Guest Editor: Purvi Rajpuria is a freelance writer and illustrator from Kolkata. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. 

Contributors:

Amit Tyagi graduated in English Literature (Honours) from St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, before attending the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, for Film Editing and Film Direction. Tyagi has also set up a terrestrial television station in Uganda and won prizes from UNESCO and the French Government for films while living in Nairobi, Kenya. In the past, he has served as Dean (Films) at FTII and is currently Associate Director of MIT School of Film and Television, Pune. 

Arvind Jadhav has been working as an Assistant Professor of English at Yashwantrao Chavan College of Science, Karad, Maharashtra for the last fifteen years. He completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics after receiving an M.A. in English and another M.A. in Linguistics. He has also qualified UGC-NET in both English and Linguistics. Jadhav is interested in Language, Literature, Culture, and Translation and publishes his articles in Marathi and English. 

Ajay Sharma is a visual artist based in Vadodara and works as an Assistant Professor at the Parul Institute of Fine Arts, Parul University (Vadodara). A recipient of Lalit Kala Akademi scholarships, Sharma has exhibited his works widely in India and abroad. His areas of interest are music, cinema and poetry.

Anjan Modak is a visual artist based in Kolkata. He studied painting at Rabindra Bharati University. Anjan has several solo shows and group shows to his credit. Represented by Emami Art, over twenty-five paintings by Anjan Modak entitled The Common Man were shown at the India Art Fair, New Delhi (2020).

Gayatri Lele is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science in University of Mumbai. She holds a PhD (Political Science) from University of Mumbai and her interests include writing, classical music, and poetry.

Jai Apte is pursuing her PhD in French Literature at the University of California, Davis. She also teaches in the same university. Apte has published articles on art and literature in several journals and newspapers.

Junuka Deshpande is a visual artist, filmmaker and a design practitioner. She is as interested in her inner world as she is in the narratives of people and places. Junuka lives in Bangalore and is a faculty member at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

Kamil Plich is a multilingual poet from Poland, based in Lübeck, Germany. His work can be found, among others, in: Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Asahi Shimbun, Sommergras, Poetry Potion, Helikopter, Strona Czynna, Drobiazgi and Triya Mag. His haiku have been translated into Japanese and Hindi.

Mekhala Chattopadhyay is a research scholar in the department of English Literature at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Her research focuses on the aspect of memory and its relation to culture and technology in the Indian context. Her academic interests fall mostly in the field of Cultural Studies, and Memory and Trauma studies.

Nandini M is a teacher and researcher who divides her life between two cities in western India and a few others whenever she can.  Her writing and photography are animated by images of the extraordinary ordinary, those little wonders of life that exist amidst bewildering chaos, at times speaking to pain, at others to lightness and joy. 

Dr. Nithya Mariam John is a poet and translator from Kerala, India. Apart from three short collections of poems titled Ruminations and Reflections: A Pinch of Poetry & Perspectives, Bleats and Roars, and Poetry Soup, her scribbles are housed in Indian Literature, The Alipore Post, Borderless, Gulmohar Quarterly, Hyderabad Literature Festival-Khabar, Muse India, The Samyuktha Poetry, Malayalam Literature Survey, Ink-Kochi, Usawa Literary Review, Sanglap, and DoubleSpeak. When not writing, she loves to converse on life, art, and literature with her students at BCM College for Women, Kerala.

Noopur Desai is a bilingual art writer publishing in Marathi and English. Currently, she is Researcher with Asia Art Archive in India, New Delhi. Noopur holds a Ph.D. in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. 

Dr. Pathik Roy teaches English at St. Joseph’s College, Darjeeling, West Bengal, which also happens to be his alma mater. His research interests are Gender Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Film Studies and Culture Studies generally. He has many invited lectures to his credit and has extensively published in various literary/academic journals and contributed many chapters in various books that are associated with his areas of interest. 

Prabha Kulkarni , currently based in Navi Mumbai, is an undergraduate student at Flame University majoring in Literary and Cultural Studies. She is an IB Diploma graduate with Visual Arts, English Literature, and Psychology as her higher-level subjects. Her interests lie in writing and research in art, cultural studies, language, philosophy, psychology, and other related areas. She currently writes for self and was previously a writer at the student-run magazine called The Context.

