The Red Moon

Tarun let out of a sigh of frustration. He was late to his first class by ten minutes - he knew Prof. Nathan would not let him in, and there was no point trying and getting humiliated. Tarun was both happy and sad - he would not have to sit through the boring lecture, but he would have to catch up later. He went to the cafeteria and bought a cup of coffee, and decided to head to the kindergarten section, hoping to check up on his four-year-old sister, Sasha. He knew that his older sister, Diya, would be busy with her 11th-grade classes. Tarun was the middle child, now in 7th grade. He was happy with his status - he enjoyed the double-privilege of bossing around Sasha and being doted upon by Diya. Tarun, Diya and Sasha had loving parents. They were a typical middle-class family - but with an extraordinary secret. The secret was Little Sasha's superpower. She was born with indestructible digestion - she could eat anything, and her body would digest it, no problem. Tarun's

It was 3 AM and I had just gotten off a two-and-a-half-hour video call with my college friends. Visions from the past five years at IIT Madras swished past me in the next few minutes, lighting up my drowsy eyes with a smile. This was a couple of days ago. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our final semester - compelling us to leave the institute in a hurry to our respective hometowns. It has been three months, and as we know, the pandemic is still wreaking havoc in many states across the country - Chennai being a heavily affected area. So, we now resort to social media, online Catan, and the occasional video calls, to experience some semblance of the closure of college life. However, not having had the normal last few days before graduation or a proper farewell will always be something that raises a lament in me.  These years were not without their own ups and downs. But after due reflection, I would have to say that the downs were worth the ups. There were three things that colle

Maya stared down at the sheet of paper in front of her. There were more tear stains on it than words. She crumpled the sheet and threw it into the trash can and let out a frustrated scream, trying to let go of her angst in the process. Her father rushed in on hearing her cry. Maya looked at him with defeated eyes and said “I cannot, dad. I cannot write anymore. This is it. My career ends here.” Her father sat down next to her and held her until she quieted down.  Alan McLean had been her favourite author since childhood. It was his books that had opened up the world of reading to her. It was his books that had kept her awake at night. It was his books that had inspired her to become an author. Maya’s mother had died when she was young - she was an only child raised by her father. With her father often away at work, Maya had a lonely childhood. Reading and writing were her defence mechanisms to loneliness, and it had worked out quite well. She had grown into a successful author, h

Her dark clothes and the marks on her skin made others fear her, especially since they learned that she is a witch. What they did not notice, are the good fortune spells she cast on strangers under her breath, or how she dropped protection charms on street corners, or the stray cat she fed as if it were her own. Thirty-year-old Rosemarie Milton was born a happy soul. After her husband’s death in the war, she was the lone caretaker of her two children, whom she fed by working as an agricultural labourer in the nearby farms. She did not, however, complain. When Rosemarie’s mother had sat down her ten-year-old daughter and explained to her about their ancestral powers of witchcraft, she also made her promise to never use them unethically. But recently, Rosemarie was finding it difficult to keep up her promise. The villagers in her block, most of whom previously adored her for her grit and simplicity, now either feared her or bullied her. It all started with Bridget Bishop, the kind o

              A work of historical fiction, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a story of a girl named Lily. Set in nineteenth-century China in a remote Hunan county, the story delves into the intricacies of the culture of pre-modern China, and more specifically, it’s influence on the lives of women. The author, Lisa See, manages to brilliantly outline the life of Lily from when to she is seven, up until her death. At seven, Lily is paired with Snow Flower, a girl from another village, as her ‘laotong’, a sort of a customary official friendship match between two females that is meant to last a lifetime, which it kind of does - with some complexities.               The highlight of the book, at least for me, was the practice of foot-binding. Foot binding was the custom of applying tight binding to the feet of young girls to modify the shape and size of their feet. The aim was to acquire small “lotus feet”. The perfect bound feet (around 7-9 cm) were called “golden lotuses”, the smalle

In the midst of a colossal pandemic, issues of gender inequality have taken a backseat. However, it is imperative to inspect the imprint of such a large-scale global phenomenon on gender roles in society. Data has shown that while both men and women are equally susceptible to contracting COVID-19, the mortality rate of men is higher than that of women. There is ongoing research on whether the extra X chromosome gives women additional immunity. However, the more generally accepted theory is that men have compromised immunity since they tend to smoke and drink more due to traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity that promote such activities among men and demote them amongst women. The rest of the writing would focus on more indirect outcomes of the pandemic.  Notably, the majority of the global healthcare workers, as well as informal caregivers, are female. Contrastingly, the majority of the political policy-makers are male. This itself creates an imbalance in the funct

Once again, Arya Stark fell asleep in Snape’s class. Only this time, she woke up on her own, panting heavily, rather than being woken up by Snape’s condescending voice. Even though Arya was used to having visions by now, the exceptional clarity of this one left her shivering in the middle of the day. She excused herself from the class pretending to be sick and ran across the corridors into the Gryffindor common room, panic drawn out on her face. To her relief, she found Harry sitting there, along with Hermione and Ron, the three of them flipping through homework scrolls and engaging in idle chatter. Laid down on the table before them was the map for their quest tonight. The four of them had been assigned by Dumbledore to steal a Horcrux. One of Dark Lord’s Horcruxes. Hermione was the first to notice Arya, her expression quickly transforming from cheery to concerned and perplexed. Arya recounted the vision to her friends in a trembling voice. What she had seen in her vision was too uns