The Chakkar

16/06/2024

'The artist’s space may be shared by other artisans, even as his canvases belong to all. Such a communitarian attitude to art perhaps ties up with the poet’s understanding of “oneness”, the unifying motif in the collection.'

Ajanta Paul reviews Kiriti Sengupta's poetry collection, "Oneness"

Kiriti Sengupta’s Oneness (2024) is a condensed capsule of poetry, one that weaves multiple strains of being into an organic unity. With his vivid and sonic juxtapositions, the compositions in the new collection both obfuscate and enlighten the reader. By Ajanta Paul

16/06/2024

Join our mailing list for our monthly newsletter, featuring essays and creative work on The Chakkar. Film, music, literature, art, and much more. On TheChakkar.com

15/06/2024

“Sometimes silence works”: Words and Withdrawals in Kiriti Sengupta’s ‘Oneness’
Kiriti Sengupta’s Oneness (2024) is a condensed capsule of poetry, one that weaves multiple strains of being into an organic unity. With his vivid and sonic juxtapositions, the compositions in the new collection both obfuscate and enlighten the reader. By Ajanta Paul

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/oneness

13/06/2024

‘These secrets remained in my back pocket. And even though the pockets in women’s garments are Lilliputian in nature, I managed to keep them stuffed stuffed, hoping that Amma would never come looking.’

“Did you shave off your moustache?” - personal essay by Diyaa Jyothilal

Personal Essay by Diyaa Jyothilal : ‘For the first time in my life, I would feel beautiful. I felt like a girl. I felt like I was worthy of becoming a woman one day. I spent hours staring into my bathroom mirror, gaping at my reflection, and imagining myself on the cover of Vogue .’

13/06/2024

“Did you shave off your moustache?”
Personal Essay by Diyaa Jyothilal: ‘For the first time in my life, I would feel beautiful. I felt like a girl. I felt like I was worthy of becoming a woman one day. I spent hours staring into my bathroom mirror, gaping at my reflection, and imagining myself on the cover of Vogue.’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/diyaajyothilalessay

09/06/2024

‘A Claim To Dawns’: Two Poems by Carol D’Souza
‘it pools around my ankles most days
But now, onwards! To the elixir of evening tea’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/caroldsouzapoems

08/06/2024

Features on Chamkila, QALA, Krosswindz, DEV.D and more: a recap of music features on The Chakkar https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTMwNjc3NjEwNzc4NzY2?igsh=MWF4bzBhcXg4bWxhOA==

07/06/2024

'The purpose of a nostalgic emotion is to create a deep desire. In that desire, I am reaching out for something that has disappeared into dust. The halcyon is in the matrix. Memories are tainted because I infer them differently as I get on with time.'

"All That the Kaveri Washes Away" - a personal essay by Andal Srivatsan

Personal Essay by Andal Srivatsan: ‘That air is now hardened, rancid, antediluvian. It permeates through the fabric of all communities today. It hovers, egomaniacally, over some of us who want nothing but love and harmony—both excruciatingly evasive.’

06/06/2024

All that the Kaveri Washes Away
Personal Essay by Andal Srivatsan: ‘That air is now hardened, rancid, antediluvian. It permeates through the fabric of all communities today. It hovers, egomaniacally, over some of us who want nothing but love and harmony—both excruciatingly evasive.’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/kaveriessay

04/06/2024

‘She reminds her brother that, “Your friends don’t even drink water from our house and now they want to fix my marriage!!!?” This is not a toxic dynamic as some upper-caste viewers might think, but a sensitive space where vulnerability and vengeance meet and stare at one another, until one unburdens the other, spilling open the poison of caste manifestations.’

Anamitra Bora wrote about the documentary TURUP

The 2017 documentary Turup reminds viewers of how we are all trapped in a haunted physical world, rife with symbols of pathos; and yet, the revolutionary yearning echoes itself in the corners of the strangest of rooms. By Anamitra Bora

04/06/2024

A Caste-Ridden Society, in Checkmate
The 2017 documentary ‘Turup’ reminds viewers of how we are all trapped in a haunted physical world, rife with symbols of pathos; and yet, the revolutionary yearning echoes itself in the corners of the strangest of rooms. By Anamitra Bora

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/turup

02/06/2024

Our latest newsletter is out! Featuring an interview with Tishani Doshi, art inspired by Mussoorie, growing up with comedy in India, and more!

- Ronald Tuhin D'Rozario "Debating, reporting, complaining, and poetry are all valid forms of expression. A poem is not an opinion or a statement. Its beauty is that despite its constraints of form and size, a poem is magnanimous—it enlarges rather than constricts. So, there’s a lot of space and...

02/06/2024

‘just standing still in this garden,

you constantly feed
the sturdy pine facing you,

and the delicate leaves of grass
crowding your feet’

Poetry by Vikram Kolmannskog

Poetry by Vikram Kolmannskog : ‘here where the pressure is high / yet you remain so very sensitive, // here where you find the grassy, gritty origins / of humility and humanity.’

31/05/2024

‘You’re Also a Part of a Whole’: Poetry by Vikram Kolmannskog
‘here where the pressure is high
yet you remain so very sensitive,

here where you find the grassy, gritty origins
of humility and humanity.’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/vikramkolmannskogpoems

31/05/2024

Stories of hope, growth, and rebellion. Highlights of recent fiction on The Chakkar 👉🏽 https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE4MDE2MjgxMTE5NDYzODA1?igsh=MXgyY3dxNXQzYXpsZA==

29/05/2024

‘The afternoon sun, now devoid of any cloud, was scorching, but the old woman’s room seemed immune to its solar forces. The room was painted in that same blue, the blue of the city. Sakshi felt as if it was embalming her senses.’

