller. Daughters of Jorasanko, a sequel to Jorasanko, has sold widely and received rave reviews. Her novel Suralakshmi Villa was adjudged ‘Novel of the year (India 2020)’ by Indian Bibliography published in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature U.K. Her other well-known works include The Mendicant Prince which has been shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize, and Through a Looking Glass: Stories. Her translated works include an anthology of songs from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitabitaan, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Those Days, First Light and Primal Woman: Stories. Her most recent work is titled Rising from the Dust.
Among the various awards she has received are Vaitalik Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sarat Puraskar. She is also a scriptwriter and producer of seven multi-media presentations based on her novels. Comprising dramatized readings, interspersed with songs and accompanied by a visual presentation by professional artists and singers, these programmes have been widely acclaimed and performed in many parts of India and abroad.

Click here to read her interview/review

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The Power of Compassion by Kailash Satyarthi

Title: Karuna: The Power of Compassion 

Author: Kailash Satyarthi

Publisher: HarperCollins India

What Is Compassion?

Who are we? What are we doing here? What is the purpose of life? These complex existential questions are best left to thinkers and philosophers. We could instead begin with a more straightforward query: What do we want from life? Though our aspirations are countless and various, the desire for happiness, contentment and peace is familiar to all of us. None of us seek sadness, pain or trouble. But life invariably acquaints us with these negative feelings and experiences.

Our ability to feel the suffering of others as our own and our consequent efforts to alleviate it are integral to the human experience. This has led to the creation of families, communities and organisations. If we were all to look away from the pain of others, none of us would have a shot at happiness. The stories of Chirag and a group of teenagers from Sweden help illustrate the true meaning of compassion.

The word ‘chirag’ means ‘lamp’ and, true to his name, Chirag brought light to corners that were once shrouded in darkness. After being rescued from slavery, Chirag had been brought years ago to Bal Ashram in Rajasthan, our long-term rehabilitation centre for children rescued from child labour, trafficking and slavery.

In 2015, an eleven-year-old boy called Mithun was rescued by my organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan[1], and also brought to Bal Ashram. He had been trafficked from his village and taken to the city, where he was forced into begging. When we asked him where he was from, he could only say ‘Bengal’. A case was registered with the West Bengal police, but without adequate details they failed to find his home. So, Mithun continued living and pursuing his education at Bal Ashram.

In 2020, the children at Bal Ashram were celebrating Chhath, a Hindu festival native to the state of Bihar. Mithun remembered that people in his village would also celebrate this festival with great pomp and show. He also said there was a bus stand and market near his home that his elder brother would visit often. Since Chirag was from Bihar, he guessed that Mithun’s village might also be in his state. Chirag then began showing a keen interest in Mithun’s story and could often be seen jogging his friend’s memory for more information. Borrowing a teacher’s phone, Chirag scoured the internet and—after many months of Google searches—found Mithun’s village, a place called Borna in Bihar’s Khagaria district.

When Chirag learnt that Google Earth renders three-dimensional representations of places with satellite imagery, he began using the software to find the bus stand and market Mithun had described. Looking at one of the images Chirag showed him, Mithun’s face lit up. He was convinced this was the bus stand near his village. Mithun also identified a shop he’d often visited with his elder brother. Chirag zoomed in and found a phone number on a board above the shop. When he called that number, the shop owner confirmed that years ago he had heard of a child being kidnapped from a village some 20 km away. He promised to look for Mithun’s brother and bring him to his shop.

The next day, Mithun finally spoke to his elder brother after five years of separation. Bal Ashram burst into celebration. The children lifted Chirag onto their shoulders and showered him with praise. A few days later, Mithun went back to Borna with his brother, who had come to get him. When I asked Chirag why he had tried so hard to find Mithun’s family, he said, ‘If my younger brother or I were lost like this, would I not have done the same thing?’ Today, Chirag is pursuing a management degree in Chennai, while Mithun is studying at a school near his village.

The following story is of a group of students from Sweden. They, accompanied by their teacher Ula Asberg, had come to visit Mukti Ashram several years ago. Mukti Ashram in Delhi is our short stay rehabilitation home for boys who have been rescued from child slavery and child labour. After the students returned home, they discussed among themselves how it was unfair that there was no such home for girls. At the time, the number of boys being rescued was more than girls and we did not have the funds for homes for both. The Swedish students felt it was necessary that girls who faced exploitation should have access to the same kind of help and support the boys did. They shared their intentions with their teachers, and not only did they collect a large amount by pooling their own pocket money and savings, but they also mobilised the teachers to contribute.

A few months later, when I was on a trip to Sweden, the students invited me to their school. They shared with me their wonderful initiative, telling me that they wished the money they had collected could be used to set up a rehabilitation home for girls. When I asked them what had made them do such a thing, they said, ‘Of what value are these krona to us? A few extra treats? But for the girls who are stuck in exploitation, this sum of money means life and freedom.’

I was spellbound by their compassion. After I returned to India, their contribution was used to set up a large rehabilitation home—including dormitories, classrooms, medical care and other rehabilitative facilities—for girls.

The actions of Chirag and the students from Sweden show that compassion exists all around us and that it is not a mythical force to be found only in legends and folktales. The spark of compassion lies within us all.

Think of what connects you and others in a manner that is both pure and profound. Oftentimes, you find the connection is so deep that it not only makes you responsible for another person but also creates an irrepressible desire to alleviate their suffering. This connection can also transcend human boundaries and extend to nature—to the climate, mountains, rivers, oceans, trees and animals. That intuitive expression is compassion.

Compassion is the force borne from feeling the suffering of others as one’s own that drives mindful action to end that suffering.

(Excerpted from Chapter 1 of Karuna: The Power of Compassion by Kailash Satyarthi, Published by HarperCollins India)

About the Book:

I see a world where compassion is the only solution. Do you see what I see?

Never before has our world been so wealthy, well-informed and technologically advanced. Yet we are facing an unprecedented crisis: humanity is plagued by conflict, inequality and indifference. It is imperative, therefore, that we rethink our approach to life and society, and that we do so now. The answer lies in karuna, compassion.

Compassion is not a soft emotion but a powerful force for transformation. It transcends borders, ideologies, religions and politics. And it asks only this: Act mindfully, as if the world is all one family—because it is.

Nobel Peace Prize awardee Kailash Satyarthi has fought for the rights and dignity of millions of marginalized people across the globe for the past five decades. For him, compassion is a way of life. In this new book, he shows us how karuna is the answer to our individual, social and global problems, and the key to a better future.

The Author

Kailash Satyarthi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has dedicated more than five decades to defending the rights and dignity of marginalized children and communities around the world. He believes Karuna—compassion—is the most powerful force for building a just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable world, and one that must guide how individuals, institutions and societies think and act.

