Shanti is unhappy because a poetic note that he writes questioning a certain police action is met with indifference. M. Mohankumar writes a poem on the bureaucracy in India.
Bhargavi Chandrasekharan pays a tribute to the man who led by example, to the President who listened to his conscience and to a visionary who inspired a generation of Indians to dream beyond the skies.
A young boy and his mother are mesmerised by the new Ambassador their neighbour has purchased. Set at a time when cars were still an unaffordable luxury for many, Himangshu’s story recounts the average hypocritical Indian.
Selvi lives in a slum and works as a cleaner in a posh-looking construction company. Preeti Madhusudhan captures a day in the life of Selvi in a story that throws light on the dark corners of a booming India, where shiny, glass buildings stand in sharp contrast to heart-wrenching poverty. A work of fiction that brings two contradictory shades of Indianness to the fore.
Saranyan’s poem is about a man, a loner seeking company. He is unable to connect with anyone except objects. In verse that captures the mood and settings of an Indian dhaba, we get a glimpse of a darker side to Indianness.
Shantamma, the house help, dreams of a good Diwali bonus from the houses that she works at, and through a stroke of serendipity, she gets extra lucky this year.
It’s not an uncommon sight to see an Indian parent running behind her child in a bid to feed the kid a few morsels of food. Parth Pandya offers a humourous take on this amusing aspect of Indian parenting.
Nandagopal’s poem offers a peek into the life of an Indian citizen, Muthu, a straight talker who believes that as far as his life is concerned, he has done well by Indian standards.
On two separate visits to Tenali in Andhra Pradesh, a young man comes face-to-face with inconvenient truths that still define India. Pravin Vemuri tells the story.