True friendship is an eternal bond that surpasses seasons and distance. Amrutha Mohan’s poem talks about different stages of a precious comradeship – the childhood innocence, separation and reunion of old friends – and yokes it with different seasons.
Praveena’s story describes a troubled mind that finds succour in a relationship so deep that it is hard to delineate the real from the imagined, where friendship is more unspoken than spoken and experiences more dependent on than independent of reality
Anupom’s poem is about two individuals who come from two different geographical locations and their friendship. The speaker of the poem makes an effort to understand the queerness of his friend. He makes her realize that he is her mirror image. His place of birth and the river Brahmaputra epitomise queerness.
In this story by Archana, a young woman meets someone after going through a breakup. Confused about naming the kind of relationship they share, the two people draw comfort from their company in the short time that they borrow from each other’s lives.
Friendship, according to Shiitaal Budhrauj, is a whole gamut of emotions and sometimes, in a friendship spanning a lifetime between a man and a woman, the boundaries may blur – the two may evolve into lovers with the comfort and history of friendship behind them. She presents this point of view through her prose poem.
Let’s bring you some joy this time! Read this compact and cosy issue with poetry, fiction and non-fiction around the theme ‘Joy’. We also have a beautiful photo essay that capture profound joy of different kinds.
Sroojana tells the story of how twenty, in a society that glorifies the sweet sixteens, twenty-fives and fifties, is a forgotten age. However, twenty is when you’re on the verge of the rest of your life, reeling from the puberty-ridden years of adolescence, which sparks the feeling of freedom, comfort… and joy.
Sriram’s photo essay outlines three instances of profound joy that he saw in his travels.
In the lives of two women brought together by circumstances, joy once lost slowly finds its way back. Anupama Krishnakumar writes a short story.