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The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City 2

The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a

The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

— Oscar Wilde

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Latest readings for today

Metropolis Musings
Editorial

Towns, cities and metropoles tend to become integral parts of the people who inhabit them.

The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City 2
, ,
The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a poor fisherman’s bones—an empire built to preserve dust.

Prague Flowers After Communism
Prague Flowers After Communism

Perhaps every generation deserves the right to ignore history for a while until history suddenly knocks again.

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Maiden Melancholy

"Maiden Melancholy" portrays a maiden's lingering sorrow after a fleeting encounter, exploring memory, longing, loss, and idealized love.

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The Truth in the Shadows: Revisiting The X-Files

The X-Files explores truth, conspiracy, aliens, and human darkness through belief and skepticism, creating a timeless mystery saga.

Through the mirror
Through the Mirror

In reflection, the world becomes something else entirely. The real drifts toward the surreal; clarity gives way to ambiguity.

How One Man Turned a Medieval Mess into Brand Bengal
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Bengal Sketches – How One Man Turned a Medieval Mess into Brand Bengal

Ilyas Shah was more than a Sultan. He was Bengal's first famous brand architect. He took a medieval mess and turned it into Brand Bengal.

Editorial: The Pomegranate & The Promise- Vol: 2

The mini-saga, as a form of fiction, was invented by British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss and popularised by The Daily Telegraph in the 1980s.

Loyalty
Loyalty

On 8 August 1942, one shot, point blank. The loyal student ensured the professor rested in peace without him suspecting a thing.

Tomorrow
Tomorrow

Every year on this day, she returned to the café and ordered his favourite – two Americanos.

The Refund
The Refund

“You’re the perfect host,” the doll whispered as Rajesh kissed its rosy cheek goodnight. He recoiled saying, “No – I’ll kill myself!”

The Return
The Return

Wishing for her late husband’s return, Emma blew out the candles – her nightly ritual. Suddenly, her bedroom door creaked open.

The Presence
The Presence

The old clock struck midnight. A nervous Lydia stood before the mirror in her dimly lit room, whispering the forbidden name.

The Echo
The Echo

He pulled the woman from the edge of the bridge. “No one left,” she sobbed, echoing his late mother’s words.

The Thank-you Note
The Thank-you Note

One day, I froze suddenly – the handwriting in that letter was identical to the daughter’s suicide note.

The Gunshot
The Gunshot

They burst in, anxious, only to find the nervous old man before his TV muttering, “Actions films scare the hell out of me, help me

The April Fool
The April Fool

Jake was ecstatic at Lily’s early morning message, “Moving to your city.” Her second message an hour later, “April Fool,” shattered his joy beyond repair.

Identity
Identity

After a successful heart transplant, Martha drifted into consciousness to her husband’s unexpectedly chilling words: “A stranger’s heart beats within my wife.”

The Care
The Care

Each morning, Karan wakes in his lonely flat to half a glass of milk and two sandwiches. His ironed shirts and polished shoes gleam with

The Moment
The Moment

All she wanted was to stretch her perfect four years longer. She wasn’t ready to let their laughter fade into memory.

The Report
The Report

Arun’s trembling hands couldn’t open the biopsy report. ‘Stage four,’ he was certain. A sudden, searing pain tore through his chest.

The Promise
The Promise

Luke, without medical insurance, mortgaged his house to fund his open-heart surgery. Mark, his idealistic friend, scoffed, “I’d rather die active – sixty’s the perfect

Reviews

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The Truth in the Shadows: Revisiting The X-Files
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The Truth in the Shadows: Revisiting The X-Files

The X-Files explores truth, conspiracy, aliens, and human darkness through belief and skepticism, creating a timeless mystery saga.

The Hollywood Misfit A Centenary Tribute to Marilyn Monroe
The Hollywood Misfit: A Centenary Tribute to Marilyn Monroe

A tribute to Marilyn Monroe through The Misfits, exploring fame, vulnerability, loneliness, broken relationships, and Hollywood’s tragic illusions.

Review of The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia by Kiran Desai
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Review of The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia by Kiran Desai

Desai rightly characterizes Salman Rushdie as an Orientalist, but in her own case, magic is not a substitute for realistic depiction.

Homebound
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HOMEBOUND (2025)

But don't let the snub tell you what this film is worth. Trophies are politics. Homebound is art.

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Twin Peaks: Return to the Dream That Never Wakes

Atmospheric analysis of Twin Peaks exploring duality, trauma, supernatural mythology, small-town secrets, and its lasting cultural impact.

Window With a Train Attached
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Window With a Train Attached by C P Surendran: A Review

Bringing together intense moments of human experience, this collection transforms memory, loss and trauma into luminous and unsettling poetic insight.

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The Truth in the Shadows: Revisiting The X-Files

The X-Files explores truth, conspiracy, aliens, and human darkness through belief and skepticism, creating a timeless mystery saga.

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History & Heritage

Essential readings for today

The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City 2
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The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a poor fisherman’s bones—an empire built to preserve dust.

How One Man Turned a Medieval Mess into Brand Bengal
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Bengal Sketches – How One Man Turned a Medieval Mess into Brand Bengal

Ilyas Shah was more than a Sultan. He was Bengal's first famous brand architect. He took a medieval mess and turned it into Brand Bengal.

