Image credit - Sai Brahmananda Gorti (Editor of the Feature)

Memory and human relationships – in any literature – are vital features to express interactions, conflicts, and evolvement of society during a period. Time changes, and so does the society.

Human relations – good or bad – tend to form at the early stages of life, starting with parents to siblings to relatives to neighbors. Interactions with others in society cement our memories over some time. We carry some; we relinquish many.

Memory is what allows us to have a concept of experiencing. When we hear similar experiences from others, we tend to become nostalgic.

As life goes on, people tend to forget all their past interactions, either due to indifference or due to the fading of memory. Yet, we carry some memories forward for an extended period – for example, the help received from a friend, the impact a teacher created on us as pupils in the school, the care taken by relatives in our times of need – in some cases, till the end of our lives.

Occasionally, these persons – who may live at far off places or lack contact details – and the incidents and interactions with them or even otherwise – pop up in our minds. With our busy lives, we subside these memory spikes unintentionally. These feelings reappear to show our failure to reach out to them, and in the end, they create a void that can haunt us forever.  We unknowingly burst out these feelings with friends – co-travelers in a train or bus – or to unknown persons during a hike, whoever it might be.

Literature – the medium of expression – thus carries these experiences to share with future generations.   In a nutshell, the central theme of the Feature in this issue – Relations: The void within – mirrors them with a spark.

The feature canvasses inspirational and multi-dimensional stories, beautiful poems with the fragrance and flavor of a morning aroma coffee, thought-provoking articles, and perceptive book reviews – a literary vent-out by the writers within the four walls of the home.

To keep the void within us at bay, we have many tools – technology, a double-edged sword; phone; and the information – at our disposal to express ourselves, and to reach out to people to sustain our relationships with a positive spirit.

The writings in this issue have touched upon a gamut of feelings, emotions, experiences and perceptions – a heavy feel for homosexual relations; haunting affairs of a son with his father; unwavering love in families with different behaviors; the state of mind at the fag end of the life – in a different perspective.

But for the writers who have contributed to this Feature, the above mine of ideas could not have been explored. My thanks to one and all of them. Lastly, I am grateful to Muse India for the opportunity to conceive and curate this Feature. And my thanks to my literary friend, NS Murthy for connecting me to Muse India. Honestly, I enjoyed the beautiful sail.