Story

Indeed it is a human endeavour to raise ambitions and enlarge conquests. In this regard, Saraba is human, and again, with this issue, seeks to take another step towards perfection. Saraba, with the unceasing enthusiasm of subscribers, is fast becoming an essential internet reading. It warms our hearts to throw yet another issue into your bags. This Issue, although lacks a focal theme, is a collagist exhibition of ideas, impressions and expressions. It would perhaps buttress the “journalistic reputation” that is being bestowed on Saraba. But rather than be concerned with genre description, our mind is set on details, voices, experiences. Saraba seeks to put what obtains in reality on your cyber screen first and foremost. Our bias for short fiction in this issue is an experiment that led to an unexpected serendipitous discovery. Stories from upcoming, and even established writers, abound in this issue, replete with familiar voices and insights. They can best be described as lodestones of reality, gem pieces not quite purged of their ore but what they lack in template, they make for with their originality. These stories sum up excerpts of humanity with fictional algorithms. When they merge, they cut a looking glass through which we can reflect. To record, to extinguish the tyranny of the empty page, to write. There’s nothing else to do. No plea to make, no anger to retain; we have chosen to pour it forth, to tell tales from as many storytellers as possible. It could be an attempt to anthologize a story from every quarter, or the greater ambition to record timelessness in one single string. And besides fiction, ideas and experiences take various other forms and genres. We have compiled an edition that would in the interim take care of the yuletide season and permanently evoke strong emotions, raise unanswered questions, and challenge our mind with memories. This is the story of the story issue, the crux. We chose no theme, but we assembled a team. We had no paper to litter, but unseen bandwidths. But the story had to be told; here it is, told. Here we are, bare; Saraba is what you think it is. Have a pleasurable read.