[1] Save Childhood Campaign

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The Moonlight Saga by Arupa Kalita Patangia

Title: Moonlight Saga 

Author: Arupa Kalita Patangia

Translated from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Many, many years ago, even before time could be stamped with a number, our earth was absolutely empty. The utter silence depressed Singh Buga, the Adi devata—the First God. He could not live in peace in his heavenly abode. So Singh Buga decided to use his magical power to fill up the void with living things. But there was no soil on which they could be nurtured. Water, water, that’s all he saw everywhere. Yes, there was soil under the water, but who could bring it up from such depths? If only he could get some earth, even a small amount, he would fill it with trees and flowers, animals and other living beings. He thought and thought and then he created a leech, a crab and a tortoise. The leech was sent first to get some soil, but he failed in his mission. How could he go down to such great depths under the water? So, Singh Buga sent the crab. But for him too, the soil was too down below. At last, he sent the tortoise. The tortoise followed his Lord’s command and plunged in. He swam far into the depths, reached the bottom and touched the earth’s core. He smelled the earth, took a deep breath, rubbed some of the earth on his body, dug up some more that lay almost inert for eons under the cold water and carried it back for his Lord. Singh Buga was delighted and soon created all the things he desired. The earth that had lain lifeless underwater for thousands of years was touched by sunlight. Wind blew over it. It became full of life. The fertile land became green and spread to the horizon. Plants flowered, trees bowed down with the weight of ripe fruits. The earth was now full of colour. The God decided to create living beings. The calls of birds, animals and insects broke the silence. A pair of milk-white swans laid two eggs. From them Singh Buga created a pair of humans—a man and a woman. He was elated that men would now inhabit the earth. He let them live in a cave and waited with bated breath for news of a new arrival. But where was the news? He waited and waited, finally feeling crestfallen. The pair were very happy roaming around in the beautiful land, but they were ignorant about the mystery of creating life themselves. So, he made them drink laopaani—rice wine—to make their bodies throb with desire.

See that couple sitting morosely in a corner on the ferry? They are no older than the young couple Singh Buga had created out of two swan eggs. But this young couple exudes no sense of happiness. They belong to this burdensome earth; not for them the serenity of the pristine world that God Singh Buga had created. True, they worship him, but in their lives there is only pain and sorrow. Hunger and the torment of a painful existence has chased them every moment. Lack of peace and resentment towards their lot were their constant companions. Adi devata could intoxicate the young couple he had brought to life with liquor and generate in them a desire to create. But for this couple, even if God Singh Buga offered them the best drink, he would only lull them physically from the pain; he would be unable to awaken in them the ancient hunger of the body. Their minds were as dry as the drought-affected earth. On that famished land, only hot tears trickled down drop by drop. The hungry earth sucked in those tears instantly.

The girl, at the cusp of youth, looked utterly dejected. The long arduous journey had drained her energy. Her eyes shut, she rested her head on the shoulder of the equally exhausted young man sitting next to her. If she opened her eyes, the bright sunlight playing on the river’s surface dazzled her and made her head spin. She was too weak to move much.

Her name was Durgi. Durgi Bhumij. An expert sculptor seemed to have lovingly carved her figure. Her statuesque body had thinned down somewhat, but strangely, though wreaked by hunger and thirst, her light brown face had not lost its charm. She was, after all, Durgi—Durga mai, Goddess Durga. She was born during the autumn festival of Durga puja, when the throbbing madal drum was beating frenziedly outside their house. Her grandmother cut the umbilical cord, gave the baby a bath and placed her on her mother’s breast and said, ‘Durga mai has come to our house.’ The old woman named her Durgi in the likeness of the Shakti Goddess.

But now, her granny’s beloved Durga mai was facing terrible times. A devastating famine had crippled their land of red earth. Its canopy of forests of mahua, sal and teak were now filled with only heart-rending cries from hungry mouths, and death.

Durgi was at an age when she could digest even chips of stone. But there was nothing to eat. The fields lay dry. The white sahibs had taken away everything. There was no water in the river for them, no forests to pick fruits from. There was no work: no field to till, no forest to forage for potatoes and yams. Entering the forest for their age-old practice of hunting was banned. As was fishing in the river next to their village. All these now belonged to ‘others’. The only word that echoed through the land was: NOTHING…NOTHING. Nothing was left for them. Rice became as costly as gold.

There had been floods in the past, even droughts. But like a mother whose annoyance with a child does not last long, Mother Nature’s anger also did not carry on forever. The earth became indulgent again, green shoots showed up joyfully once more. But the kind of famine Durgi and her people were now facing was like coming up against a formidable hill they could not surmount…

(Extracted from Moonlight Saga by Arupa Kalita Patangia, translated from Assamese by Ranjita Biswas. Published by Speaking Tiger Books 2026.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the lush yet brutal landscape of colonial Assam unfolds a haunting chapter of history—the rise of the tea plantations and the human cost that sustained them. Drawn by promises of Assam desh—a land of dignity, abundance, and fair wages—Adivasi families from central India are packed onto overcrowded steamers and sent upriver, where hunger, disease and death shadow every step of their journey. Among them is Durgi, a young woman whose resilience endures even in despair. With her, she carries a small bundle of marigold seeds, a fragile memory of the land of red earth she has left behind. At her side is her husband, Dosaru, the rebellious archer, bound to her by love and the shared hope of building a life of their own. However, what awaits them at Atharighat Tea Estate is no promised land. Labourers are stripped, disinfected, confined to barracks, and driven into relentless work, while sickness, fear, and muted defiance simmer beneath the ordered rows of tea bushes.

Durgi’s life takes a complicated turn over the years—an intimate affair with Fraser, the white manager of the tea garden, results in the birth of three mixed race children. Their unequal relationship exposes another unspoken truth about plantation life—the generations of similar children, many of whom, abandoned by their white ancestors, still live in Assam’s tea gardens today.

Rooted in lived experience, Moonlight Saga gives voice to the forgotten men and women who built the empire’s ‘green gold’, bearing witness to their suffering, endurance, and fragile hopes—as the British Raj begins to crumble in the shadows of India’s Independence struggle.

Originally written in Assamese, the novel is a celebrated and much-discussed work in Assam, recognised for its unflinching portrayal of plantation life and its place in the region’s collective memory. Its translation into English opens up an essential regional story to a wider readership, ensuring that the sacrifices and struggles embedded in the tea gardens are not forgotten.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arupa Kalita Patangia is one of the best-known Assamese writers of today. She has five novels, twelve short story collections, several novellas, books for children, and translations into Assamese to her credit. In 2014, she received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for her book of short stories, Mariam Austin Othoba Hira Barua.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Ranjita Biswas is an independent journalist, fiction and travel writer, and translator. Ranjita has won the KATHA translation awards several times. She has also to her credit eight published works in translation.

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The Red Silk Dress

Title: The Red Silk Dress

Author: Natalie Turner

Publisher: Spines

The opening scene of The Red Silk Dress

Siem Reap, Cambodia—2015

Chapter One

She stepped out of the limousine. The brim of her white Panama hat brushed the car door, and dust from the spinning wheels of a departing silver Mercedes hung in the air like a shroud. She shot an irritated glance at the receding car. Why did everything have to feel so rushed? She exhaled slowly, a familiar weight pressing against her chest. She looked down at her Jimmy Choos, now dusted with sand—a small detail, yet enough to deepen her annoyance. Determined to regain a sense of control, she pulled a tissue from her bag and stooped to wipe them clean. Shielding her eyes with oversized black sunglasses, she lifted her gaze to the sun.

