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“That Which We Cannot Speak Of” — A Short Story from For Now, It Is Night: Stories (HarperCollins/Archipelago Books, 2023) by Hari Krishna Kaul

Inverse Journal presents the English translation of “That Which We Cannot Speak Of” from For Now, It is Night: Stories [https://archipelagobooks.org/book/for-now-it-is-night/] (HarperCollins/Archipelago Books, 2023), a collection of seventeen short stories by the late Hari Krishna Kaul (1934-2009).

That Which We Cannot Speak Of

By Hari Krishna Kaul (1934-2009)

Translated from the Kashmiri by Kalpana Raina, Tanveer Ajsi, Gowhar Fazili, and Gowhar Yaqoob

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hey say that Lal Dĕd spun wool into extremely fine threads, but her mother-in-law was not impressed. Though a daughter-in-law is not entitled to be angry, this infuriated Lal. She threw the entire skein of thread into the lake and lotus stalks sprang from it. The fine, hair-like fibers that we see in lotus stalks are the same delicate threads spun by Lal. Maybe this is why, as a mark of reverence to Lal Dĕd, present-day writers and poets spin lofty tales or weave ideas as fragile as the fibers of the lotus stalk. But jinab! I am not one of those privileged writers and poets. My metabolism is weak. I can neither digest lotus stalks nor comprehend the subtlety of fine thread-like ideas. I can only eat simple collard greens and rice and understand, as they say in English, “the writing on the wall” inscribed in bold letters.

If you find what I just said too obscure, let me put it simply. There were sudden noises in the middle of the night. My wife thought it was the sound of gunfire or an exploding bomb. But I realized it was not a bomb, just the sound of firecrackers which suggested that Maqbool Sahib had won the assembly seat from our constituency. Usually, my wife does not believe anything I say, but this time she was easily convinced. She again covered herself from head to foot with the blanket and went back to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep and started thinking about the impact of Maqbool Sahib’s victory on regional, national and international politics. I didn’t get very far with that thought. Like a student in an examination hall who leaves a difficult question half done and moves on to an easier one, I started thinking about how Maqbool Sahib’s victory would affect my life. This, too, wasn’t as easy as I had thought at first. To answer such a question, one would need to be familiar with astrology. An astrologer well versed in his profession can predict the good or bad impact of shifts in planetary alignments. I thought it better to put these theoretical concerns aside and focus on practical matters like when I might congratulate Maqbool Sahib and what I might say to him. Thinking about pointless abstractions made me light headed. But thinking about practical matters steadied my mind and led it back on track. As a result, before I could f inalize a plan to visit Maqbool Sahib and congratulate him, I fell asleep once again.

My wife woke me at the crack of dawn.

“Hey you! Maqbool Sahib may have won the election, but you won’t get collard greens later.”

Why wouldn’t I get collard greens? Collard greens are perhaps the only thing available in Kashmir all through the year. Since the beginning of life in Kashmir, people have asked God to bless them with rice and collard greens. Though rice became scarce, collard greens were always abundant. Actually, my wife meant that if I were late, I would miss the famous Kawdor collard greens that the red-haired street vegetable vendor sold which, in my wife’s opinion, were delicious.

Heavy-eyed, I picked up the bag and left for the market. Only Magga’s, that is Mohammad Maqbool’s, barbershop was open. Apart from him, Nazir Woin, Basheer Goor, his younger brother Farooq and Rahman Gaad’e were standing in front of the shop. Rahman Gaad’e was going on about how, even though the counting of votes had been completed the same day, the officials were hesitant to announce the results. Just then, Magga saw me and yelled, “Today the rascals look disgraced.”

I was not angry when I heard Magga say this. Why would I be angry? I didn’t feel disgraced. My face was unwashed, perhaps that made me look somewhat dejected. Only those who have time and leisure can afford to feel outraged. I was in a hurry, and if I were late by even a minute, I would miss those special collard greens from Kawdor that taste better than ghee.

The vegetable seller sold sixteen bunches of collard greens for a rupee. I got three more by haggling and another four by tricking him. On my way home, I bumped into Magga near his shop, or who knows, maybe he purposely bumped into me. I can’t say for sure. As I was about to fall into the gutter, Magga shouted out loud, “Batta, are you blind?”

