Word Count: 527 | Reading Time: 2 min
As I write this editorial, dear readers, I am inundated with nervous-excitement and far too many things to do. Clarion West begins tomorrow, and I have yet to complete all my readings. I have yet to get to know all my instructors. I have yet to get started on my first submission. And, the usual demands of home and kids and work are looming ahead as well. Yes, the to-do list is long. So, I’m doubly glad that I was able to find time to edit another issue of Tasavvur for you, and I’m so proud of the selected stories. This is one TOC that is sure to entertain you (I hope!).
Let me walk you through the journey.
First, allow yourself to be whisked away on a howl’s-moving-castle, star-swallowing story of a friendship burning bright with ‘Polaris Rising’. College years hold a different magic. Those years, those places, those people. It’s never quite the same again, nor are you. You do things–forbidden, unbelievable, dangerous, and dreamlike. But maybe not quite as surreal as the things Zoya and Sahr will do in Zaynah Abbas’s story.
Then take a witty detour with Dr. Suvajveet’s ‘Horror Gone Wrong’ and watch a demon talk about the bureaucratic struggles of being accidentally summoned—why do humans always have so many wrong assumptions!
And then, bask in the haunting prose of Maria Zafar’s metaphoric ‘The Ritual’ as a city is painfully devoured and its seeds are sown once more with compassion and empathy.
But stop! Take a small tea-break with Maliha’s ‘A Curious Case of Samosas’ though it may not be entirely relaxing. Okay, we have a possessed aunt, and an upset daughter-in-law, and a interdimensional being trying to teach a girl how to control her powers. That’s all. There’s chai, and samosas and jalebi too, don’t be intimidated! Keep reading.
You’ll find yourself at a story that may be prose or it may be poetry. Whatever it is, it leaves you feeling a deep ache. You know this story tells the truth. We have all been here before. Ammara Younas’s ‘What Color Was I When I Was Undone’ might make you cry.
And then, arrive at your final story. Its prose is so gorgeously haunting that you will not be able to stop reading. But it is a story of self-inflicted pain, desperate ambition, and the truth about the things we often idolize. Allow the ‘Sparrow and the Parasol’ by Varsha Dinesh to open your eyes.
As you wrap-up, don’t forget to read our non-fiction pieces: Ayesha Channa’s ‘Dimensional Diaries’–a roundup of speculative fiction published this quarter, and Sofea’s essay on the marvelous South Asian Speculative Fiction Database initiated by Professor Tom Sewel and curated alongside LUMS students that collates stories by author, genre, keywords, you name it!
And that’s it. When you leave us, we hope that we’ve moved you, changed you. We hope that you walk away thinking, turning these stories over in your minds. Because, really, all of these stories, in one way or another, are stories about us.