When Mrs Mehra leaves Delhi she retires in one of ‘the vast new satellite townships on the eastern fringes of the metropolis’.
Mrs Mehra found Raju through her old friend Mrs Sethi, who herself found him through her own domestic, Sandesh. Raju and Sandesh were from the same terminal village in eastern Uttar Pradesh, and may even have been cousins, though the truth of this is hard to know.
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
Deepti Kapoor on travel, authenticity and the peculiarity of being Indian in Uganda.
‘People say it’s healthy for couples to fight, it means there’s still passion. I’ve always assumed that was bullshit, but now I’m not sure.’
Fiction by Brad Phillips.
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’
Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.
‘There is an apocalyptic feeling in the air. I write the day after the news that the IS have blown up parts of the ancient site of Palmyra.’