Whether or not I could see clearly before, I felt completely blind after he yelled at me. Only God knows how I managed to get back home. If you poke a bull, it goes into a frenzy. On the contrary, if you insult a Batta by calling him a Batta, he gets really frightened.

The day before yesterday, someone from our family had been traveling to Jammu. Six or seven of us packed ourselves into a taxi like sardines and set off for the tourist center. The taxi driver was irritated but did not react. When he started the taxi, I told him politely, “Brother, you forgot to turn the meter on.”

As soon as I said this, he stopped the car, got out and started shouting, “Damn you, Batta! It’ll cost you thirty rupees, that’s final! Otherwise get out. Don’t pollute my car.”

I flinched. Struggling to smile, I said, “Sir, don’t be so angry early in the morning. You’re not a stranger, you’re like my brother. Charge thirty-one instead of thirty!”

After reaching the tourist center and paying him thirty rupees, I found out that he too was a Batta. I clenched my fists, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Had I known this fifteen minutes earlier, I would have shouted him down, saying, “Damn you, cowardly Batta! Will you turn on the meter, or should I teach you a lesson?”

And he would have tried to pacify me: “Sir, don’t be furious. Look here, I have turned the meter on, and now you can pay me a rupee less than what it shows.”

I unleashed the anger I felt toward Magga on my wife as soon as I got home. I flung the collard greens at her and went straight up to my room. I lit a cigarette and started thinking about what was wrong with Magga. It was Maqbool Sahib who had won and not Magga, and it was Doctor Janaki Nath Koul who had lost, not I. In a way, I was closer to Maqbool Sahib than to Doctor Janaki Nath. He and I had taught together in the same college for six years. Besides this, Magga’s anger would have made sense only if Maqbool Sahib had lost the election, it would be justified if Maqbool Sahib had fallen short of votes because of my family and myself. Success and failure are both in the hands of God. Only those whom God wishes to save recover from illness. Doctors and hakeems are only His instruments. So also, only the candidate whom God favors wins an election. The voter is just a medium. They are ineffectual. Even if the voter wishes you ill, all that matters is God’s will!

Maqbool Sahib was my colleague, but Magga was no stranger either. He was my schoolmate. We studied together from Class I to Class V in the Shitty School. Formally the school was named Government Primary School, but people called it Compulsory School, Compulsory Rag School or Shitty School. It was called Shitty School because the spot where it had been built had once been a public lavatory. To turn a lavatory into a school was a noble deed that could only have been accomplished in our neighborhood. Although these days, the stench that emanates from our education system makes one think that all schools and colleges have been built on sites which were previously lavatories.

Magga and I studied together in this Shitty School until Class V. Then my father sent me to high school, then college, and then to university. Later, I got a job and was married off. Magga dropped out from school after Class V. After leaving Shitty School, he played hopscotch and marbles and gambled right outside the school compound. Then he disappeared for some time, only to appear again when I was taking the Class X examinations. He got married, and soon after his father passed away, Magga took his father’s place at the barbershop and started cutting people’s hair. In the beginning, I too would go to his shop for a haircut. He charged me less than he did the other customers in acknowledgement of our childhood friendship. But Magga had revised his rates ever since inflation had ruined the economy over the past ten to twelve years. He charged other customers two or three rupees, but took only one rupee from me. But still, I’d stopped going to his shop. Five years ago, Magga’s younger half-brother also opened a barbershop in our neighborhood. Now I go to his shop for a haircut. He charges me five rupees. No, sir, I didn’t have a quarrel with Magga, nor did I think his half-brother was a better barber. I have been smoking cigarettes for twenty-four years now and have gone to the barber’s for almost twice that long, but I never found one cigarette brand better or worse than the other. And I could never distinguish a master barber from a novice. Why I abandoned Magga and went to his half-brother’s shop is something that cannot be talked about. You may well question the veracity of everything I have said so far. You are right, why should I hide this one fact? There was only a fifteen-year-old calendar and three photographs hanging on the walls in Magga’s shop. On the calendar was a small, beautiful child dressed for Eid with a Koran in front of him and his hands held up in prayer. There was a photograph of Sheikh Abdullah, another photograph of Magga’s father, and a third one of Magga with his three friends. In contrast, all the walls in his half-brother’s shop were covered with pictures of film actresses and other stunning women. Their faces were alluring and their hips, thighs and other parts were even more attractive. As I waited about thirty or forty minutes for my turn, I would dedicate about five minutes to each picture, and this brought peace and tranquility to my soul. When I would leave the shop after the haircut, both my head and mind felt lighter. The younger generation of women in my family also read magazines and books with similar pictures, but they did so in secret.