Surrounded by meticulously manicured gardens, the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, an elegant cream mansion with a red slate roof and white veranda, stood before her. Its old-world charm softened her irritation. Finally, a touch of class. Claudette hadn’t realised just how much she had missed it.

Beside the limousine stood Andrew, her husband, his tall frame casting a long shadow. Wiping sweat from his freckled forehead, the lines on his face betrayed stress and fatigue. She knew it was the toll of his work, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness.

“I’ll check in,” he said, frowning. Pulling a handful of US dollars from the pocket of his sun-bleached khaki shorts, Claudette watched as he paid the driver, a knot of emotion tightening in her chest. There had been a time when he was light-hearted—playful even—but those days were long gone. Now his frown served only as a reminder of how distant they had become. His efforts to avoid meaningful conversation only deepened her frustration, and their relationship rarely stretched beyond the children’s schedules and his business travel plans.

“Monique, Pierre, wait!” she called to their ten-year-old twins. Overcome with excitement, they ignored her and sprinted up the hotel steps. Waving to catch their attention, she dropped her mobile. “Mon Dieu. Can you tell the children to stop for a moment?” Andrew turned his back and waved dismissively. Why does the burden of responsibility always fall on me? It was a familiar pattern. She was tired of feeling unheard and unimportant. Picking up her phone, she tucked a strand of long dark hair behind her ear and lowered her hat to shield her face from the sun. Following the twins up the steps, she entered the hotel.

“Ma’am.” A butler bowed as he offered a cold-pressed towel. Grateful for his attentiveness, she thanked him and pressed it to her face. Its cardamom-infused aroma lingered on her lips, and her fingers tingled from its cool, damp texture. Wiping her hands, she smiled and placed the towel on a small bronze plate. Determined to shake off her discomfort, she followed him into the cool, air-conditioned lobby and stepped into the lounge. Notes of Duke Ellington’s ‘Sophisticated Lady’ drifted through the air, accompanying her inside. It was one of her favourite songs. A wave of nostalgia, stirred by Sarah Vaughan’s mellow voice, carried her back to her days as a fashion student in a Parisian jazz bar. How she missed those days—when everything felt simple, possibilities stretching ahead like an open road. Days before she met Andrew, when her dreams were bright and believable. For a moment, the memories wrapped around her like a warm embrace. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She wanted more than the façade of a glamorous life; she longed to feel alive again. She sat down on a muted gold velvet sofa, hoping this weekend she might rediscover the Claudette she once was.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the mystical temples of Angkor Wat to the glittering expat communities of Malaysia and the elegance of Paris, the novel is a story of longing, courage and transformation. Claudette, a French expat trapped in a loveless marriage, is captivated by Som, a charismatic Cambodian whose passion for his homeland awakens desires she thought were lost. Torn between duty and an awakening that promises freedom, but at a cost, Claudette must choose or risk losing the life calling her name. An intimate journey through the beauty and ache of second chances, the risks we take for love, and the secrets we keep, even from ourselves. For everyone longing to reclaim identity, this story will linger long after the final page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalie Turner is a British author based in Lisbon. Her debut novel, The Red Silk Dress, is an upmarket literary exploration of longing, courage, and awakening, set across Cambodia, Malaysia, and Paris. Alongside her fiction, she writes a reflective cultural column exploring creativity, imagination, and the human dimensions of change. She is also the author of the award-winning non-fiction book Yes, You Can Innovate. Drawing on years living across Southeast Asia and Europe, she writes about women at thresholds, the landscapes that shape us, and the quiet moments where life begins to change.

Click here to read the author interview

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The Struggle by Showkat Ali

Title: The Struggle: A Novel

Author: Showkat Ali

Translators: V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

It was being said that the landlords were terribly angry, and that apparently they would not let the sharecroppers harvest the paddy. The paddy would be cut by people brought from outside. If there was a conflict over the matter, only Allah knew what would happen. Phulmoti did not know any prayers or Quranic verses; ‘Allah’ and ‘Bismillahe Rahamanur Rahim’ were the only sacred words she knew. She inwardly uttered those whenever the fear overwhelmed her.

One morning, Qutubali suddenly spotted someone in the distance, running along the boundary ridge towards their house. The person appeared familiar. So, he kept looking, trying to make out who it was. And why on earth was he running like that?

He recognized the man soon enough. ‘Aare, it is Mahindar!’ Qutubali advanced. Gasping for breath, Mahindar informed him that he had been to Ranisankoil to meet the peasants’ union there. He said he saw many men from Bihar at Pirganj station. They had long-moustachioed faces, and were hefty of build, and they were all carrying long lathis with a brass grip. He had heard that they were going to the house of the landlord Mitra Babu of Ranisankoil to guard the paddy fields. Apparently, thieves were cutting the paddy and taking it away and so the paddy on his field had to be guarded.

Qutubali grew anxious when he heard the news. Both of them rushed to the market, discussing the matter as they went. If the landlords in their locality too brought in Bihari watchmen from the west and made them guard the paddy fields, what would the peasants do? Would the watchmen let the sharecroppers cut the paddy? And what if they did not? Would the sharecropping peasants sit idly by with folded hands? The plough and the bullocks belonged to the sharecropper; he was the one who toiled, and it was he who raised the crop. Would he have no claim over that crop now? Would they not permit him to even enter the crop field? What nonsense was this? Hired musclemen from Bihar to guard ripe paddy in the fields was simply unacceptable!

Both of them were in agreement. No, the sharecroppers would cut the paddy. If there was resistance, then a fight would break out, and if indeed it did, then they must fight.

‘There’s no option but to fight,’ Mahindar said. ‘Let anyone say what they want, but we must fight.’

When they reached the union office, they saw that Baram Horo was already there, puffing on a beedi. He was surprised to see the two of them.

‘You people? Where’s Mondol? And Dinesh?’

Qutubali and Mahindar were startled. ‘Why, was Delbar Mondol supposed to come here?’

‘Yes,’ Baram said. ‘Dinesh asked Mondol to come. He needs to be here.’

‘Why? What happened?’

The news wasn’t good, Baram informed them. ‘Instructions have been received in all the police stations that since the paddy in the landlords’ fields might be looted, the police must guard the paddy with rifles until the harvest is over. I think they won’t let the sharecropping peasants cut the paddy.’

They didn’t realize how quickly the day passed—it was already afternoon. A lot of people had joined them by now. All were sharecropping peasants, except for Dr Abhimanyu Sen. There were discussions and information was shared. No one could say what the district-level leaders had decided.

‘They will decide what they think is appropriate,’ Doctor Babu said, ‘but will we sit twiddling our thumbs because of that? The landlords are bringing musclemen. We can’t bring guns, but we too have to pick up lathis. This isn’t anything new; the peasant earlier carried a cattle-prod, now he’ll carry a six-foot-long lathi of seasoned bamboo. Go, brothers, go and cut lathis from bamboo clumps…’

Dinesh Murmu kept shaking his head, growling, ‘What rubbish is this! Saala, the government, police and political parties are all on the side of the landlords. No one is on our side.’

