Dear all,

Welcome to the third edition of Kinaara, and the editor’s spiel thereof, which promises to (attempt to) hold your attention. (Fingers crossed, don’t fall asleep, now.)

Kinaara purporting to be a South Asian literary magazine (it’s in the byline and everything) we are interested in the commonalities that allow us to call this grouping of nations by a single name, that let us draw a line around and isolate them from the rest of the continent and world. But if we are interested in the ties that bind, we are no less interested in the dissonances in speech, gesture and culture that have developed on either side of the many borders all drawn within these last hundred years—the differences between an Indian and a Bangladeshi, as much as, and more than, between a Punjabi and a Bengali, no matter on which side of the border. The cadences of a second-generation “Indian” New Yorker, who idolises King Khan yet stumbles over a Hindi phrase (“chhoti begum,” in this instance, this being an authentic anecdote and all) interest us.

The contributions to this edition serve to highlight the interiority of experience, and the desire to reach out, if also the futility of it. Aqsa Ghazanfar’s  poems speak of love whose imperfections and hidden truths make it real. Arunabh Satpathy’s is of the illusory impressions we form of those we hardly look at. Anurag Rudra’s poems address the interiority of the forcibly-idle youth who seeks to torment others to lighten his own burdens, the feeling of being perceived, and the persistence of hope. Mohammad Hassaan Akram’s story concerns the despair of a divorced man being separated from his daughter. Muhammad Umair Shabbir’s is a poem about the impossibility of attempting to know, which Priyanca Vaishnav’s is of marking time. Rakesh Ambati’s story talks of the price we put on invaluable things. Ravikant Kisana’s ‘The Metropolis’ is an account of life in a big city. Rohit K. Dasgupta’s collaboration with A. S. Handcock has produced a poem about the brief trysts we hold in memory. Sharad Soumya Majumdar puts GOD in a new light, and a new twist to an old story.

I leave you with these stories and poems of the fractured whole and the alienated individual still (always) reaching out to the community ze wants to be a part of, with the hope that you enjoy them and they prompt some thought of our strange situation as members, in tandem, of a South Asian community, our nations, ethnicities, religions, communities, families, and selves.

In hope and trust, my hand to you,

Anomitra Biswas

September 2009