This was the real reason I went to his half-brother’s shop. But Magga believed I had abandoned him over political disagreements. He thought I had stopped going to his shop and quit our old social circle because I was in league with his half-brother. The truth is that the reason for our differences was not the photograph of Sheikh Abdullah hanging on the wall of his shop, nor the blowup of Hema Malini pasted on the wall of his half-brother’s. The real reason for the break in our friendship was indeed a photograph, but that photograph was of Beigh Sahib. It’s a fact that Sheikh Sahib’s photograph hangs in Magga’s shop even today, but Beigh Sahib’s photograph was destroyed even before it could be developed from the roll of film. A photograph may or may not survive, but its story lives on.

Some years ago, a group of boys went to Sonerwani for a picnic. We arrived at Manasbal Lake at nine-thirty in the morning, and boys decided to have tea there before going further. By sheer luck, the Pride of Kashmir, Mirza Mohammad Afzal Beigh, was staying at the local guest house at that time. Maqbool Sahib and I held back, but the boys formed a circle around Beigh Sahib. In those days, the state police had arrested many young men on allegations of conspiring to break up the Indian union. Beigh Sahib was fighting for them in court and had come to Manasbal to prepare his case. After about ten minutes, some of our boys came up to us and asked if they could take a photograph with Beigh Sahib. Maqbool Sahib looked at me and asked me what I thought. But what could I say, I told him to do whatever he thought appropriate. But the boys did not wait for our consent. They made Beigh Sahib sit on a chair and stood around him. One boy went up to take the photograph. As he was about to click the button, Beigh Sahib shouted, “Professors, why don’t you join us. No one will fire you from your jobs over this.”

Maqbool Sahib was annoyed with me. He said, “I told you we should drive straight to Sonerwani. Now go and get your picture taken. You will realize how serious this is when this picture is published in the newspaper tomorrow. But you have nothing to worry about, you are a Batta. No one will hold you accountable, but I’ll be in trouble.”

Maqbool Sahib was right, but perhaps not entirely. I still haven’t forgotten that winter day, before I married and was appointed a college lecturer. I was an ordinary employee in a government office and was friends with the lovely Shanta, the daughter of a poor widow, who lived in our neighborhood. I remember vividly, it was a Friday. Sheikh Sahib had been released from jail a few days before and was going to the dargah to deliver a lecture. But none of this affected me. I left for the office as usual at ten o’clock in the morning, and Shanta told her mother that she was going to visit a friend. We met at Habba Kadal Bridge. At first we thought we might watch a movie, but then realized our families might see us at Ameera Kadal. We walked along the banks of Dood Ganga till Chattabal and kept walking until we reached Shalteng. We came back at four o’clock. The next day when I went to office, I was asked to explain my absence. The government had issued a circular that action would be taken against those government employees who had not come to work but had gone instead to Sheikh Sahib’s lecture at the dargah. My boss, a low-ranking officer then, and now a senior official who is a thorn in the side of the powers in Delhi – was quick to reprimand me. He swore at me, calling me an American and a Pakistani agent, and then he suspended me. My family and I were distressed, and Shanta was the only one who supported me at that time. A compounder named Mohammad Maqbool, who had started a pharmacy near her mother’s house, asked someone to call my boss and intervene. I was given my job back. Batta got his job back, and that too a government job! It was like a blind man regaining his sight. Shanta was so impressed with Mohammad Maqbool’s compassion that a few days later she eloped with him, and till today, no one knows anything about their whereabouts. Excuse me for this digression, please…

I was talking about Beigh Sahib. Beigh Sahib did not wait for Maqbool Sahib’s reply or mine. He asked the guard to fetch two more chairs, and the two of us sat on either side of him with the boys standing around. Helplessly, we posed for the photograph.

On the bus ride from Manasbal to Sonerwani, Maqbool Sahib didn’t speak a word to me. He sighed once and said, “Now no one can save us except the Almighty.”

And sure enough, the Almighty came to our rescue. At Sonerwani, the boy who had taken the photograph came to us and said, “We want to sit on those rocks. The camera might slip and fall in the water, so could you please keep it with you.”