The stalks full of ears of ripe paddy stood all over the floodplain with their heads bowed, waiting for the festival of harvest to begin! But the festive moment never arrived.

Qutubali was unable to sleep. Countless millions of stars shed dew smeared with blue light as the night advanced towards the next horizon. From many faraway fields could be heard the cries of ‘Hoshiyar…jaagte raho—o—o… Beware, stay awake!’ He had seen with his own eyes that Ghosh Babu too had brought a hired band of Bihari guards from Purnea district. He had no idea whose counsel the Mistress had followed in taking this step. Was she planning on getting the paddy cutting done by someone else? What about the task of husking the paddy? That too?

His wife was asleep next to him, as was his son, but he remained awake.

At some point during those still hours, Doctor Babu arrived at their house on a bicycle. He gave clear instructions: Delbar Mondol and Mahindar Burman were not to remain at home at night, nor were they to set foot in the nearby town or the marketplace in the market town. If they did, they might be arrested by the police and sent to jail. Doctor Babu also conveyed the news that the police had gone to arrest Dinesh and Baram, but fortunately, they couldn’t. Having got the news, the two had gone into hiding.

‘We are not going to start fighting just now…that’s right… but that doesn’t mean that we will let the police catch us,’ Doctor Babu said. ‘We will be careful and keep ourselves safe. And we will cut the paddy and bring it home—we must keep that in mind.’

No cutting of the paddy, no ploughing of the soil for the next crop, just sitting and waiting! If the ears dried up, would the paddy be fit to cut? All the stalks would drop off their ears.

Extracted from The Struggle: A Novel by Showkat Ali, translated by V. Ramaswamy and Mohiuddin Jahangir. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Set in a remote village in the Dinajpur region of undivided Bengal during the mid-1940s, The Struggle tells the intertwined story of Phulmoti—a young widow fighting to hold on to her land, her dignity and her child—and Qutubali, a simple-minded outsider whose unexpected kindness and fierce loyalty make him her unlikely ally amid the upheavals of a precarious feudal order and the stirrings of a nation on the verge of independence.

The death of Phulmoti’s husband shatters her fragile world. Her ten-year-old, Abed, can offer little defence against the men now circling her—neighbours, relatives, even the local cleric—drawn by desire and the lure of her small property. Malek, a kindly bookseller at the local market, too, proves not to be what he seems. It is Malek’s hired hand, Qutubali, who finds himself drawn into her struggles, standing by her in ways that others do not. The politics of the Congress and the Muslim League hover on the margins of village life, far removed from their daily battles. But when the tebhaga struggle breaks out in Bengal—with sharecroppers demanding two-thirds of the harvest from landlords as their rightful due—Phulmoti and Qutubali stand to lose what little of their lives they have pieced back together.

First published in 1989 as Narai, this novel is not only a vivid portrayal of endurance in the face of isolation and rural exploitation, but also a sharp indictment of the social and political systems that deny justice to the poor. This sensitive translation introduces to a wider audience a forgotten classic of Bengali literature—politically clear-eyed and deeply moving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Showkat Ali (1936–2018) was a renowned Bangladeshi novelist, short story writer and journalist whose work explored history, class and identity in Bengali society. His most celebrated novel, Prodoshe Prakritojon (1984), is considered a landmark in Bangladeshi literature.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

Mohiuddin Jahangir is currently Assistant Professor in Khabashpur Adarsa University College, Bangladesh. His articles on literature, history and heritage have been published in scholarly journals, and he is the author of seven books.

V. Ramaswamy has translated many well-known Benglai authors. He was awarded the Translation Fellowship by the New India Foundation, and the English PEN Presents award in 2022.

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The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

Title: The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta

Author: Anuradha Marwah

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Boyfriend

There is communication because there is no communication, thundered the supervisor in a sudden spurt of lucidity.

Three dark heads bent obediently over the notebook to glean these pearls of wisdom.

‘When I say cat, you may think of a black cat, a white cat, a fat cat, a thin cat…’

I wondered where to put this in. I was going to write a dissertation on A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, I had decided last night. At what point should I bring in the feline? This brand new structuralist approach… For the past twenty minutes, this impressive lady from Sorbonne had only spoken about the difficulty in identifying cats. I had even drawn one in my notebook. Structuralism had spread far and wide, she had told us; it had reached Cornell, where a professor had simplified it at once for the simple non-European brain. Only Americans are capable of such simplifications, she had added laughingly.

Cornell, America… Vinita.

Vinita had changed so much. She now had a baby girl. She did all the household chores herself, she had told me. She had become plump. Her breasts had lost their upright quality; she had even started applying a lot of make-up—bright lipstick, mascara and eyeshadow.

She wouldn’t know about American universities though—that wasn’t the America she had gone to. She had gone to drudgery and loneliness… No servants to chat with all day long.

In Ratish’s house, there were servants… Lakshmi said Ratish was far too predictable. She said I was predictable too. That I would get married in a hotel, watched by a whole lot of people I didn’t know; that I would have two easy deliveries and be pleasantly miserable all my life. She even predicted I would get fat.

When I told her I wasn’t predictable and would make her sit up one day, she began singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’.

Every discourse has a mediatory role as an instrument of change.

Who would mediate between my estranged parents and me?

Which discourse—the discourse of commitment or the discourse of tradition? Lakshmi or Ratish?

Ratish had come to Desertvadi to say that he loved me. Mummy had said it was absolutely dreadful the way I could never make up my mind about boys. She had cried. Andy had cried too; Papa was the only one who hadn’t. And then, suddenly, there had been a letter from the university saying I had cleared the written exams for the MPhil programme, would I appear for an interview?

I was where I wanted to be, for the first time in life, although the umbilical cord of parental expectations was yet to be cut… Ratish said he valued family and respected my parents, and that I should be gentle with them… Cruel to be kind, kind to the potential children in my womb. What if there weren’t any? What if I couldn’t have any? So much of our planning would go haywire, Ratish. I would have been cruel for nothing.

There would be nothing to do except cry or make a phone call to your office… No patter of little feet. What would I do with you then?

Tonight, we are going for a party, I will ask you then.

Words are either arbitrary or associational.

Is that a word, ‘associational’, or was it coined in Sorbonne this very summer? Lakshmi says it would be better to check the professor’s antecedents; perhaps she is not from Sorbonne at all.

Lakshmi looks down on our department anyway.

Economics people have this strange nose-in-the-air attitude towards languages. Our department was housed in the School of Languages, so everybody thought it was a Linguistics department… But we were doing literature, three of us. One was from Utkal University, Orissa; another from Ramakrishna Mission, Pondicherry; and I, from Rajasthan University.

I was disappointed that there was nobody from Lutyenabad in our course. All Lutyenabad students went to the Capital University because all the jobs were there. I had heard that there was a danger of never landing a job in Lutyenabad after doing an MPhil from Jana University.

