From the Editor’s Desk

April heralds the smell of Mangoes in the sub continent, from the soft green insides of the Kairi, to the ripe and juicy golden yellow flesh, its heady fragrance stretching into the warm nights sustains one through the harsh headiness of an Indian summer.

You wait for rain as balm, like words on a harsh dry land. Rivers dry up, and millions of people stand in line for water. Like music from the Sarangi you hear at night, words visit us in a flash, stay, ruminate and carry you along into the subliminal.

This April issue is that rain. Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee shares his beautiful space, his food, his words, some brilliant fiction curated by Sucharita, and poetry. A splendid essay on Statues and the Colonised Mind.

Tell us how we did.

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
Managing Editor, The Bangalore Review

Specials

Photo Essay by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

TBR takes you through this private world of poets and writers through this photo essay. Here Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee gives us insight into his day to day and favourite spots.

Non-Fiction

Statues and the Colonised Mind

Statues do many things. They tell or repress a story about the past. They tell us about ourselves. They make us feel uneasy or can inspire. Scenes of sculptural epiphanies and distress, as well as, defiance, acknowledge that engaging with statues is not always easy or enjoyable.

Fiction

Intruder

The dilemma in her dream woke her. She looked over and saw her husband, asleep. Her muscles ached from being unsettled. She looked around and saw a chasm of shifting shadows. Her chest felt tight, making it hard for her to catch a breath.

Featured Works

Poetry

Mo(u)rning on the River

From one realm to the next, may Your essence forever sizzle and soar. Because whether You believed or not, despite the world not consistently admitting nor deserving it, You were always the hero we needed.

Non-Fiction

A look at Asia’s Biggest Book Fair

The author takes the readers on a journey to the 47th International Kolkata Book Fair.

Fiction

The Trickster

The old man looked out his window – the elderly are just like cats in many ways: from the number of hours they sleep per day, to the habit of peering out of the window at any chance they get (that is, basically every minute).

Poetry

Preet Padam

I am red like raag yaman. Red like stirring ardor, like relentless vikara, Like flesh awash with rasa, Wasteful, like Laal Ishq, Red like death.

Fiction

The Makeover

Good, you say; I’m relieved. You hail the waiter and order two more appetizers. You laugh. You have to keep up your strength you say. When the food comes, we both eat ravenously. I’m getting tired of talking. Let’s take a break, I say; why don’t you talk for a while?

Poetry

MILE 3339

because there will come a mile where he is too weak to brush a horsefly from the bridge of his nose, his head on a stretcher pillow ringed by news microphones, surrounded by the indifference of trees;

Literature

Book Excerpt from A Long Season of Ashes

TBR presents an extract of Siddhartha Gigoo's A Long Season of Ashes by.

Fiction

The 149th Step

“Hell,” he said, “It was just like a movie, Tish. Janie didn’t have a clue. I drove her out there, blind-fold and all. I brought her down to the dock. Took her blindfold off. She was blown away. Couldn’t believe it. She said, ‘Where are we?’

Fiction

Kevlar Hoodies

Gabby had been in this situation before. People hated to think someone had broken the law of averages. Everyone, she included, knew her luck would run out sooner or later. She’d had dates before where this had been a deal breaker.

Poetry

Ode to working the line

Winking bulbs, screaming vents. You need specialized footwear here. You need to wash workwear in a separate load due to its villainous grease.Senior members will ruthlessly remind. You must learn how to resorb the body’s complaints, fashion stout leather insides out of soft tissue.

Fiction

A Town Without Sidewalks

Ace was a wide man. Over the years, he’d developed layers of fat over his muscle, earned from years of good eating and unseen manual labor on the mountain. His black beard was painted with shades of dusty grey. His face was wrinkled from smiling and squinting in the sun.

Poetry

TRIPTYCH

When he scolded us, in our classroom with Sister Martin standing in back, about dating a non-catholic, his voice rose. “Drop them like a hot potato.”

The Bangalore Review