The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City
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The Sovereign Paradox: Part 1

This is the smallest sovereign state on Earth, barely half a square kilometre in size, commanding the loyalty of over a billion people.

I Write, Therefore We Exist: Anne Frank and the Architecture of Rebellion
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I Write, Therefore We Exist: Anne Frank and the Architecture of Rebellion

The Nazis succeeded in killing Anne Frank. They failed to silence her. Today, her diary has been translated into more than seventy languages.

How a River, a Civilization, and a Bengali Reformer Named a Religion
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Bengal Sketches – How a River, a Civilization, and a Bengali Reformer Named a Religion

Through the Bengal Renaissance and reform movements centered in Calcutta, Bengali thinkers gave modern shape and identity to Hinduism.

A Buddhist Stronghold a Millennium Ago
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Bengal Sketches – A Buddhist Stronghold a Millennium Ago

A millennium ago, Bengal flourished as a major Buddhist center, blending tantra, mysticism, poetry, and spirituality into its enduring culture.

, ,

The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a poor fisherman’s bones—an empire built to preserve dust.

Support thespace.ink magazine for literature and culture. Subscribe Now

Transcreation

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Poetry
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Beyond the Screen’s Horizon

These poems drift through lit chambers of wakefulness, dreaming of error, darkness, and the old, broken mercy of sleep.

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Silence gathers around us, and in that pause, Pablo Neruda lets the trembling world reveal its hidden wounds and brief hopes.

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Against the Silence: Bengali Poems of Protest and Hope

This compilation presents four major twentieth-century Bengali poets, demonstrating poetry’s role in resisting, remembering, and renewing during socio-political upheaval.

Firefly
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Firefly or Minuku Hulu by ManjuNayak Challuru

I should collect all the chits from these people so I can calculate the amount of pain in the world.

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At the Altar of the Sea

Franca Mancinelli’s poems, in John Taylor’s translation render the ordinary, the natural, many-hued and wondrous.

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The Bus Stop at Kandanassery and Other Poems

The poignant poems of Rafeeq Ahmed, deftly translated, touch the veins of village life at Kerala, negotiating constantly between tradition and modernity.

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Beyond the Screen’s Horizon

These poems drift through lit chambers of wakefulness, dreaming of error, darkness, and the old, broken mercy of sleep.

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Fiction and Poetry

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Missing You
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Missing You

She is not here. But her smell lingers on in the bath towels...

Rabindranath Tagore
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Our Old Selves

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They demanded ten thousand rupees and a large number of gifts as a dowry.

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Vikram Seth became my path finder and made me the poet I am today.

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Vir Sen paints the Catskill Mountains he visited during a recent vacation.

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I Will Cross the Sea of Desires

Translated from the Bengali song by Tagore. The original song was composed at Santiniketan, in 1922.

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Poem: The Moon

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Cartoons

Space Cartoon

Hey diddle diddle, we have a problem.

Videos

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Roberto Rossellini – Neorealist Pioneer

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Timeless Heartbeat – Ustad Alla Rakha

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The Daffodil Poet: William Wordsworth

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Alexander Pushkin: The King of Spades

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Support thespace.ink magazine for literature and culture. Subscribe Now

Photostory

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Through the mirror
Through the Mirror

In reflection, the world becomes something else entirely. The real drifts toward the surreal; clarity gives way to ambiguity.

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Free School Under The Bridge

The school now has around 75 students (boys in the morning, girls in the afternoon) learning everything - from Mathematics to History.

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TREES – A sense of Perspective

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Through the Mirror

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Games & Puzzles

Crossword 103
Crossword 102
Crossword 101

Voice & Views

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The Voice for the Unheard 

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Support thespace.ink magazine for literature and culture. Subscribe Now

Travel

Essential readings for today

The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City 2
, ,
The Sovereign Paradox: Part 2

The Vatican’s immense wealth, art, and power rest upon a poor fisherman’s bones—an empire built to preserve dust.

The Sovereign Paradox_Vatican City
, ,
The Sovereign Paradox: Part 1

This is the smallest sovereign state on Earth, barely half a square kilometre in size, commanding the loyalty of over a billion people.

Everest Expedition_Fairy Tales Become History_Debasish Biswas
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Everest Expedition: When Fairy Tales Become History

Debasish Biswas recounts his 2010 Everest expedition, overcoming challenges, conquering the summit, and creating Bengal’s historic civilian mountaineering achievement.

From Bengal to Bristol: Tracing Raja Rammohan Roy’s Final Days
From Bengal to Bristol: Tracing Raja Rammohan Roy’s Final Days

Roy died in a foreign land, away from the Ganges, away from Bengal, away from the people for whom he had struggled all his life.

Bhutan
Blissful Bhutan: A Himalayan Secret – Part 2

A slow unfolding of mountains and myths, where faith, kings, food, and silence travel together through Bhutan’s breathing landscapes.

Bhutan
Blissful Bhutan: A Himalayan Secret – Part 1

A slow unfolding of mountains and myths, where faith, kings, food, and silence travel together through Bhutan’s breathing landscapes.

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