So Andy, your curse may yet materialize—if I don’t have children and I don’t get a job. You had said as much, hadn’t you?

‘You will never be happy, Geetika, never… Don’t think you can find happiness by wrecking mine.’

But what could I do, Andy?

‘Geeti, my mother wants us to marry,’ you had said.

‘But Andy, my parents do not want me to marry yet.’

‘Look, the situation is getting very difficult for me. My parents are rather worried about the fact that your parents have not made any overtures to them.’

‘Why don’t you explain to them—’

‘I have done enough explaining. Your brother got married without even calling his parents for the wedding…’

‘What does Bhaiya have to do with this?’

‘Geeti, I can understand my parents… They didn’t question my decision to marry you. Surely, they are entitled to some sort of say in my affairs.’

‘I am not saying they are not…but Andy, what am I to do?’

You could never answer that one, could you, Andy? It just went on and on—your duty towards your parents, the obduracy of mine. I was tempted, sorely tempted, to just tell my parents that I was marrying you that very day but Ratish’s card saved me.

It came by the evening post the day you left Desertvadi after extracting a promise from me that I would speak to my parents. It was a lovely card; it said: ‘I can’t forget you, little one’.

It became easier to write that letter to you, dear Andy… It became easier to tell you, when you came running after receiving that letter, that it won’t work… But it wasn’t easy dealing with the lava of your frustrated anger as it burnt down my unsuspecting ears whenever I picked up the phone for months after that.

‘You bitch, you found somebody else at the Sportsaid, didn’t you? Don’t think you can ever be happy with him…’

Discourse becomes necessary because of the ambiguity inherent in the nature of language.

But I understood even what you didn’t say… I knew that I had wronged you, Andy. I did not cry as much as you did; I would have to make up for it. I had always appeased the gods by crying… This time, I slipped up…

About the Book: Desertvadi, Rajasthan, is a retirees’ paradise, but for a young girl like Geetika it is a claustrophobic trap. Academically gifted and sexually curious, she feels suffocated by small-town mediocrity and dreams of faraway lands and liberated lives – the kind that fill the pages of her beloved novels.

So, when an opportunity to study in the big, bustling Lutyenabad presents itself, Geetika leaps at it, eager to get away from her parents and the miasma of chronic boredom that envelops Desertvadi. Soon cosmopolitan life begins to feel like a snug fit especially when her new boyfriend, a famously fine catch, offers her the many luxuries of a conventional marriage.

But life in a metro impacts her in ways she never expected. Her aspirations inflate, her tastes evolve, and her ambitions solidify.  As her boundaries expand uncontrollably and the daydreams she was escaping to inevitably shatter, Geetika is compelled to face some tough questions.

Published in 1993, The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta was one of India’s earliest campus novels. Republished for a new generation, this is a bold and intimate coming-of-age tale – unafraid of its hunger and unashamed of its heat.

About the Author: Anuradha Marwah is a professor, playwright, and novelist. Her wide-ranging publications also include poems, essays, articles and reviews. Aunties of Vasant Kunj, her fourth novel was published in 2024 to immense acclaim. Anuradha lives in Vasant Kunj, surrounded by a community of trees and cats.

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Leonie’s Leap

Title: Leonie’s Leap

Author: Marzia Pasini

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

“Son,” Hridaya whispered again, this time with an edge that made him quiver. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“I don’t,” Leonie answered, still shaken by his visions.

“Then I’ll tell you: this is your last incarnation. Your chance to break free from the cycles of separation and denial that have kept you bound. Do you know what this means?”

“I don’t,” he admitted.

Hridaya took a moment to adjust his robe, then gripped Leonie’s forearm, his voice low. “It means your ancient soul chose to return to this plane one last time for the purpose of liberation. Divine destiny is with you, but you still have the will to reject it. If you turn away, the universe will keep sending the lessons you need to learn. Ignore them, and they’ll get harsher. Do you understand?”

Leonie shrugged in resignation. “What does it matter what I’ve come here to learn?” he murmured, his gaze falling to the ground. “I’m all alone, anyway.”

“Nonsense,” Hridaya countered, his grip on Leonie’s palm firming.

“You are no orphan, but a beloved child of the universe. Though you may feel displaced, your soul is anchored to the womb of the world; your hands inter-twined with the pulse of creation. It is only in the folly of ignorance that we choose to desert ourselves, becoming orphans to our very own souls.

“Look,” he said, squinting his blind eyes as if sensing Leonie’s pain, “I know life doesn’t always add up the way we want it to, but that doesn’t mean we should stop counting our blessings. You see, there is no good or bad luck, really, only wisdom to be gained from our unmendable human condition.

“Our personal stories shape us, but they do not limit or define us. In the end, who we truly are escapes all form and definition. It doesn’t matter, then, what star you were born under or which side of the river you drank from— obstacles will arise either way. You must not get discouraged, son. We are here to pave the way for each other, learning to see clearer so we can love better.

The fortuneteller paused, as though listening for a distant whisper only he could hear. Then, with his head tilted toward the sky, he continued: “At any point, we can give our life a hundred different names or simply call it grace. It all depends on how well we learn to see through things. Sometimes the greatest trials turn out to be our highest blessings. Other times, we are left with indelible wounds, marks that cannot be erased or repaired. But if we carry our hurt with grace, the scars stitched onto our skin become luminous constellations guiding our way home.

“Now happiness is the common road. But freedom? Here the road forks. The path of freedom is not the way of the masses, nor the aspiration of the tribe. Many of us meddle with freedom, but freedom has little to do with getting things our way, possessing what we desire, or feeling good about this or that.

“Before we’re born, freedom is woven into the fabric of our souls. As children, we understand this instinctively, but as we grow, this knowingness fades, leaving us nostalgic or in denial. Only a rare, disgruntled minority set off on a quest to reclaim what’s been lost. Some journey far, sometimes to the farthest edges of the earth. Don’t get me wrong. At times, the search is required. Yet what really matters is never the distance we travel, but how deep we are willing to dive to illuminate the shadows.”

“Son,” the fortuneteller leaned in, his voice dropping to a secretive whisper. “You’ll hear many promising you something better or more. It seems to me everyone hopes to hoard magic, but the pot of gold doesn’t just sit at the end of the rainbow. Treasures pepper the trail. Each day, the path unfolds, ever unwritten. Now tell me, what does your heart long to know more than anything so it may be made free again?”

Silence pervaded the forest once more. A gentle breeze brushed against Leonie’s face as he gazed out at the water, then back at the man. “The truth about my mother,” he uttered. “That is what I’d like to know most.”

Hridaya sighed deeply. “The truth, son, will set you free, but to do so, it must break open your heart first. Are you sure this is what you want to know more than anything?”

A tremor rippled through Leonie’s heart. He knew that the truth, whatever it was, would hit like a punch to his chest.

***

Dearheart, perhaps you, too, have felt the sudden whack of truth—a force you have avoided, fearing it could shatter the world as you know it. Be honest: how often have you told a white lie to help someone save face or feel better? How many times has something inside you desperately wanted to live out the truth, and at the same time hoped it would never be revealed?

