Our Editor-in-Chief, Arindam, and the entire Different Truths Team celebrate the twilight of a year-end and a New Year. Here’s a three-day long Special Feature, exclusively in Different Truths.

Or say that the end precedes the beginning,

And the end and the beginning were always there

Before the beginning and after the end.

~ Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

Seventeen years of the 2^nd Millennium will soon be history. It’s that time of the year when we pause and ponder. We look back at the year gone by with paroxysms of emotions. Tossing between past and future, we record the present, as social journalists and poets, with all our shortcomings and brilliant flashes.

We, human beings, have marked the huge space of the cosmos is footprints of time. Everything has a shelf-life. These are dated – carbon dating or otherwise. We measure the measureless, we give shape to the immense void. We see the universe from our point of views, no matter how diverse and different. In order to create an order, a sameness, we create differences. We are perpetually caught in the binaries of discourses and counter-discourses. We spend millions to create conflicts and create institutions – social, political and religious – to resolve these. We once again spend trillions.

The more we create, the more we destroy. But create and destroy we must. The need of our ‘collective consciousness’ is often greater than our greed. Ah! I digress, going off on a tangent you may say. Blame it on spirits – slushed in spirits, I mean!

The year-end Special Feature in Different Truths, Looking Back @ 2017, was sudden. A flash. Totally unplanned. The outburst of creative madness. But, my splendid team is full of mavericks. Our Managing Editor, Anumita Chatterjee Roy, is on a year-end vacation. Despite her travels, she put her shoulders to the wheel. She goaded me to go ahead, assuring me that the team will succeed. I was unsure, rather wary. She wasn’t.

With such a thin slice of time, we contacted the writers who have created magic in the past too. Their deadline was yesterday. Within four days, we received 13 submissions. A celebrated writer, Sutapa Basu, and our firebrand feminist columnist, Payal Talreja, renowned journalist, Sreelata Menon, and poet, Geethanjali Dilip, chipped in too, along with nine other ace social journalists, to make this Special Feature, a success. I thank every Social Journalist and poet for working against time.

Am grateful to each and every one in our Team DT, who worked on Christmas Holiday too. Anumita took charge and led us all. She is the livewire of DT. She deserves special mention.

We shall have two-day New Year holiday, on Dec 31 and Jan 1. There shall be no issues of DT on Jan 1 and 2, 2018 respectively.  

Here’s the three-day Special Feature on Looking Back @ 2017:

Day One: Dec 29, 2017:

Sreelata Menon lists 10 major political and economic events of 2017, in her article, 10 Major Takeaways from 2017: The Year That Was and the Year That Could Be.

Mamta Joshi tells us how the old and the new coexist, in her write-up, Ring in the New but do Not Ring out the Old.

Ruchira Adhikari Ghosh recalls the year gone by with mixed feelings. She moves from the individual to the social and political realms, exploring the many layers, in her article, The Curtain Call of 2017.

In the anchor piece of Day One, Different Truths Honed the Writer in me in 2017, Preeyan Abraham, a first-time writer, shares his journey in the year gone by. 

Day Two: Dec 30, 2017:

An eminent writer, Sutapa Basu, whose talked-about book is soaring the bestsellers charts, tells us about her journey in the year that was. She also shares her review about some of the books she recommends in her article, Kaleidoscope 2017.

Top 10 Outstanding Indian Short Films of 2017, by Mahima Sharma, reviews these films. She says that with the growing influence of the digital media, expanding wingspan of the Internet and less time at the hands of the modern film viewer, short films are increasingly attracting more eyeballs.

Srimad Bhagavatam skilfully combines all the aspects of creation, where the divine in various forms create, preserve and annihilate only to transform and create again. A close look at the stories can trigger amazing insights that still has many bearings to our daily life, says Nilanjana Dey, in her article, A Year of Musings: Recounting the Bhagavatam in 2017 and the Story Continues.

In the anchor, My Journey as a Poet and Writer in 2017, our columnist, Lily Swarn, looks back at 2017. She recounts her journey as a writer and poet, detailing her more than a year-long journey with this webzine.

Day Three: Dec 31, 2017:

Firebrand feminist, Payal Talreja says that from within the murk and gloom of crime against women, there were many who rose from the ashes like the mythical Phoenix. There was much to celebrate in 2017, in the Cover Story, Celebrating Women: The Year That Was

Suveera Sharma glances back at the close of the year and tells us what life has been in the Far East, in The Future is Smiling in Hong Kong, the Jewel of Asia.

In the article, The Year that was Between Hellos and Goodbyes, young poet and writer, Samrudhi Dash, shares her journey in the year 2017, with the challenges in the coming year.

Tarun Gupta takes a stock of the business and economy, in the past year, in his write-up, The Year is Seventeen, Going onto Eighteen!

Harshali Singh describes her journey through the year as she is ready to cross the threshold into the New Year in her poem, Crossing the Threshold.

The icing on the cake of this Special Feature is a prose-poem, Silver Cloud, by Geethanjali Dilip.

Do please like, comment and share the year-end issue with your family, friends, writers’ and poets’ groups. We are waiting to hear from you.

Happy New Year to one and all from all of us, in Different Truths.

©Arindam Roy

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Arindam Roy

Arindam Roy has over four decades of experience in various newsrooms of renowned media houses. He is the Founder, Publishing Director, Editor-in-Chief of Different Truths, and Kavya Kumbh Publishing Consultant (KKPC). He has co-authored ten chapters in six Coffee Table Books (CTBs) of national and international repute and is the sole author of four forthcoming CTBs (Times Group). He has also published four international poetry anthologies as the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, participated in several poetry and literary festivals, and won awards and accolades. Arindam co-authored the novel Rivers Run Back with an American writer. He stays in Bangalore and Prayagraj.

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