“Maya Blue” - a short story by Rijuta Pandey

Fiction by Rijuta Pandey : “Anyway, when your life depends on a thread, you learn to weave anything out of it. You can weave even the blue sky.”

29/05/2024

What’s The Chakkar? Recent features on TheChakkar.com include 👉🏽

- An interview with Abhishek Anicca by Akankshya Abismruya
- Ronald Tuhin D'Rozario interviews author & poet Tishani Doshi
- Archit Nanda on the newsroom docudrama ‘While We Watched’
- A review of Abhishek Anicca’s ‘The Grammar of My Body’ - by Priyanka Chakrabarty
- Looking back at the impact of ‘Luck By Chance’ - by Sneha Bengani
- Marnina (Avirup) visits the q***r stalls at the International Kolkata Book Fair
- and much more!!!

28/05/2024

“Maya Blue”: a short story by Rijuta Pandey: “Anyway, when your life depends on a thread, you learn to weave anything out of it. You can weave even the blue sky.”

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/mayablue

26/05/2024

‘Humanity, you chuckled, as Adi’s jawline tightened around his unkempt beard. It was obvious how the two of you were destined to retire into different bedrooms at the end of the day. Once Adi revamped the den, the teensy attempts to reconcile were long forgotten.’

Fiction by Adrija Chatterjee

Fiction by Adrija Chatterjee : ‘For twenty-eight consecutive days, there had been no phone call from Oli’s house, from Ravti. You understand how the grave the situation is, an already unelectrified village, perhaps now shrouded in some unimaginable stillness.’

26/05/2024

Cities That Walked – An Excerpt

Fiction by Adrija Chatterjee: ‘For twenty-eight consecutive days, there had been no phone call from Oli’s house, from Ravti. You understand how the grave the situation is, an already unelectrified village, perhaps now shrouded in some unimaginable stillness.’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/citiesthatwalked

24/05/2024

‘A striped gorgeous kookabura
wings away laughing.

Do its flapping wings berate
my wanderings, that my regrets
have no more moisture
than the dried mud cakes on its bed.’

Three Poems by K.S. Subramanian

Poetry by K.S. Subramanian: ‘Let me not do a U-turn of my neck / to see the past, skill sets that / lost their spell in time, high hopes / Slithering down a slippery slope’

22/05/2024

Days Are Whirlpools: Three Poems by K.S. Subramanian
‘Let me not do a U-turn of my neck
to see the past, skill sets that
lost their spell in time, high hopes
Slithering down a slippery slope’

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/kssubramanianpoems2

20/05/2024

‘A flood of institutional pressure, economic pushback, and creative stifling have blunted many of the sharp edges of Indian arts. As a result, in the heat of perhaps the most consequential elections in the history of independent India, mainstream art provides little resistance to the deluge of tyranny, choosing to navigate safely free from the murky waters of deeper introspection.’

Editorial by Karan Madhok

In the run-up to the 2024 elections, the films that hit the big screens, the books showcased on the windowfronts, and the music crawling into our ears, has mostly sung the songs of propaganda. It’s art without dissent; art that rages for the machine. By Karan Madhok

19/05/2024

In the run-up to the 2024 elections, the films that hit the big screens, the books showcased on the windowfronts, and the music crawling into our ears, has mostly sung the songs of propaganda. It’s art without dissent; art that rages for the machine.

Essay by Karan Madhok https://www.thechakkar.com/home/artdefanged

17/05/2024

‘Chamkila was so ahead of his time that even in Imtiaz Ali’s film—produced decades later—many of these lyrics come across as scandalous; one can only imagine how the moral police and fundamentalists would have reacted to this daring artist who helped these deepest, darkest, repressed sexual fantasies go mainstream.’

By Deepansh Duggal

Imtiaz Ali’s biographical drama Amar Singh Chamkila (2024) returns to the profane and scandalous themes the Punjabi artist’s music, reclaiming the singer’s societal impact, and exposing the flawed notions of morality in Punjab’s cultural milieu. By Deepansh Duggal

17/05/2024

Imtiaz Ali’s biographical drama ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ (2024) returns to the profane and scandalous themes the Punjabi artist’s music, reclaiming the singer’s societal impact, and exposing the flawed notions of morality in Punjab’s cultural milieu.

By Deepansh Duggal https://www.thechakkar.com/home/amarsinghchamkila

15/05/2024

Publishers meticulously curate book covers, font styles, and blurbs to evoke sensory and emotional responses from potential readers. The cover art may hold different meanings for each person, depending on their associations and knowledge of the art world. The memories and experiences of the reader are invoked, creating a synergy between the book and the reader.

Satyarth Pandita on the grand connection between books and their readers

Does the reader choose their book? Or the book its reader? Satyarth Pandita explores this grand moment of literary connection and resonance.

13/05/2024

Who Chooses Whom? The Book Buyer’s Conundrum

Does the reader choose their book? Or the book its reader? Satyarth Pandita explores this grand moment of literary connection and resonance.

https://www.thechakkar.com/home/whochooseswhom

11/05/2024

‘The warm meals he sniffs, he
cannot possess, and he knows not that
everything has a price—the biscuits he so
craves, the little space he so seeks, the love
he so desires. Sunrise on the street, and on
most streets, is silent; in silence, the pup
consumes his hunger.’

The World from my Window: Three Poems by Mary Tina Shamli Pillay

Poetry by Mary Tina Shamli Pillay : ‘Often dreams / Collide but they swiftly / Comply, dusting sorrows / Off their wired feet’

11/05/2024

The Chakkar is open for submissions! Send us your pitches and creative work. More details here: https://www.thechakkar.com/submissionscontact