This month at Spark, we celebrate ‘Celebrations’! Our selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry in this August 2017 issue touches upon festivals, birthdays, weddings, and eventually life itself as the biggest and grandest celebration of all! We hope you like what we have in store for you this month and look forward to your feedback. Do email us at feedback@sparkthemagazine.com!
On a flight journey with her husband, a newly married Apu tries to make sense of her arranged marriage. Memories and voices take her on another journey. Deepthi tells Apu’s story.
Birthdays are no longer what they used to be. They are now big celebrations involving a whole lot of planning and coordinating, events that sometimes do seem obligatory. Parth Pandya shares his experience.
Saikat Das’ poem describes all that happens around the goddess with the Veena during festival time.
Moments heralding celebrations are many if we choose to acknowledge the grace that overwhelms us in life’s nail-biting moments. Kousalya tells the story of Anitha, who is reminiscing about the time when her son uttered a simple sentence, 60 hours after a gruelling brain tumour surgery.
Durga pujo, the biggest celebration for the Bengali people, brings with it a gift of hope, fills everyone’s hearts with it, and then even before one realises, gets over. One such Durga pujo is spent by a lost soul at the ancestral village home of a friend. Does he find hope and peace? Or is it all mere mythology? Sowmyadeep writes the story.
The choice of a birthday gift presents an anxious challenge for a little girl and her mother. The grandmother, though, sees an opportunity in their predicament. Chandramohan Nair pens a tale of a birthday party with an unexpected outcome.
Knocking at the doors of mind, reminiscences tease one about the promises and dreams that couldn’t be realised. This poem by Parminder Singh talks of celebrations of mutual failures in keeping a relationship intact through moments of adversity.
Poila Baisakh is a celebration of great significance among the people of Bengal. ARTOHUS explores the historical and cultural backdrop to this festival and also recounts his experience of witnessing the first ever Mangal Shobhajatra organised in India on Poila Baisakh this year.