Students
Your Creativity
Notes, essays, stories and poems by students — published with your name on them, because being read matters as much as being examined.
Students should be read, not only examined
Every year I read answer scripts containing a sentence better than anything in the prescribed criticism, written by a student who will never show it to anyone. Somewhere between school and the degree, most people are taught that literature is something other people produce and they merely study. That is a loss, and it is avoidable.
This section exists to put student work on a public page with a name attached to it. Notes, an essay, a short story, a poem in English, Hindi or Urdu — if it is yours and it is honest, it belongs here.
What you can send
Notes and study material
Notes you made for a paper, a chapter summary, a comparison table, a mind map of a movement. If it helped you, it will help the next batch. Credited to you by name and college.
Essays and criticism
A close reading of a poem, an argument about a character, a response to something you disagreed with in class. Length is not the point; having a position is.
Short stories
Original fiction, in English, Hindi or Urdu. Under about two thousand words works best on a phone screen, but send it anyway and we will decide together.
Poetry
Original poems, any form, any of the three languages. Send two or three rather than twenty — a small strong selection is always read more carefully.
Three rules, and they are not negotiable
- It must be your own. Not copied from a website, not generated by an AI tool and lightly edited, not a translation of someone else's poem presented as your own. Anything found to be copied is removed and the contributor is not published again. This is the only rule with a penalty attached.
- No content that attacks a community. Nothing communal, casteist, obscene or aimed at any religion, region or group. Disagreement is welcome; contempt is not.
- It stays yours. Publishing here does not transfer any right to me. You may publish the same piece anywhere else, at any time, and you may ask for it to be removed and it will be removed without discussion.
How to send your work
Send it on WhatsApp or by email — whichever you prefer. Typed text is easier for me to work with than photographs of a notebook, but if handwriting is what you have, send that and I will type it.
- Your name as you want it published, and your college or university
- The kind of piece — notes, essay, story or poem
- The piece itself, and a line about what it is or why you wrote it
Send on WhatsApp Send by email
I read everything that arrives, but I cannot reply to every message individually. If a piece is selected you will hear from me before it is published, and you will see the page before anyone else does. If you do not hear back, it is not a judgement on your writing — it is one professor and a limited number of evenings.
A note on editing
Work is published close to how it arrives. I correct spelling, obvious grammar and formatting, and occasionally suggest a cut. I do not rewrite anyone's voice into mine — a student's essay that sounds like a student is worth more than one polished into a textbook. If a piece needs substantial work, I will tell you what I think it needs and send it back rather than fix it silently.