There’s no escaping it: the truth is seldom subtle. It’s a hurricane, exposing what you’ve kept covered. If we let the truth be destructive, it will wreak havoc. Yet honesty doesn’t have to be crushing; it can be as gentle as blushing. Gentle honesty is wise and discerning. It doesn’t weaken relationships; it deepens them. Speaking the truth is never about being rude, harsh, or unfiltered—it’s about upholding integrity in the centre of your heart. After all, honesty is a prickly rose. It must be handled with care, carried with grace, and delivered with unbending kindness. Even if it’s tough, lean into the hard conversations softly and speak your heart boldly. Stand for the truth—whatever the cost. Anything less is fickle, unreliable, and untrustworthy.

Dearheart, have you ever wondered about that tingle keeping you awake at night? Where does the fiery inspiration spark from? Why does your soul beckon you in? Consciousness is ever awake, whether you are asleep, stumbling, or taking the leap. It patiently waits for you to unlock the mysteries of your spirit and embrace the liberating journey that awaits.

About the Book

Leonie’s Leap tells of the adventures of a fifteen-year-old orphaned acrobat who escapes his dreary life to join the circus as a trapeze artist. Just as the daring acrobat takes the bold plunge into the unknown, your inner exploration reveals the hidden wonders within.

Your capacity to return to this wild inner landscape is the answer to your deepest longing, the home where every prayer settles. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what path you have chosen—every bit of YOU knows it: you were born to live vibrantly from your depths. The world needs you to dwell in your wildly liberated heart. It breathes through your sacred dreams. Your wings. Your feet.

Are you ready to leap?

About the Author

Marzia Pasini is a writer and life coach devoted to heart consciousness and the sacred return to self. With a background in Philosophy and a Master’s in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics, she began her career in international development, working with the United Nations and the Office of Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan. Two life-altering health crises sparked a profound inner shift, inspiring her to help others reconnect with their inner freedom and truth. She has also authored a children’s book Satya and the Sun, which follows a young girl on a magical journey through her fear of the dark—offering an empowering reflection on change, trust, and the unknown.

Originally from Italy, Marzia has lived in six countries and now makes her home in India with her husband and two children.

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Delhi’s Haunted Monuments

Title: Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments 

Author: Eric Chopra

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

JAMALI-KAMALI

Menacing Jinn and Forbidden Pasts

Do people who come here ask you about the jinn?’ My question lingered in the air for a bit. I was in the courtyard of a medieval mosque. At nightfall, this monument is entrancing, with its white marble dazzling against the red sandstone and the medallions on the spandrels of its pishtaq (arched entrance) appearing as glaring white eyes.

‘That’s all they mostly ask…’ said the guard as he began to dig through his pockets, looking for a key upon my request. ‘But I have my guru’s blessings, nobody has harmed me! And see this, that very guru allows me to find everything.’ He triumphantly raised his hands and dangled the keys which would open the perpetually locked gate of the graveyard that hosts the supposedly ‘haunted’ tomb adjacent to the mosque.

I remember how strong the scent of the devil’s tree, Saptaparni, was that evening. This is the fragrance of October in Delhi, playing its part as the harbinger of winter. The intensity of the aroma was unsurprising since I was surrounded by trees as I made my way through the Mehrauli Archaeological Park. The moon was aglow, and so was the Qutb Minar, (Fig. 23) India’s tallest minaret that oversees this part of the city like a powerful ancestral force.

There have been times aplenty when I have been warned to not come to this park after sunset, not only because of its forested environs but also for the unseeable forces who are believed to inhabit it. ‘At least tie your hair…’ I am told by the flower-sellers who sit in rows across the narrow road outside one of the entrances to the park. My hair, if left untied, is an invitation for the menacing jinn to follow me, and not only that, they would also leave an imprint across my cheeks: ‘Beware…they will slap you!’

Jinn are ‘intermediary’ and complex beings who are made of smokeless fire, unlike humans, who are made of clay. In Islam, both humans and jinn are subject to the Revealed Law and will be held accountable for their actions on the Day of Judgement. Like humans, jinn are considered ‘responsible beings’ as they possess the freedom to choose how they lead their lives. However, they also have unique characteristics: shape-shifters, invisible entities, and magical trickery. While the jinn do possess these abilities, their power serves as a test, and they will face consequences if they misuse it to terrorise people.

But it is not that these jinn float and reside in the many niches that this historical park is dotted with. There is a particular place where they have found refuge, at the tomb and mosque of Jamali Kamboh—a Sufi, courtier, poet, emissary, and globe-trotter. But if you ever find yourself in Mehrauli and ask anyone about him, you would never hear his name being taken alone. It is always in companionship with Kamali, the identity that local lore has given to the mystery man that Jamali is buried next to.

Together, Jamali-Kamali are found in a single-storied mausoleum as magnificent as the meaning behind Jamali’s name: the one who inspires beauty. Resembling a gem-box, it is even protected like one since special permission is required to see it from the inside, though legends will also have you believe that it must also be kept that way so as to not provoke the wrath of the jinn. The monument that is always accessible in this complex is the mosque, also built by Jamali, and to its north is where his tomb lies, in a cemetery surrounded by other open-air graves.

But on that October evening, my request to be let inside had been granted. As the guard reached the graveyard’s gate, the locks clinked and clanked, and I wondered how I would make a rather frustrating character in a horror movie, much like those who are aware of the consequences and yet become responsible for incurring the curse of the Mummy. But I didn’t have to dwell on this thought for too long for by then, the gate had been opened, and I marched purposefully towards Jamali-Kamali.

A chained wooden door shields this square tomb. To get a glimpse of the interiors, one has to walk to its northern and eastern sides which boast beautiful sandstone jalis (latticed window screens). To its north I went, lured by the devil tree’s scent marrying the aroma of the incense sticks that had been lined right under the screen. The guard told me that somebody had come earlier to the tomb to pray and had lit those sticks. ‘But even when there are no agarbattis here, I still always get a whiff of them,’ he said.

I peeked in through the screen and there they were in their shiny graves, right next to one another—Jamali and Kamali. They rest under a domed ceiling that gleams with magnificent motifs and its edges sing the verses of Jamali. It  appears as if these two spend their afterlife at peace under an ornate galaxy of red, white, and blue.

Having beheld its magic, it was puzzling. How does something so precious come to attain the reputation as one of the city’s most haunted sites? But there were more questions. About its uniqueness: how does such a pioneering sixteenth-century tomb, spanning the period between the decline and rise of two dynastic epochs, find itself in Delhi’s first city? About its multiple identities: how can this monument be a place of horrors and simultaneously a haven of sanctity and an oasis for lost histories? And inevitably, about its enigma, not only due to the jinn, but also because of Kamali: who really was this man, sometimes seen as Jamali’s pupil, at other times his friend, and often, his lover?

It is through the untangling of these various threads which tie Jamali-Kamali together that we may reach closer to understanding what makes this place so astonishing. And thus, the story can only begin at one place…

(Extracted from Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments by Eric Chopra. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025)

About the Book

Delhi is haunted—by its ghosts, its ruins, and its unending capacity for rebirth. In the shadow of medieval mosques and Mughal tombs, the past refuses to stay buried. Saints, Sultans, poets, and lovers—all linger in the city’s imagination, their stories shaping how we remember what once was.

