By Amartya Banerjee
There is a lively school of thought in West Bengal that my father describes as “not Marxism, not socialism, not even secularism, but Denial-ism”. Without singling out any person or party, there is present, a pattern of justification which says that “Everybody is to blame, save us.”
By Lopa Banerjee
Don’t tell me when you come back to me
Frost-bitten, smitten with the wind-drift,
Bespattered with mud, and slain,
That I did not wait for you long enough.
By Mosarrap H. Khan
What follows is an amateur effort at capturing the colors that punctuates the white snow. A photo-essay.
By Riti Das Dhankar
Fifty Shades of Grey is a stereotypical love story with a supposedly “normal” girl being a complete nut-job and the “troubled” Mr Grey being the only consistent, non-weird thing in the movie.
By Lopa Banerjee
Her thoughts glided between her life, then and now. Life had threatened her with its clarion call, which she tried her best to dismiss with her arrogance, her vitality, her quest to live. Her mother’s death had pushed her, vehemently and mercilessly, to a bottomless pit from which she pulled herself out slowly.
By Mosarrap H. Khan
A strong gust of wind almost threw her off. She felt the first few drops of cold rain on her skin. It excited her and made her want more. Mehru stood in the middle of the courtyard with her face lifted to the sky in anticipation. The large drops of rain lashed against her face, making her feel a stinging pain.
By Lopa Banerjee
She floated alone like a weightless bubble in space. The moon became her pilot light; she danced to the softest of music, a quiet, unperturbed dance in her dreams, hand-in-hand with her unloved little girl. Together, they swirled and twirled, a wild fury of light, till the wake of daylight burned their fire away.
By Anna P. Monaghan
Pickard glowed in private memory of his kindnesses, but he desired greatly for a new language of love. This was not just kindness, he thought – this was a man’s right to feel! To feel and express his feeling! Would his snobbish relatives ever understand? How would they react if they knew François was in his will? A man has the right to pass on his legacy – it is his right! And François was safe.
By Achyut Dutt
BDSM goes as far back as slavery, the first recorded instance of the practice for sexual pleasure being a miniature bedside table sized sculpture found at Giza, dating back to around 2500BC Egypt. This was possibly during the reign of the legendary Pharaoh, Khufu, builder of the great pyramid of Giza. Seeking dominance and submission has been in our DNA all along.
By Lopa Banerjee
Being born a girl, I should have sensed when invaders had pushed through the padding of closed doors, throwing me back into the irredeemable domain of bruise and hopelessness. By now, I should have learnt to focus on my own life as an outcast, to thrive in my madness and be pleased to walk alone amid the crowded city streets with impetuous fools.
By Lopa Banerjee
I look at the steep movement between the mountains, the soft, sensuous light trailing through the silvery mountain bends. I read their curves, bends and slopes like books of sonnets and stories, tracing each page in its sacred solidarity, as the curved landscapes ramble, roam, and converge with each other like enchanted lyrics.
By Sowmya Dechamma
For a moment, I imagined medieval royals enjoying a pleasant sunny day. It was sunny and I let the sun fall on my back. I could hear a bird – loud and shrill, and tried unsuccessfully to spot it. As I listened it became louder and shriller, shutting out all other sounds of insects and birds. It took me some effort to focus my ears onto the other sounds.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 