The Indian Quarterly - July - December 2020

In this issue

This double-decker issue has two themes—Touch and Together | Apart. Both tangentially related.

Touch is, perhaps, the first sense we develop, inextricable from the human experience. Across the world we have been commanded by governments to not gather in numbers, to seal ourselves off from friends, neighbours, even family, to effectively suspend all relationships except those of commercial value—that is, our jobs and the consumption necessary to keep the service economy breathing, albeit on life support. Inevitably, we crave nothing more than contact. Physical touch, not necessarily human, is a solace, a boon. We are our own worst enemies, the authorities insist. But the rest of us must ask: can we hold each other hard enough to forget? For, as these pages show, we are forsaken when we are lost to touch.

As an expansion of the theme Together|Apart of this issue, we asked five of our most prolific illustrators to respond to the pandemic. We’re not all in the same boat, argues one. Can we keep it together while being instructed to stay apart, asks another. No man is an island, right? One illustrator is thankful for small mercies. Another suggests that perhaps it’s not isolation that’s the problem, it’s the ersatz feeling of community from being in constant virtual touch. But, qualifies another, perhaps itʼs the knowledge that we can all find support online, feel seen and heard, that makes isolation bearable. We don’t have answers, these illustrators acknowledge, but it’s vital to keep asking questions.

The Indian Quarterly Magazine Description:

The Indian Quarterly (IQ) is a national and international magazine. We hope that just as The New Yorker exhibits a distinctly Manhattan sensibility and always contains articles about New York City, IQ will manifest the fact that it is edited and published in Mumbai through its cosmopolitan and open-minded perspective on the world and on India.

In fact, we hope to provide a unique way of interpreting our ever changing culture, and to define our own experiences through the strength of thought, ideas and imagery, be it in the form of fact, fiction, poetry, illustration or photography. IQ is therefore a paean to the polyphonic nature of reflection and the creativity that is its outcome.