In Ghosted, historian and storyteller Eric Chopra journeys through the capital’s most beguiling sites—Jamali-Kamali, Firoz Shah Kotla, Khooni Darwaza, the Mutiny Memorial, and Malcha Mahal—to unearth a Delhi that exists between worlds: a palimpsest where Sufis bless kings, jinn listen to grievances, and begums occupy dilapidated hunting lodges. What begins as a search for Delhi’s haunted monuments becomes a meditation on why we are drawn to the dead and how ghost stories become vessels of collective memory.

Blending archival research with folklore, myth, and reflection, Chopra paints an intimate portrait of a city forever in dialogue with its former selves. Through invasions and rebirths, he reveals that Delhi’s spirit resides not just in its monuments but in the unseen presences that linger among them.

Ghosted is a lyrical, haunting journey through the city’s spectral landscape— an invitation to listen to what its echoes tell us about memory and identity.

About the Author

Eric Chopra is a public historian, writer, media creator, podcaster, and the founder of Itihāsology, an inclusive platform dedicated to Indian history and art. He leads a range of heritage experiences at museums and monuments and designs history-musicals in which he performs as a storyteller. Chopra is the co-host of the For Old Times’ Sake podcast and Jaipur Literature Festival’s Jaipur Bytes podcast. He also writes and curates for numerous festivals and events focused on history, literature, and the performing arts.

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Dreiser, Melville: Birds of a Feather

Title: Theodore Dreiser — The Giant

Author: Wayne F. Burke

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) reached apotheosis of his literary endeavour with his 1925 publication An American Tragedy. In the following twenty years, until completion of the The Bulwark in 1946, nothing he wrote remotely equaled the power of the tragedy. His opus plus Sister Carrie has become a classic—so too Jennie Gerhardt to a less heralded extent. Some of Dreiser’s short stories, such as “Nigger Jeff”, “St. Columba and the River”, and “The Lost Phoebe”, could stand on their own in any American or world anthology. Due to its narrative thrust and other attributes (powerful romance), The Financier was and is the best of Dreiser’s ‘Trilogy of Desire’ (including The Titan and The Stoic). The first three-quarters of the autobiography Dawn made for compelling reading, as did all of the essays in Twelve Men. The Bulwark was and is a minor classic, truncated but yanking at heart strings as adamantly if not for as long as any of Dreiser novels. Newspaper Days, the second volume of his autobiography is a baggy and verbose twin of the heavily, and unfortunately edited, A Traveler at Forty.

“The last great American writer of Melvillean dimensions,” Jerome Loving wrote of Dreiser. Dimensionality and similarity is each writer’s search to uncover and understand the phenomenon of existence. It’s a spiritual quest, though neither men have any sectarian belief (Melville nominally Unitarian). What is and to whom does the “oversoul” of Emersonian transcendentalism belong? To Dreiser, the grand protagonist life itself suggests a something else: God or gods perhaps, behind the display of natural phenomenon. Hs opus suggests that God or gods, or the “Creative Force,” used humankind for his, her, its own purpose; a purpose hidden from humankind’s limited understanding; also theorising possibilities of additional God or gods in the background making use of, let us say, “primary” God or gods, for a like inscrutable purpose.

In his last years Dreiser looked through a microscope for clues to the phenomenality of being—to unravel mysteries of life. Switching gears mid-career, he became an explorer of consciousness who preferred the company of scientists to that of literary brethren (to the detriment of his art, I must add).

 In Dawn, Dreiser theorised that humankind was an invention—a schemed-out machine, useful to a larger something. This theory marked his turn from an early mechanistic belief in universal proceedings to consideration of an oversoul, or creative intelligence, behind or causative to universal phenomenon.

But what “soul”? What cause? What intelligence? Ahab[1] tried to tear the veil that covered the quondam source; tried to expose the phenomenon of so-called “reality,” but being only a man, and mortal, failed—dying in the process. What is the symbolism of the great whale’s whiteness but a concealing veil thrown over appearances? Melville’s scientifically, scrupulously dismantled his leviathan part by part, yielding naught as to mysteries of origins and unquantifiable organic processes, while Dreiser wandered over the same dry speculative desert (as Hawthorne noted) too honest to be or do otherwise.

 Dreiser had his own mystic creed; refusing to conform to any formal doctrine—his views in later years influenced by Quakerism, Hinduism, and Christian Science (which his wife “Jug,” and his character Eugene Witla of The Genius came under spell of). In Newspaper Days, and in a sour mood, he wrote, “Religion! What a mockery! Why pray? Of whom to ask? The one who loaded the dice at the start?” Elsewhere in that same book—and in a better mood—he wrote, “There is a sower somewhere. Is it planet, gas, element, fire? It gardens and sows—what is its plan, and why?”

 Like many ex-parochial students, Dreiser had a profound dislike of Catholicism and her rituals. A dislike engendered, in Dreiser’s case, by scorn of an ineffectual father, John Paul Dreiser. In Dawn, Dreiser wrote of Catholics with ossified brains who rejected natural emotion as sinful; who spent inordinate amounts of time on their knees praying to an immense and inscrutable something which cared not for their adoration or supplication.

He denied sectarian pretense to divine authority and wrote about how little there was to the Christ legend aside from artistic spectacle. Ritual and churchly dogma infuriated him—particularly angered by the priest who at first denied Dreiser’s mother burial in the sacred grove because she was a lapsed Catholic.

Dreiser despised religion in the form of Catholicism as much as he came to despise oligarchy—though early in his career celebrated the power of the oligarch in the character of Frank Cowperwood, of the ‘The Trilogy of Desire’, apotheosis of laissez faire capitalism run amuck.

 Will Dreiser’s work survive the muddle of brave new world exigencies? I hope so. The slow relentless and inexorable pace of his stories, with their accumulation of details, are or seem anathema to the cyborg-screed of flash fiction sound bites in the blogosphere, but the stories he told—all having to do with vagaries of the human heart—though perhaps out of vogue, will never not be relevant to the human oh so human condition.

[1] From Melville’s Moby Dick

About the Book:

Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, is an explication, exegesis, of the fiction of Dreiser plus much of his nonfiction. Included are synopses of each title. Between considerations of the work is a biography of the writer. (Note: Dreiser could be, in his work, pedantic and humourless: this study is neither.)

About the Author:

Wayne F. Burke writes both poetry and prose. He is author of 12 published poetry collections–most recently Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne? Hog Press, 2025; two works of fiction–most recently No Tab For Sully, a novella, Alien Buddha Press, 2025; and six works of nonfiction–including Theodore Dreiser – The Giant, Cyberwit,net., publisher, 2025. He lives in Vermont (USA).

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Excerpt

Love and Crime in the Time of Plague

Title: Love and Crime in the Time of Plague: A Bombay Mystery

Author: Anuradha Kumar

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Maya is Discomfited

What shall we talk about?’ Maya asked in her irrepressible way, a lilt in her voice. That afternoon she was out cycling with Henry when the rain came down, turning heavy in moments. It was August and the middle of the monsoon season.

