Dear friends,

You are welcome to the second edition of the Kinaara magazine, for which our theme is Conflict.

Territorial and religious conflicts cast their shadow over much of the material in this month’s edition, which is perhaps inevitable since territorial and religious conflicts seem to have become an integral part of life in South Asia. There are few people in our generation who still remember the innocence of living in a place out of the range of a nuclear missile. Our senses have become accustomed to living constantly under threat. We barely wince at news of war or terrorism over the media. Without going into the highly controversial issues of who is right or wrong, I only intend to bring your attention to the regrettable detail that no South Asian youth can, perhaps, imagine how their lives and/or society would be without the constant threat of territorial or religious conflict. It must then come as no surprise to us that this aspect should draw the heaviest response the moment the word Conflict is uttered.

All the works chosen for this edition treat this conflict from different angles. Akshaya Kumar’s story very skilfully profiles a perpetrator of conflict; while the works of M. R. Radhika Pai and Showkat Nanda put forward the victims of conflict, both from very different perspectives. Anomitra Biswas has gone into an introspection of the basic, stripped-down emotions of the hunter and the hunted. Pooja Sudhir has reviewed the film New York against the backdrop of the global terrorism. Bilal Hussain’s article, while not directly dealing with territorial or religious conflict, speaks of the effects of conflict on environmental conditions and vice versa.

Some of the authors in this edition have also ventured out to explore the other forms of conflict that affect our lives. Anway Mukhopadhyay’s article pits the everyday life of the South Asian against his history; Maryam Reza has explored the conflicting boundaries of sanity and insanity; Poorna Banerjee has commented on the ever-increasing struggle in our kitchens between traditional and modern eating practices; and Priyanca Vaishnav’s poetry speaks of the eternal conflict between impulse and thought. In bringing together this entire selection, I hope to have presented to you a diverse range of opinion and interpretation you will enjoy.

As a part of our experiments for the most reader-friendly format for Kinaara, we have decided to open up each work in the August edition separately for comments. Now you can post your thoughts on each work on its own page, and please do so, for your feedback will greatly encourage our contributors.

As always, you can keep track of the Kinaara team at our blog and our Facebook group. If you would like to receive our newsletter, please send us your email address at newsletter@kinaaramagazine.org.

In solidarity, peace and creativity,

Monidipa Mondal

August 2009