Results of Stree: A Short Story Contest
Many congratulations to the top 25 authors on winning this contest!
And a big Congratulations to all other 65 authors who wrote wonderful stories as well.
A mail with all instructions will be sent to the winners as well as the other participants.
Watch the Video Announcement
1. Sanghamitra Bose for Safe Passage
An excerpt from her winning story…
“I was floating above my body, observing this scene with detachment. They dragged me away, my feet trailing furrows in the earth. My chador was left behind. Of what use was it now?”
2. Tanushree Ghosh Dhall for Anjali Chakraborty
An excerpt from her winning story…
"She was aware of the pity in their eyes voicing their disapproval of her simple mostly pale sarees. A choice they attributed to her lack of prosperity, which in turn was obviously from her being unmarried.” -
3. Paulami Duttagupta for Bidisha
An excerpt from her winning story…
"A piercing scream echoed in the air followed by the sound of bullets. Bidisha had let out a cry. Her sister and mother comforted her. Her father paced around the room and then they heard a loud and impatient knock on the door.”
4. Radhika Maira Tabrez for Built from the ashes
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Nikita stood across the road, bags by her side, and her clammy hands holding the urn. On the other side, Sandeep’s parents’ house stood judging her, as cynically as she expected to be judged by its inhabitants. The long flight from Seattle to Cochin and the five hour taxi ride, from the airport to this tiny hamlet of Arattupuzha, was far easier than the ten steps she needed to take to cross this narrow street.”
5. Michele Baron for Camelia
An excerpt from her winning story…
“I wished I could be brave, somehow rescue our family, what was left of it, from these endless, long days. I was seven when our mother died, and two years had passed, quickly, yet tortuously slowly, as our father diminished to a shadow of himself.”
6. Avanti Sopory for Here I come Banaras
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Why did she call me Mataji? I too have a name. It is Parvathi M Padmanabhan. That is what my birth certificate and school certificate says. And by the way, I must be as old as her. Then why this octogenarian honour? Same name and same gender, still two different personalities. One is a reporter of extreme authority and another is a widow waiting for death to salvage her.”
7. Kirthi Jayakumar for It’s Not the End
An excerpt from her winning story…
“He would tell their children that he had fallen for her, hook, line and sinker, enough to want to leave everything behind – everything – just to be with her, and to marry her. Everything. Even his wife.”
8. Sutapa Basu for Memories in March
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Maybe one can’t blame Smita. After all, Munia was a living reminder of horrific memories she would prefer to erase forever. The rest of the family loved and pampered little Munia but she always seemed to seek the comfort of a lap, she never found.”
9. Debosmita Nandy for She Chose to Live
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Fariba’s heart nearly stopped and she lost all strength in her legs. She caught a glimpse of the long stretch of corridor behind the two people, half-hidden in shadows and even in that moment of shock, her feminine instinct identified her surroundings. Fariba, a simple woman from a far-away Bengal village knew that she had been brought to a brothel in New Delhi.”
10. Sreesha Divakaran for Some Porridge and an Education
An excerpt from her winning story…
"Then she picked up the boy, balanced him on the other hip, and walked out into the night. She turned around, but once, and only to spit at the doorstep of the house she had lived in and was now leaving for good."
11. Gita Negi for Tara
An excerpt from her winning story…
"I am the kali that you are scared of and also the Durga that you worship” roared Tara with blood in her eyes. “It is YOU who compel me to become either of them.”
12. Ramaa Sonti for The 40’s
An excerpt from her winning story…
“A soft smile lit up her face at the mere thought of his name.His admiring glances when she enters the bank, the way he steals looks whenever he thinks she is not looking and the sms’s .”
13. Esha Chakraborty for The Bride
An excerpt from her winning story…
“This was of course when love was just a kiss or a long phone call or a weekend getaway because a friend was supposedly getting married. This was before love needed a ‘happily ever after’ tag.”