“Yes,” Maqbool Sahib responded immediately, as if he had been waiting for that very moment. As soon as the boy went away, Maqbool Sahib opened the camera, took out the roll of film and exposed it. He then rolled the film again and inserted it back into the camera. He seemed relieved, but he remained annoyed with me. He swore and said that associating with a naïve person like me was to strangle oneself. Five or six days later, we learnt that a group of our college boys had vandalized a photographer’s shop for selling them an expired roll of film.

As I was recalling these events, I forgot to shave, wash up or have tea. A true Batta can forget everything, but he won’t forget to get to work. I sprang up at nine-thirty, shaved, washed my face quickly, ate a plateful of rice with collard greens, wore my suit and tie and left for college. Once again, I noticed Magga talking to some people in front of his shop. The moment he saw me, he said loudly, “The other day Maqbool Sahib said in public that anyone living here under Delhi’s patronage must leave; Kashmir isn’t anyone’s personal property.”

“Hey Magga, in 1946 their own Nehru told them to either assimilate, run away or perish,” Rahman Gaad’e added.

“God willing, we will smoke these rats out. Wait and see,” Magga sneered.

“But we won’t let them take their women. We will keep the women here,” Nazir Woin laughed loudly.

I thought it best to keep quiet. I lowered my head and continued walking. Gir Gagur was raising the shutters of his shop. He spoke sharply to Magga and his friends: “What’s wrong with you guys? You should be ashamed of using such foul language in front of Professor Sahib.”

Gir Gagur’s words eased my discomfort somewhat. I waited there until he had opened his shop, and then bought a pack of cigarettes. He whispered into my ear as he returned my change, “You should ignore them. They are too many to fight.”

“That’s what I did. They started swearing at me. I was just going to college.”

“Why the hell did you take this route? You could have gone the other way, taken a ferry across the river straight to your college,” he said.

Gir Gagur’s advice was worth considering. I decided to take the other route and the ferry across the river to reach my college from now on. It would cost me fifty paise there and back, but that would not kill me.

At college, I was anxious, wondering if everything at home was all right. I was worried that someone might harass my wife. I reached home earlier than usual, at three o’clock, and found her cheerful, dressed up and ready to go out.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember? We have to go to Buchpora today,” she said. “How forgetful you have become!”

I remembered then that Jawe Lal, a relative of mine who lived in Ganpatyaar, was getting his daughter married. The groom’s family had told them that there would be wealthy guests accompanying the groom and they could not bring the wedding procession to that seedy Ganpatyaar neighborhood. Poor Jawe Lal was very agitated. Many of his relatives lived in posh areas like Karan Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Channapora and Shivpora, but none of their homes were available for the wedding ceremony. Jawe Lal had discussed this problem with a colleague, Maqbool Hussain Mir, who had recently built a house in Buchpora. He said to Jawe Lal, “Your daughter is like my own. If my house cannot be of help now, it is of no use.”

The wedding was still a few days away, and since it was a daughter getting married, we had to ask Jawe Lal if he needed anything.

The bus was very crowded. There was barely room to stand, let alone sit down. Eventually, a young man took pity on my wife and said to her, “Hey, Congress lady, come, sit here on the bonnet.”

Today, he called her a Congress lady, six years back, another man had addressed her as “Janata lady,” and before that she was called a “grand lady.” The labels Congress, Janata or grand did not matter, what mattered was the word “lady.” It was almost like a refrain in a poem. While the lines changed, the refrain stayed the same. She was always a “lady.”

We reached Buchpora at seven in the evening. My wife started chatting with Jawe Lal’s and Mir Sahib’s wives in the kitchen while I went to the drawing room. Jawe Lal and his friend Mir Sahib, the owner of the house, were not there, but a few people from Jawe Lal’s family were. I sat in a corner. There was a priest there whom I did not know. He looked at me for a while and then he asked Jawe Lal’s cousin, “Kishen Ji, tell me, is the kitchen clean?”

“Yes, it’s clean,” he replied.

The priest then got to the crux of the matter. “In my opinion, Jawe Lal has made a mistake. How can sacred wedding rituals like Kanyadan and Brahma Yagna be performed in a mleccha’s house? Would this be sanctioned by the Vedas and other holy books?”

“The groom’s mother is also upset. She has expressed that sending the groom to a Muslim’s house is inauspicious,” Kishen Ji responded.

