I, me, mine, Mero. This issue and concept has been long brewing and remained dormant in the dreamlike chaos that is this world. But now it has finally broken through like a butterfly from its cocoon....there exists not one world but many worlds, a world that belongs to the flower, another that belongs to the thorn and yet another for the leaves.

Mero, a word borrowed from the Nepali, literally translates to mine. Grammatically, it is a possessive pronoun, indicating that something belongs to oneself. Here, however, we see it as ownership that encapsulates not just possession but selfhood - the inner sense that precedes labels, roles and validation. The question of Who am I when the world isn’t watching?

Capturing one's self is just as difficult as knowing one's self truly. Yet the writers, poets, artists who have contributed have done remarkably well. In this intoxicating whirlwind of expression, the decision of choosing the best seemed, frankly impossible. Yet even in our bewilderment, the beauty and grace of some pieces outshone the rest.

In the current world, which is obsessed with defining your identity for you, it becomes vital to hold onto what one can call truly Mero, mine, truly yours, who you are, irrespective of the confines, the shackles and the labels put on you to make you fit into a certain box, a mold or a category. Let this issue stir you, sit with you, and awaken a deeper sense of liberation.

This twelfth issue of The Medley features an interview with writer, translator and an academic, Aruni Kashyap is the author of ‘The Way You Want To Be Loved’ and ‘The House with a Thousand Stories’ and along with that he has translated 4 novels from Assamese to English. His translations have been shortlisted for the 2023 and 2024 Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation and VOW Book Awards 2024.

He is currently an Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia, Athens. In the middle of a chaotic semester and harsh Delhi Summers he agreed to sit with us for a short interview over mail.

Read these pages slowly. Let these identities crash like tides on the shores of your being. If Mero unsettles you, that is its duty. If it comforts you, that is its gift.

We present to you Issue #12 of The Medley, Mero.

Warmly, The Editorial Team (2025-26) The Medley, With hopefully our truest selves.