Featured Illustration: Upasana Agarwal Toeing the threshold between purgatory and reality. My spirit runs insurgent in the forest of looming souls. Torn from these nascent roots, Mary’s suckling lamb is distraught. Convention dictates the adoption of identity markers. Only this label is hopeless to the deciphering lens. Like sloping hieroglyphics, it confounds the viewer and […]
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A society constructed on artifice. If we collectively elevate the superficial and champion those people valued solely in terms of vanity and social standing, what remains tangible or real? The clones are carefully constructed personas, self-assured of their uniqueness. We learn to individualize the blank slate of an online presence, refining and buffing our narcissism, […]
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I was a self-absorbed child. Grasping for the steering wheel to follow my own route, disregarding others’ inclinations. The need to exert control over all aspects of my life was dizzying, and losing the reign was not an option. How could people treat themselves so lightly whilst doom mounted inside of me? I had always expected […]
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A storm is brewing, conjuring a perpetual state of mourning which shows no sign of waning — something inside of me is rotten. The desolate core has expired and yet eludes understanding. Symptoms of tears appear in excess, gentle and lukewarm pearls they may appear, but remain futile — staining the glass skin and illuminating […]
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Hoist that flag up higher, stretching your pride as high up as the sky. A flag of a country repressed under a fist of colonial servitude. A boot stamping on the face of a native — forever. A bloodstained shade of red, dripping in blood, toil and a legacy of agitation. Restored glory, unsung bravery muffled […]
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(Featured Image: Minaret overlooking our neighborhood) I only stayed for 2 weeks. I distinctly remember booking the tickets and breathing a sigh of relief because for once, I would not be spending the whole of my summer in Pakistan. Memories of past trips were stifling; the restless heat, disorienting pitch black nights and pervasive sense of melancholia. […]
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The recent Twitter furor in reaction to news of Marks & Spencer selling school hijabs. Maajid Nawaz took to Twitter to argue that British high street retailer Marks & Spencer “facilitates medievalism” by selling hijabs under the “school uniform” category. But this suggests that Nawaz is aware of the exact circumstances surrounding young girls […]
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Featured Artwork: Lauren Colin Mitchell for the women brave enough to speak of their past and memory of sexual abuse. Invisible, a silver outline of a butterfly wing transient to the evaporation of time, but the feeling pesters. and perturbs her fibre well-being fades into malfunction Violation, a simple transgression, the proof of which […]
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