Dear Readers,

The act of writing has been considered a form of revolution. But when we hear the word, revolution in the context of social spaces- we simply narrow it down to one of its basic meanings that we have come to accept which is a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure. But if we look and read beyond the usual definitions that have come to be attributed to this term, we realize that revolution is also a word for metamorphosis. A change need not necessarily be achieved by translating one’s thoughts into actions. At times, the metamorphosis is required at the level of the mind. The change in one’s perceptions towards others, the removal of stereotypes that one gets used to as one is growing up and thereby accepting. The very act of pigeonholing people, cultures without questioning those very institutions tend to normalize behaviours as well as our responses to several such examples that crop up in our lives.

One of the aims of our fiction section at Muse India has been to look beyond the pigeon holes that societal structures have created and accepted in its various forms. The writings that have been included in this edition push against those boundaries and make us think/realize of the ramifications of living out our lives without pushing the envelope. I invite our readers to go through these stories and pause…maybe when that feeling of abeyance takes over, one comes face to face with questions that one had overlooked for a long time. As Yukio Mishima has said-

“What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.”

The stories featuring in this edition are-
Ananya Damodare: Back Then
Ayyappan Ramachandran: Marriage Ceremony
Lakshmi Kannan: Addigai
Meera Dandekar: The Laughing Boy
Mishkat Bhattacharya: A Lozenge for Mr. Lal
Paloma Bhattacharjee: Planting a Story
Pankaj Tripathi: Between Two Worlds
Raksha Rao: Stolen Moments
Ripon Handique: Teacher
Sarpreet Kaur: Rano
Soumya Hegde: Shabari
Sumana Roy Chowdhury: A Bee’s Purpose
Swathi Parasuraman: Rabbit and New Man

I would also like to inform our contributors that we have been receiving an unprecedented number of submissions since last year. To go through all of them as well as to review all the submissions is taking a lot of time for our team and so beginning this month onwards we won’t be accepting any new submissions until January 2022.

We sincerely regret making this announcement but we look forward to receiving your works starting January 2022. Our best wishes.