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Books & Arts
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Rasti Farooq
Sumana Roy
Ben Jacob
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Tauseef Ahmad · Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth
Bikash K. Bhattacharya
Riddhi Dastidar
LATEST
Zuneera Shah
OKARA
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Solomon P.
PALESTINE
Clare Patrick
PARIS
VOL 2. NO. 2.33
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Resistance Until Return
Solomon P.
Through this short work of fiction, a Tamil writer extends solidarity to Gaza, bringing to light the torment and suffering of ordinary lives during genocide.
Vrinda Jagota
For years, “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” a rallying cry from the 1970s by Zeinab Shaath, was a lost cultural artifact until it was recovered in 2017. In 2024, British-Palestinian label Majazz Project and LA-based Discostan released an EP with the titular song, sitting with startling ease alongside contemporary Palestinian music.
Ahsan Butt · Sadieh Rifai
Palestinian-American actor and playwright Sadieh Rifai confronts the mental toll of occupation, war, and the American dream in her world premiere, The Cave.
“What does it mean for a body whose ritualized mourning, in māṭam, is a form of failed ontological recognition?”
JAAN-E-HASEENA
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Fugitive Ecologies
Jack Dodson
Marissa Carruthers
Tauseef Ahmad · Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth
Dipanjan Sinha
During the general election, prominent Indian political parties vied for villagers' affection in the Sundarbans, albeit turning a blind eye to the ongoing climate catastrophe. As demands for climate-conscious infrastructure and humanitarian relief go unappraised, people in the region are reckoning with the logical consequences of that apathy.
Ben Jacob
Descendants of enslaved and indentured labourers cultivated life amidst the ruins of climate catastrophe in nineteenth-century Mauritius. Today, deforestation and the sugar industry have left a legacy of natural disasters and public health crises. What path forward remains for the unification of the political and scientific in service of the island’s labouring population?
An internationalist, leftist literary magazine seeking an activist approach to representation.
Colophon inspired by Rabindranath
Tagore's "Head Study"
Zoya Rehman
Some strands of feminist organising in Pakistan are rethinking strategy, moving away from symbolic demonstrations that reinforce echo chambers, and towards quieter, more embedded forms of collective work. Women Democratic Front’s Behnon ki Baithak on 8 March 2025 was one such experiment, exploring how to hold space and cultivate political power through intimate modes of gathering, conversation, and reflection.
Torsa Ghosal
Anne Carson and Ismat Chughtai's narrative devices exemplify unreliable and ethically dubious characters that go "to the edge of what can be loved." It is an epistemic approach that rightly repudiates the commonplace idea that the purpose of fiction is to make the Other relatable.
Andrew Fidel Fernando · Benislos Thushan · Darshatha Gamage · Raisa Wickrematunge · Kanya D'Almeida
“If you truly believe someone is suppressing you, you can end up in jail for 15 years. So is there really a space for citizen journalism? I truly don't have an answer.”
“When the student at Jamia Millia Islamia University first uttered ‘Dear Shahid’ right after the film's intertitle, I felt a tightening in my chest. It reminded me of my own days in Mumbai at Prithvi Theatre, where idealism was somehow removed from politics and the marginalization that was occurring. When I first saw the film, I felt like I knew this person.”
"There was no one else in the four-berth compartment. I was comfortable. Somewhere near the Andhra-Orissa border I woke up and found everything dark. The train wasn’t moving either. Pitch dark. You couldn’t see anything out of the window."
Tun Lin Soe
Rubble as Rule
Vamika Sinha
Tauseef Ahmad · Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth
Alishan Jafri
Since his electoral victory in 2014, Narendra Modi’s Hindutva brigade has attempted to render Muslims invisible through hypervisibility. Mob-lynchings "don’t just happen” to Muslims. Thook Jihad is to be expected. By applying microscopic, misinformative attention to Muslim businesses, homes, and livelihoods throughout the country, the BJP has forced Indian Muslims to constantly create hideouts for their humanity. However, as Modi’s monumental loss in the recent Lok Sabha polls indicates, Muslims refusing to accept the social and psychological invisibilization are already leading the charge for a brighter electoral future.
Saranya Subramanian
In 2020, New Delhi’s National Museum Institute was relocated to NOIDA’s industrial outskirts and renamed the Indian Institute of Heritage. Once ideal for the study of history amidst the city’s rich heritage, this institutional shift reflects a larger trend since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, where historical studies have been politicised, censored, and shaped by majoritarian ideologies. As textbooks are altered and dissent silenced, the institute’s move from heritage-rich Delhi to a modern, industrial zone exemplifies how urban development and academia are increasingly intertwined with political agendas, raising questions about the future of historical study.
Anne Carson and Ismat Chughtai's narrative devices exemplify unreliable and ethically dubious characters that go "to the edge of what can be loved." It is an epistemic approach that rightly repudiates the commonplace idea that the purpose of fiction is to make the Other relatable.
VOL 2. ISSUE 1
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INTERVIEWS
Zuneera Shah
Ahsan Butt · Sadieh Rifai
Huzaifa Pandit
Aneil Rallin
Shehan Karunatilaka
From Raags to Pitches
Vrinda Jagota
For years, “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” a rallying cry from the 1970s by Zeinab Shaath, was a lost cultural artifact until it was recovered in 2017. In 2024, British-Palestinian label Majazz Project and LA-based Discostan released an EP with the titular song, sitting with startling ease alongside contemporary Palestinian music.
Vrinda Jagota
KOKOKO!, an experimental music collective from the DRC, has navigated political censorship and the country’s struggles with energy exploitation to create a sound that electrifies the present. Using repurposed household materials as instruments and makeshift cables for amps, they fuse French and South African house with Congolese folk to produce innovative live and stereo listening experiences. Their latest album, BUTU— “the night”—calls on audiences to bear witness to the cacophony of Kinshasa after dusk as a commentary on the political state of Congo at large.
Priya Darshini · Max ZT · Shahzad Ismaily · Moto Fukushima · Chris Sholar
“Loneliest star, shining so brightly / For no one to see. / Loneliest star, tell me your secret / You shouldn't keep it.”
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