“She’s right, bless her,” Pandit Ji remarked and turned to me, “Could you shut the door, please. Sometimes one wishes to have a private conversation, but how is that possible when these people are everywhere.” I closed the door, and he continued speaking. “Give them half a chance and they’ll slaughter us all in an instant. I don’t know what’s stopping them.”

“They used to restrain themselves out of courtesy, but not anymore,” Kishen Ji added his opinion.

At that moment, the door was flung open and Mir Sahib entered the room. We all greeted him. He offered us some tea; we replied that we’d had tea in our homes. He ignored our response and insisted that we must have something. He told us that Jawe Lal would be back soon, the groom’s family had brought up a few problems and he had gone to speak to the matchmaker.

With Mir Sahib’s arrival, the subject of our conversation changed. Pandit Ji praised the locality. Kishen Ji added, “Battas are cowards. They have moved to far-flung areas like Pampore and Khrew, but they never considered moving here. As if they would be killed.”

An animated political discussion followed these remarks, then moved on to the recent elections and we had soon formed a cabinet of finance, power, industry, forest and health ministries.

I asked if anyone knew who would get the education ministry.

“Education will go to Maqbool Sahib. He has been a professor and is the most suitable candidate,” Kishen Ji replied.

This made me uneasy, as if I was sitting on pins. My wife and I left without waiting for Jawe Lal to return. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. In the morning, I got up, shaved, took a bath and left for Maqbool Sahib’s house without having my tea. He was pleased to see me and seemed to have forgotten our old disagreement. I congratulated him on the win; he thanked me. I said that actually it was the people of our constituency who deserved praise for electing a scholar and setting such an admirable precedent. He said that he would only be able to achieve something great if he had the support of progressive, secular intellectuals like me; people who weren’t narrow-minded or partisan in their views. He served me tea, and before I left, he mentioned that his son, Munna, was going to appear for the Class XII examination. I told him that I would probably be setting one of the mathematics papers for this year. He said that was great news. I remarked that I would come to see him at a suitable time. He replied that he wasn’t worried about that. He wanted to send Munna to IIT Delhi for his college degree and I told him it would be a little difficult to get admission there. He said he knew some people who could help, but if Munna scored well in the exams, it would be easier.

I left half an hour later, after the conversation with Maqbool Sahib was over. As I stepped outside, I saw Magga and a few men at the door. The guard would not let them into the house. He had told them that Maqbool Sahib was busy discussing some important matters with an influential political leader.

When Magga saw me coming out, he became very angry. He pushed the guard aside and charged in. But before going inside, he shouted, “Is this idiot Batta the influential political leader you were talking about?”

He said other things too, which I didn’t hear. I left like a rat smoked out of its hiding place. I thought to myself that while it’s great to be friends with Maqbool Sahib, in the end I have to live in the same neighborhood as Magga.

I should make peace with him. But how? I pondered this for a while and arrived at a solution. I realized that I had to renounce my feelings for Hema Malini and Parveen Babi and go back to Magga’s shop for a haircut. His resentment was sure to vanish. But I was also apprehensive, just like the Battas who were terrorized in 1931 when their homes and shops were looted in Vecharnag and Maharajgunj. They were astonished when they realized that Muslims were in control of everything. From midwives to cemetery workers and from carpenter’s tools to barber’s razors, everything was in their hands. Midwives, cemetery workers and carpenters might be harmless, but a barber could easily slit a Batta’s jugular while shaving and the poor fellow would die in a second. They say that this was what compelled some Batta boys to give up the proscriptions and become barbers. The throats of the old Battas remained safe, but those young boys were unable to find girls to marry. No respectable Batta would marry his daughter to a barber.

Jinab, forgive me. I’ve committed another blunder, I shouldn’t have told you this story. If I continue talking, I will commit many more blunders. Let me leave this here.

Reproduced in arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers India Private Limited and Archipelago Books from the book 'For Now, It Is Night: Stories' by Hari Krishna Kaul; English translation © Kalpana Raina 2023, © Tanveer Ajsi 2023, © Gowhar Fazili 2023 and © Gowhar Yaqoob 2023. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying is strictly prohibited.

