I grew up in Matunga, a suburb in Mumbai. Though there were small pinwheel flower trees and a champa tree in our building compound, rows of coconut palms and a henna tree in the neighbouring one, and a canopy of old trees on the wide streets outside, it was an urban setting. Crows abounded and […]

Over the years, I have been reading books on mental health, intrepid essays and searing personal accounts of those who have boldly shared their experiences, and helped destigmatise mental illness to some extent.  

I haven’t produced a masterpiece, but I am no longer afraid. I am setting goals, opening my old notebooks, looking at abandoned drafts, half-written stories, notes in my palm diary, poems that need revision.

Everybody’s personal experiences are their raw data. Things that happen to you in the first person are your most individual source, and the things that a writer hears or reads are secondary sources. – WWF 2021 Anuja Chauhan

I wrote these essays from that place of being both scared and eager to talk about something that had taken over my life and that I didn’t see occupy enough space in everyday conversation.

Because pollution kills silently and slowly, and often kills by intensifying existing disease, people don’t recognise this invisible killer.

We scanned several lists and have compiled one with varied, engaging themes from bestselling as well as new authors. Here is our 2021 – Fiction list by women authors.

All I was writing in my busy notebooks was lists. To-do lists, to-not-do-lists, the menu for breakfast, lunch, dinner, the leftovers list, and some doodles to add a light touch.

This story is not only about ravaged women, it is about the attempt to extinguish their spirit, about the limits of endurance, the depraved side of humanity, and of astonishing resilience.

As we snaked through the circuitous Ghats, the rugged Sahyadri mountain ranges loomed up, sage-like and awesome, the tree cover thickened, and coconut palms lining the coastal belt swayed, as if in a trance.