By James Aitchison Being branded a traitor is bad enough, but having your name used to describe one is another matter entirely.  Today, dictionaries define a “quisling” as a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country.  Many…

By: Sam Hendrian “Casualties” She was cursed with the rare giftOf etching tomorrow onto someone’s faceAs soon as the today she spent with themProved happier than every yesterday combined. Window-shopped at all the wedding stores within a hundred mile radius,Not…

By: James Aitchison It is never ours to condemn,lest we become the victim.The open mind knowsthe mystery of death.As time outlasts walls,so too the measured soulfinds freedom.Fear is the flamethat consumes trust;trust, next to love,the hardest human valueto give consistently.Believe…

By: Khemendra Kamal Kumar Round One: The Present Tears welled in Ballu’s eyes as his daughter’s name was announced. Sandhya Baldeo with a gold medal in her discipline. With the degree certificate in one hand, the gold medal in another,…

By: AJ David They say that on the night Baba Fagbemi died, freedom was born in the Ifesowapo village. It was like a caterpillar breaking free from its cocoon, a petal unfurling to bloom, a dog getting loosed and running…

(written while sitting in the Western NC forest in front of a beautiful horizontal oak) By: Carla Ramsdell (a physicists and tree hugger) Thank you for your life. There’s so much magic in the growth of your trunk and branches,…

By: Nandini Sahu Medusa I am Medusa, I merge with you, my myriad-minded-molten-man,my melic-moon-man. See the sunny side of our youth and middle ageand let us amalgamate with our hearts beating each to each. The melancholic sides of this mountain,…

By: Mykyta Ryzhykh The mouse gnaws timeThe train kisses silence The night seems surprisingly calmThe siren of the air alarm has become a habit *** pregnant with deathexecutioners withthe eyes of the nightgive birth to silence *** A gentle windРlays…

By James Aitchison Psychotherapy and hypnosis had a strange genesis: the absurd quackery of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer.  Like phrenology — the so-called science of reading lumps and bumps on someone’s head to determine their character — Mesmer’s theories would…

By: Professor Nandini Sahu AbstractA much neglected but significant part of our literary traditions, tribal literature, captures the complex socio-cultural and spiritual fabric of many native communities. Home of sixty-two tribes, Odisha has a corpus of tribal literature comprising oral…