‘Tell me more about what you found. More about those…mysterious sketches. You have two minutes,’ Henry rolled his eyes playfully as he pulled out his watch.

Dark, thick clouds loomed over the sea and gathered by the palm trees and rocks lining the shore. Leaving their bicycles against the tall, old Ashoka tree, they had run, like many times before, toward the old Prong’s lighthouse to their right. Its white walls were damp-streaked and moss-stained, and the grey rocks huddled by it were dotted by foamy flecks. The sea swirled in noisily with an insistent rhythm.

They stood on the low stoop, looking out at the gravestones across the road. The door behind, blue paint flaking in places, creaked in the wind. The room in the old lighthouse always smelt musty. It was sparsely furnished with wooden chairs, a table, and a cupboard. Faded red curtains fluttered on the windows. A part of the roof near the fireplace leaked, and rainwater often dripped down into a large wooden tub. Soon, Henry always joked, it would fill up with fish. The keeper, an old Eurasian, waved to them from an upstairs window, his beard flailing through its rusting iron bars.

They were right at the tip of the city on the island of Colaba, and the new bicycles—shipped to Henry only that summer—were safe to ride on, with their evenly spaced wheels, pneumatic tyres, and a chain system. Henry was pleased with these new ‘Rover’ cycles, made by a company in Chicago, Henry’s home town. The wind left a mist on their faces, the gulls were noisy on the rafters, and they waited for the rain to ease.

The Causeway, its white stones grey in the wan light, stretched to the mainland. Built some fifty years ago, it now connected what had been the separate islands of Colaba, and the Old Woman’s Island to the bigger island of Bombay. If they craned their necks and looked to the left, through the palm trees, the stone walls of the old fort were clearly visible.

Henry took his cap off, twirled it with his fingers then placed it back on his head. Maya scraped the soles of her muddy boots against the stoop, and leaned against the door. They heard a sharp clear call, two eagles were majestically scouring the skies, their wings spotted white, and lighting up when the sun momentarily breathed through the clouds.

‘You’ve been thinking about the sketches, haven’t you?’

Maya nodded, her eyes the colours of the stormy sea. The eagles, she was thinking, maybe they were the White-bellied Sea Eagles familiar to these parts.

‘Tell me about it,’ Henry encouraged, stealing a look upstairs, and noting the open window. The keeper was probably all ears. They were always the subject of gossip, and Henry ruefully accepted this, always with a turmoil in his heart. He enjoyed Maya’s company and tried not to think too much of the future; most times he failed. Sometimes he thought Maya felt the same way.

~

Maya had found the sketches only a fortnight ago. In a room, dark, mysterious and unused, at the very back of the grey-stone ‘doctors’ house’ where Maya lived. She had wanted to use the room as a study. The doctors’ house stood on a narrow lane leading off the Colaba Causeway, on the sliver of land where Bombay stretched into the sea in a crab-like way. One walked through the house’s main hallway, and the study appeared after a series of small steps. Next to the study was the covered courtyard and on the left, its lone window faced the garden, with its wooden latticed fence, the bougainvillea and oleander creepers, and tall palm trees. Farther beyond, closer to the sea, lay the asylum and a part of the lighthouse, always visible from the upper floor windows of the doctors’ house. Sounds of the horse-drawn tramcars, the bells of the Afghan Church, the train coming in every morning and in the late afternoon, and the constant rolling of the sea, shaped a pleasing backdrop to everyday life in the house.

Once owned by Hormuzji Dorabji, a merchant whose business interests spread across Bombay, Surat, East Africa and Natal, the doctor Edith Pechey had first rented it when she came to Bombay to manage the city’s first women’s hospital. Soon there were two of them, when Charlotte Ellaby responded to Edith’s invitation, and that was how the bungalow got its name. Then about two years ago, though Maya felt it was much longer, the doctors’ house had a new resident when Maya joined them, a few weeks after reaching Bombay as part of a travelling theatre troupe from Lahore. The troupe soon moved on to another city, but Maya had stayed back. For a while only, she had thought at first, but months had flown by and the ‘doctors’ house’ was her home now. Edith had moved out when she married Herbert Phipson, an American businessman with offices in Bombay, and Maya still stayed on with Charlotte. Finding her feet in a city, warm and lively. Finding her heart too, but with that Maya wanted to take more time.

~

For Maya, the string-bound folder with the sketches was an unexpected find. It lay in the old wooden almirah, lost among dusty old account ledgers, old books, in old Pali and Persian, and crinkled maps brown with age.

‘They look so old, and so skilfully done.’ Henry still remembered the awed expression on Maya’s face the afternoon she told Charlotte and him about it. They had shared Maya’s delight, looking at the sketches—lifelike depictions of birds, drawn mainly in black ink, with distinct colours on some.

(Excerpted from Love and Crime in the Time of Plague: A Bombay Mystery by Anuradha Kumar. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025)

ABOUT THE BOOK

It is 1896. A ship docks in Bombay Harbour, and as the workers rush to unload the cargo, a scream rings out. A large black rat, frothing at the mouth, has bitten one of the men.

Within weeks, a miasma of fear engulfs the city as ship-borne rats overrun its nooks and crannies, and more and more of its inhabitants fall sick—and die. Dr Acacio Viegas is the first to ring the alarm—it is the plague. The only way to control it is to sanitize the city’s slums, clean its drains, report any fever, and stay at home. The British Administration embarks on these measures on a war footing—until warning notes begin to turn up at Doctors’ House, where Maya Barton lives with Dr Charlotte Ellaby, and at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital—notes that threaten those who are ‘interfering’ with people’s religion and customs with dire consequences—all signed by the ‘Native Society’.

Maya and her friend Henry Baker, the American trade counsel, are soon hot on the trail of the Society, which leads them to the formidable Rangnekar Bhau, the Society’s founder, and its Secretary, the treacherous Satarkar, who hates everything new and ‘modern’, whether the British and the brown sahibs, and their so-called anti-plague drive, or women like Maya, who think too much of themselves.

As Maya and Henry unravel the mystery, they draw closer to each other and to what could be a future together. And Maya learns more about Reverend Barton, who could have been her father, and the Kashmiri woman who might have been her mother.

Anuradha Kumar once again uses her talent for recreating a period setting and engaging characters to brilliant effect in this sequel to the acclaimed The Kidnapping of Mark Twain, her first Bombay Mystery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anuradha Kumar has worked for the Economic & Political Weekly. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). Her stories have won awards from the Commonwealth Foundation, UK, and The Little Magazine, India. She writes regularly for Scroll.in. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications like Fiftytwo.in, The India Forum, The Missouri Review, among others. Two of her essays received notable mention in ‘Best American Essays’ editions of 2023 and 2024. Her essay collection, The Sound of Lost Memories, was recently a finalist for the Gournay Prize (University of Iowa) and will be published (2027) by Cornerstone Press (University of Wisconsin, Stevens-Point).

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL