Meeting writers on the page since 1996

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Showcase

Niraj Shukla

“…The next station is Acton Town…Please mind the gap between the train and the platform…There are beggars and buskers operating on the train; please do not encourage their presence by supporting them…my phone rattles against my keys in my bag. A birthday message at last? No, an email from Astroforecast advertising their other services. They have an offer on his-and-hers opal rings, and if I book quickly, I can get a discount on their next Astro Festival. A festival is the last place I’d want to be right now: so many people, so many eyes…the pain of being perceived.”

From ‘Moksha’ – included in the showcase

“Moksha is a work of comic literary fiction. In Hindu philosophy, moksha is the escape from endless cycles of death and rebirth, and my protagonist, Jishal Bhatt – who I see as a kind of desexualised Indian Portnoy, is a corporate finance manager whose free time is spent pursuing his own version of moksha in the form of various artistic projects. They have, however, all ended in humiliating failure. He feels that he has nothing spiritually enriching to show for his industrious life, and in his desperation his ideas have drifted towards the bizarre. The culmination of his bad ideas is a project he hopes will reclaim and redeem the loveless, soulless pornography which dominates the web.” From the Introduction