COVER STORY
Elsewhere: How Imagined Worlds Become Sites Of Resistance, Memory And Hope
We dedicate this issue to those who venture into the elsewhere, to people made of paper and to those who imagine and dismantle entire worlds for the sake of love.
Outlook Magazine - Party is Elsewhere - 21 January 2026 Issue
We are living through a moment in history when real places have become increasingly difficult to speak about. Nations are reduced to charged and violent slogans; borders harden even as people are displaced; homes are reduced to rubble while the occupation continues. Speech is abundant, yet censorship renders any meaningful speech impossible. In such a climate, imaginary places are not escapes from the world. They are responses to it. For the 30th anniversary issue of Outlook, we bring together writers who treat imagined spaces as acts of resistance, remembrance, and ethical refusal. These pages hold cities that remember what has been erased, landscapes shaped by memory and desire, and futures that warn as much as they dream. These are not utopias offered as solutions, nor fantasies designed for comfort. Our 'Elsewheres' by Pico Iyer, Sudarshan Shetty, Geetanjali Shree, Perumal Murugan, Naveen Kishore, Amitava Kumar, Ruchir Joshi, Aradhana Seth, Geet Chaturvedi, Annie Zaidi, Janice Pariat, Aanchal Malhotra and others.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Our Unseen Sanctuary, Finding Calm Within Chaos
A hidden inner refuge guides us, preserving the clarity and calm the outer world cannot offer.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Notes From An imaginary Notebook
In Dreams. There is no Alice. There is no Wonderland. There is wonder. And there is arousal. Of the imaginary. A tactility in the text that conveys the illicit and the unmentionable.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Márquez’s Macondo And Gandhi, Still Undeciphered
Márquez’s Macondo And Gandhi, Still Undeciphered
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Holding Breath In A City That Never Pauses
The acts of breathing in and out become compositional devices—intervals through which rhythm and exhaustion surface as material conditions for speaking and being.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: The Seduction Of Elsewhere
True longing alchemises us. As the experience of incompleteness eats into our innards, it births us, gradually, into a new wholeness. And one day, it would seem, we no longer see any conflict between earth and sky, now and forever. The divide has been healed. We are home. Elsewhere is right here.
Beyond Plot: Why Great Reading And Great Fiction Begins With How And Where
This space which I want to create, unlike that of the real world, has to be open to possibilities, to dialogues, to alternate viewpoints, and defined by an underlying sense of respect.
Because We Live In This World And No Other
Every once in a while, along comes a story that shakes our self-assurance, and forces us to reconsider humanity. If fantasy and science fiction offer alternative visions for humanity, they also warn of the pitfalls of going in the opposite direction.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Dreaming A Paradise
Buland Masjid emerges as a paradoxical space where hunger is constant, yet food is abundant, making it a daily feast shaped by migrant lives, labour and remembered cuisines.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Eyes That Build Worlds
Imagination enables metamorphosis, and metamorphosis is what I’m after. Not just as a maker, but as a seeker, a spectator.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Our Unseen Sanctuary, Finding Calm Within Chaos
A hidden inner refuge guides us, preserving the clarity and calm the outer world cannot offer.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Notes From An imaginary Notebook
In Dreams. There is no Alice. There is no Wonderland. There is wonder. And there is arousal. Of the imaginary. A tactility in the text that conveys the illicit and the unmentionable.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Márquez’s Macondo And Gandhi, Still Undeciphered
Márquez’s Macondo And Gandhi, Still Undeciphered
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Holding Breath In A City That Never Pauses
The acts of breathing in and out become compositional devices—intervals through which rhythm and exhaustion surface as material conditions for speaking and being.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: The Seduction Of Elsewhere
True longing alchemises us. As the experience of incompleteness eats into our innards, it births us, gradually, into a new wholeness. And one day, it would seem, we no longer see any conflict between earth and sky, now and forever. The divide has been healed. We are home. Elsewhere is right here.
Beyond Plot: Why Great Reading And Great Fiction Begins With How And Where
This space which I want to create, unlike that of the real world, has to be open to possibilities, to dialogues, to alternate viewpoints, and defined by an underlying sense of respect.
Because We Live In This World And No Other
Every once in a while, along comes a story that shakes our self-assurance, and forces us to reconsider humanity. If fantasy and science fiction offer alternative visions for humanity, they also warn of the pitfalls of going in the opposite direction.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Dreaming A Paradise
Buland Masjid emerges as a paradoxical space where hunger is constant, yet food is abundant, making it a daily feast shaped by migrant lives, labour and remembered cuisines.
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Eyes That Build Worlds
Imagination enables metamorphosis, and metamorphosis is what I’m after. Not just as a maker, but as a seeker, a spectator.
OTHER OUTLOOK MAGAZINE STORIES
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Dispatches From Chaos
Writers' impressions of the fall of Kabul, as they turn the pages of their collective diary
Outlook Anniversary Issue: Porcelain And The Memory Of A Shattered City
An elegy blending history, memory, and reflection, Porcelain confronts the devastation of Dresden and its enduring, complicated legacy.