About the Book

[et_pb_image src="https://inverse.azan-n.com/content/images/2026/04/for-now-it-is-night-cover.jpg" title_text="for-now-it-is-night-cover" url="https://harpercollins.co.in/product/for-now-it-is-night/" url_new_window="on" _builder_version="4.27.4" _module_preset="default" global_colors_info="{}" theme_builder_area="post_content"][/et_pb_image]

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ari Krishna Kaul, one of the very best modern Kashmiri writers, published most of his work between 1972 and 2000. His short stories, shaped by the social crisis and political instability in Kashmir, explore – with an impressive eye for detail, biting wit, and deep empathy – themes of isolation, individual and collective alienation, corruption, and the social mores of a community that experienced a loss of homeland, culture, and language.

In these pages, we will find: friends stuck forever in the same class at school while the world changes around them; travelers forced to seek shelter in a battered, windy hostel after a landslide; parents struggling to deal with displacement as they move away from Kashmir with their children, or loneliness as their children leave in search of better prospects; the cabin fever of living through a curfew…

Brilliantly translated in a unique collaborative project, For Now, It Is Night brings a comprehensive selection of Kaul’s stories to English readers for the very first time.

Pages: 216
Available in: Paperback
Language: English
Source: HarperCollins India

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About the Author

Hari Krishna Kaul

Hari Krishna Kaul (1934–2009) was born in Kashmir and lived there for most of his life. He taught Hindi literature in various colleges of the University of Kashmir until he was forced to leave in 1990. Kaul started his literary career writing short stories in Urdu and Hindi but switched to writing in Kashmiri in the mid-1960s. His first collection of short stories in Kashmiri, Pata Laraan Parbat, was published in 1972 and immediately established him as a major writer. Three other collections of short stories and numerous television and radio plays followed, cementing his position as an important figure in the modern literary landscape of Kashmir. His only novel, Vyath Vyatha, was published in 2005. He was the recipient of many awards including the Sahitya Akademi Award for Kashmiri fiction in 2000.
Source: HarperCollins India

About the Editor and Translators

Kalpana Raina

Kalpana Raina was born in Kashmir and lives in New York. She is a senior executive, board director and adviser with over thirty years of experience in both corporate and not-for-profit sectors. This is her first work of translation.

Tanveer Ajsi

Tanveer Ajsi is an independent art historian and cultural theorist with a diverse body of work spanning theatre, performing arts, visual arts, and literature. In addition to writing extensively on these subjects, he has also translated and directed plays, as well as curated and conceptualised exhibitions. Currently, he is compiling the complete anthology of Hari Krishna Kaul's short stories in Kashmiri, scheduled for publication in 2025.

Gowhar Fazili

Gowhar Fazili teaches political science and sociology. His writing has appeared in various journals and edited volumes, and a monograph based on his doctoral thesis is slated to be published soon.

Gowhar Yaqoob

Gowhar Yaqoob is an independent research scholar based out of Srinagar. Her research practice focuses on the medieval and modern history of literature with special focus on Kashmir.

Relevant Links

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Hindustan Times

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The Wire

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Kashmir Times

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Kinshuk Gupta
Live Mint

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Swapna Peri
Storizen

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Bilal Gani
Outlook Magazine

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Maillika Ramacha
Literary Potpourri

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Areeb Ahmad
Asymptote Journal

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Anderson Tepper
The New York Times

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Aditya Mani Jha
Frontline

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Niyati Bhat
Scroll.in

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Sharanya Manivannan
Open Magazine

[/et_pb_blurb][et_pb_blurb title="English translation of Kashmiri writer Hari Krishna Kaul’s work to release on September 24" url_new_window="on" icon_placement="left" _builder_version="4.27.4" _module_preset="default" header_text_color="#000000" header_font_size="17px" link_option_url="https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/books/lost-found-kashmir/" link_option_url_new_window="on" hover_enabled="0" global_colors_info="{}" header_text_color__hover="#E02B20" header_text_color__hover_enabled="on|hover" theme_builder_area="post_content" body_font="Montserrat||||||||" body_font_size="15px" body_line_height="1.2em"]

Sharanya Manivannan
Open Magazine

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Manisha Gangahar
The Tribune

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Joseph Schreiber
Rough Ghosts

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Muhammad Nadeem
Kashmir Life

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Aarti Arora
Read React Review

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Madhavi S Mahadevan
Deccan Herald

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For Now, It Is Night Book Release

Kalpana Raina & Tanveer Ajsi in conversation with Arshia Sattar and Sanjay Kak
India International Centre