Prashant Bagad is a writer and philosopher. He is the author of two works of fiction– Naval (Papyrus Prakashan, Kalyan), and Vivade Vishade Pramade Pravase (Shabda Publication, Mumbai), for which he received the Baburav Bagul Shabda Award and the P. N. Pandit Award. Many of his short stories, poems, and literary-critical essays have appeared in various Marathi literary journals like Anushtubh, Anubhav, or Mukta Shabda. Some of his short fiction has been translated into Assamese, English, and Hindi. Prashant teaches philosophy at I.I.T. Kanpur.

Priyanka Kapoor is a postgraduate in English literature from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. Her work has been published on platforms such as The Indian Quarterly, Hakara, Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, and Phantom Kangaroo. She has been shortlisted for the R.L. Poetry Award and The Brooklyn Poets’ Fellowship. Recently, she was published in the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English (2020-21) (edited by Sukrita Paul and Vinita Agrawal).

Priyanka Tupe is an independent journalist, writer and translator. She covers and writes on gender, politics and criminal justice.  

Rafiq Suraj is an award-winning poet, short-story writer and novelist writing in Marathi.  He teaches Marathi in the Department of Marathi, Jayawant Mahavidyalaya, Ichalkaranji. 

Rahana K Ismail  is a poet and a doctor from Calicut, Kerala. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in nether Quarterly, Usawa Literary Review, Verse of Silence, EKL Review, the Chakkar, Alipore Post, Pine Cone Review, and elsewhere.

Rahi De Roy is an artist and illustrator from India. She is currently a student at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. 

Raka Panda  is a visual artist based in Ahmedabad. She has a BA Hons in Bengali Literature from Vidyasagar University, and a BFA and MFA in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. Raka received an award from Emergent Art Space, for her curated (online) show ‘Calling Across the Distance’ 2020, was selected for a junior fellowship by the Ministry of Culture for the year 2018-2019 in painting, and placed 3rd in All India Women Artists’ Contemporary Art Exhibition (2013), Chandigarh, among other things. Her works have been displayed in many exhibitions including Myth, Memory & Marvellous Realities (2021), Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad.  

Salman Bashir Baba is a visual artist who lives and works between Kashmir and New Delhi. He completed his Masters in Visual Arts from Ambedkar University, New Delhi and Bachelors in Applied Arts from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. 

Dr. Sarabjeet Dhody Natesan is an Associate Professor of Economics at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University. Her teaching interests are focused on Macroeconomics, International Economics, and Public Policy. Her research works intersect economics and public policy implementation. Her current research is on the ‘Bazaars of Post-Partition India’ and ‘The Economics of Religion’. She lives in Chennai with her family by the side of her beloved seashore.

Shachi Joshi lives and works in Pune. She likes to explore words at her Personal Blog- Shachi Says; Recently she started her entrepreneurial journey with Mitrandir Journeys which designs curated experiential for  travellers.

Shanta Gokhale  is an accomplished translator and writer of novels, plays, short stories, film scripts and innumerable newspaper articles. She has translated essays, short fiction, novels and autobiographies and plays from Marathi into English, and a play and a novel each from English into Marathi. Gokhale has a volume on the history of Marathi theatre and has edited books on the works of theatre directors Satyadev Dubey, Veenapani Chawla, and has the oral history of experimental theatre in Mumbai to her credit. 

Soma Das is a visual artist based in Kolkata. She studied painting at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Soma has participated in several group exhibitions and art fairs in India. Her solo exhibition Different Facets of Life was organised at Gallery Nakshatra, Kolkata in 2010. Soma was the recipient of the State Academy Award in 2008. 

Nitin Kulkarni is a creative design educationist and has 30 years of experience in the field. He has written several articles in the area of art criticism along with newspaper columns between the years 1999 and 2019. A collection of his poems, named Pahilya Kavita was published in 1999 in Marathi. His paintings and other creative works were displayed in various exhibitions of repute in India from 1987 to 2009.

Zohra Salih  graduated with a Bachelor’s in Philosophy from St. Stephen’s College, and spent a year in Sonipat recalibrating her decisions as part of the Young India Fellowship in 2018. She likes to keep the angst at bay by indulging in bass-heavy music, obsessively (and she hopes, critically) watching TV, and crafting long and impromptu emails for her friends; she especially enjoys reading detailed reviews, thinking about translation, and imagining potential interior decor at her hypothetical future home surrounded by her best friends and the sea.

Proofreading and copyediting : Anuj Deshpande, Asmita Choudhury, Canta Dadlaney, Gajanan Yadav, Manasi Kulkarni, Saaya Vaidya, Vidula Sonagra, Yvonne Vaz

Courtesy for cover and section images : Ajay Sharma, Anjan Modak, Rahi De Roy, Raka Panda, Soma Das, Unsplash