Welcome to the fifth issue of Ghudsavar!

I feel thrilled to say that I am now receiving great poems from an ever-widening pool of poets. Given that I aim to publish only a handful of poems every issue so that each published poem has its own weight rather than getting submerged in an avalanche, it is fast becoming a selection headache, which is great to have though! There are hundreds of literary magazines that are published in the English language, so every time you choose to contribute to Ghudsavar or read it, I feel thankful to you and also validated, that the magazine is doing something right, after all.

Many of you probably feel that we live in increasingly troubled times, and times where probably human mind is unable to keep up with technological advancements. Good literature is essential in these times: it is as much our succour and refuge as our source of inspiration and instigation. Ghudsavar is a small publication, but which aims to serve this dual role well. I imagine it as a borie, a little stone hutment of sorts which you find in the south of France, which serves as a refuge for shepherds in times of transhumance as much as for haphazard travellers stuck in an equally haphazard storm. Modest but very useful.

Some news before I let you go. In the times since we last met, Ghudsavar announced the winner of its inaugural Ghudsavar Prize for Hindi poetry published online. (The Ghudsavar Prize carries an awardwinning amount of US$100.) The Prize was won by Tara Isabel Zambrano for her poem 'Main' (in English, 'I'), which was published in Ghudsavar itself, and in case you are able to read the Nagari script, you can read the winning poem here.

All costs of running this magazine, paying the contributors and the prize are borne from my own pocket, and in case you have the ability to do so, please do consider donating to the magazine.

Happy reading!

Ankur Agarwala

Editor, Ghudsavar Literary Magazine

December 2024, Lillestrøm, Norway

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