Guest Editor’s Note: Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire

Jaydeep Sarangi
We contemplate our thoughts just beyond the boundary of breaking waves on the shore. An endless symmetry stands before us. The ocean with its crash and calm takes any and all forms in front of us. Yet though it morphs its shape, its nature always remains. Questioning remains an integral part of the technique of introspection, a search within. It has much to do with the fundamental principle called. “I am this / that.” The question appears in different contexts differently and come couched in different words. The route is never linear. But the essence is the quest for self knowledge and journeying through the rhythm of the mind.
Our mind is a mysterious empire with different shades and slopes. It establishes, connects, disconnects, builds, un builds, remakes at will as per its own logic. However, powerful though the mind is, it knows not entirely its geography and stands both awestruck and challenged by its own unfathomed depths. “Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?” asks Freud. It would be a difficult question to answer but as artists, we know that no thought is ever lost and consciously or unconsciously, it enters the creative process and animates it with its potency. This special issue on 'Icebergs in the Mind' invites submissions that illuminate this complex process of creation whereby dream, desire and memory all fuse together to produce writing that illuminates the less-explored margins of our understanding.
“Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire” is the broad theme for this issue of SETU. We were flooded with submissions. All submissions we read and re read. We are sorry, we couldn’t publish all submissions. Unpublished submissions are now free for submission elsewhere. They will rain all those places happily.

Nostalgia and memory constitute a significant part of constructive narrative of the mind. Nostalgia is going back through memory and recollection. Memory is the seat of consolidated subconscious desire to return to an earlier life stage. Desire is associated with a set of complex mental states. It is not definite in scope and trajectory. Surface behavior is a filtered version of raw designs and workings in the levels of the mind. Going deep into the mind is harvesting faith in the dark chamber of unknown links and delinks. At times, authors are engrossed with deep meditations on subjective truths.
Literature and mind go hand in hand. However, the focus in this issue has been to come forward with literature that mirrors the mind itself. How does the mind look at itself and the empires it embraces? How does language configure the moods and tempo of the mind? What are the points of contact and where does the terrain go entirely faraway and unmapped. Our habits often overlook an emotional space we owe. Familiar gestures lead to questions and exclamations. These are questions this issue of SETU asks and to some extent, answers. The doubts remain shredding our mind, graphic. Writers from different backgrounds and geographical locations have enriched this special issue with different placates, genres and techniques.

I thank all esteemed contributors for making this issue a home, all its own. The plate before us is full of interest, lively and exciting. My humble submission to the subcontinent monsoon God for raining heavily. Jhargram wears the spirit of fresh green! Rain wet birds are shouting, “Healing, Healing!”
 Let us embrace its spirit…. 

Jaydeep Sarangi

Setu Guest Editor, May 2021


Flash Fiction:
Featured Authors

Poems
Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca
Emilie Collyer
Basudhara Roy
Jharna Choudhury
Bashabi Fraser
Azsacra Zarathustra
Mandakini Pachauri
Jayanthi Manoj
G. Akila
Sushmindarjeet Kaur
Smita Agarwal
Stefan Bohdan
Mini Babu
Zinia Mitra
Srijani Dutta
Sanghita Sanyal
Sigma Sathish
Sarah Rauch
Tajmim Eti
L S Rathore
Bitika Paul
Gayelene Carbis
Poems
Radia Al Rashid
Robert Maddox-Harle
Nithya Mariam John
Jaydeep Sarangi

Stories
Lakshmi Kannan
Ashok Kumar Dash
Sangeeta Banerjee

Flash Narrative
Gayatri Majumdar

Articles
Akankha Basu Roy and Radhika Biswas
Neenu Kumar

Memoire
Soniya Amritlal Patel

Book Review
Rob Harle

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