The Pão of Love by Vivek Menezes

It’s 1am, pouring heavily on an overcast monsoon night, and I’ve been waiting to talk to Sebastiao Frias for almost two hours. But he’s still elbow-deep in his work, dusted from brow to toes in wheat flour, and moving with the distinctive balletic grace that master craftsmen acquire after decades of practice. A seemingly endless …

Catastrophe by Prashila Naik

As she snapped off the roots of the red amaranthus, Gulab wondered how her husband could undergo such a drastic transformation at this age. Since his retirement as a peon at the local bank where he had worked for thirty years, all he did was read the newspaper; his glasses perched up on his nose, …

Dandelions in the Sky by Rochelle D’Silva

Under coconut trees swaying like dandelions in the sky, red earth and stones and dirt absorb my shadow.   I am testing out  this new identity. Embracing my Goan-ness in ways that aren’t as obvious.   I roast cashews on an open flame, unsure of when they will be done. I smell my fingers, it …

The Dance of Love by Jane Borges

This is an excerpt from Borges’ novel ‘Bombay Balchao (Tranquebar, 2019) On her twenty-first birthday, Annette Coutinho— daughter of Karen and Alfred Sebastiano Coutinho and sister of Michael—the most sought-after belle in Cavel, was finally getting engaged to her beau of three years, Joe Crasto. Every living person in the neighbourhood, those known to the …

Slice by Rochelle Potkar

It was during a school break one afternoon, in grade seven when the thing between my sister, Janet and me first took shape. I was revising a history lesson, ‘The Siege of Leningrad. September 1941.1944. Germans bombarding their target city by planes and artillery...’ when a clatter sounded off the far floor. I tiptoed to …

Our Lovers by Rochelle Potkar

Back then in the 80’s, I had just one lover. My beauty could afford only that much. Malaika's beauty afforded her many lovers. We lived as paying guests then, when jobs were scarce and the pay low, unlike now at these call centers where you get everything. Malaika was a charmer. At that time, a …

Offertory by Dion D’souza

through hurried hosannas we slip the boxes as if worried at any moment the organ and hymning will stop we will be caught the sentry at the altar commanding us to perform some ungodly penalty

Making Out by Dion D’souza

‘Where are the chicks, men?’ said Teenu. He looked impatient, his eyes darted about. He was wearing a fitted T-shirt and cargos with more pockets than he could be bothered to count or use. Using copious amount of gel (his tongue sticking out between his teeth in front of the mirror) he had shaped his …

Sestina for the Guideless by Janice Pariat

In a new month, early in the morning, the colonist and you step onto shore;  now you must walk, leaving the river and the small boat behind. You are here to inquire after a guide, a Laplander. But finding an empty hut, you proceed to the next—also empty, almost a mile distant, seemingly mourning a …

So Far, So Good by Aditi Angiras

The first thing I do when I wake up is put some coffee on the stove. The first thing I think of is either hum an old song or you. Sometimes it's a new poem too, but really it's usually just a stray word pretending to be a poem like the half-size tennis ball in …