14. Santosh Bakaya for The Drug Addict
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Why? “She asked the sun, the birds, the clouds, the pines, the poplars and the oaks, the wild flowers and the not so wild flowers, the babbling brooks and the chortling streams, but they were mum, silent. Stunned into speechlessness.” –
15. Deepti Menon for The Journey of Two Women
An excerpt from her winning story…
The young widow mourned the death of the kindest man she had ever known. She said brokenly to those who came to offer their condolences, "Whom the Gods love, die young!"
16. Paromita Mukherjee Ojha for To Be or Not To Be
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Anahita Sharma faced a dilemma- she had to choose whether to punish the guilty or to avenge her husband’s death. She was aware that every choice is a seed that one needs to sow wisely as these seeds eventually bear fruit in one’s lives which can nourish or destroy us; hence, one has to make wise choices.”
17. Vasudha Gulati for Unfound, Search for Home
An excerpt from her winning story…
“I felt a storm build up inside me; an intense sensation of dread seemed to rise from the pit of my stomach like a wave that ended in a roar as it rushed out through my ears. I ran from the kitchen garden through the large veranda and up the flight of stairs searching for Mum from room to room till I found her putting away the linen in the store cupboard as Chachi stood beside her.”
18. Namrata Chauhan for Second Innings of Ma
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Indu could not believe what she just heard. Why was he coming back? She had learnt to get hold of her life with so much difficulty. And now when her life was seemingly normal, he was coming back….He could have continued with his life and let her live hers, but he chose otherwise. He was probably head bent on making her life difficult…He had always been like that….He must be coming with an agenda.”
19. Arpita Banerjee for A Second Chance
An excerpt from her winning story…
"I became a mother before my thirteenth year. How…I still do not know. This much was clear that it was an evil work of some wicked adults who lorded over my poor parents. Naively, I had jumped into the Padma River, believing that Ma Padma would provide a solution to my problem.”
20. Bhuvaneshwari Shivakumar Shankar for Dharmambal
An excerpt from her winning story…
“Yet, here she was calling for scissors again and rekindling a painful memory. She tore the new sari into two halves, draped one piece and folding the other neatly handed it to me. A cruel irony indeed.”
21. Aashisha for Please Leave Your Sex Outside
An excerpt from her winning story…
“I only seek equality. Equality of opportunity. Not in the form of seat reservations in buses and colleges, which make the men feel prouder in acing some exam despite ‘the women quota’ or help them find an excuse for their ineptitude. I seek a mindset which treats people equally. I seek an outlook which keeps the various factors like gender aside while taking decisions, which sees people as they really are. I need people to have a clear mind lens, unclouded by preconceived notions of female frailty or male might. Is that asking too much?”
22. Moinak Dutta for Once, For a Change
An excerpt from his winning story…
“A cool sense of inner truth was blossoming in her...a sense of confidence...a sense of self esteem...now she could approach the bank for handsome amount of loan so that she could set up her own studio...at a place which would possibly be her refuge...a creative refuge...a way of living...”
23. Sridevi Datta for Pregnant Dreams
An excerpt from her winning story…
“And it was at this precise moment that something stirred up inside Pullamma. Lifting the sari against the late afternoon sun, she inspected it more closely and then as though wanting to unearth more mysteries, she buried her head into its folds and inhaled the heady, surreal fragrance of skin, silk and musk.”
24. Anirban Nanda for Amlanation
An excerpt from his winning story…
“At a certain point of your life, you’d face a situation where you’d look back later and truly, madly want to change that one moment of your life. That one step, that slightest miscalculation would make you repent your whole life”
25. Mahesh Sowani for Yamuna Maa’s Hand
An excerpt from his winning story…
“Her pace increased with every step, she stumbled upon the stones in her path and stubbed her toe against a piece of brick. Her toe began to bleed. But she did not stop. She scurried as if she was possessed by some spirit.”