Escape Pod 809: Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness

Escape Pod

Escape Artists Foundation

Fiction, Science Fiction, Drama

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness By Iona Datt Sharma Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She told the panditji to get his blood pressure checked before he told anyone he was short of breath. The day before the Human Spaceflight Programme was suspended, she called Ekta in Sriharikota and said she should come home. Ekta had been living in the dormitory attached to the ISRO flight training school. It took her twenty minutes to pack her things into two suitcases. On her way out, one of the boys stopped her and said, “Ma’am, your mail.” He handed her a heavy package, which Ekta put in her bag without opening. It would be a technical document, now mockingly out of date—a systems report for a rocket that would never leave the ground. “Thank you,” she said, both to him and to everything around her. She took a moment to look as though seeing this place for the first time, taking in the clean white lines of the building, the landscaped campus, the soft blue water lapping the fringes of the barrier island—every small detail of a place she had loved. Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter, had left for space from here. Ekta would not.

Transcript

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0:00.0	EA is now on Twitch. Join us Wednesday nights when Alistair reads a bedtime story, and Sunday
0:07.3	mornings for a few hours of chill casual gaming. Plus interviews, special guests, pick-up
0:13.2	streams, and more. Visit twitch.tv slash EA Podcasts. And follow us to be notified when
0:20.6	we go live, plus access VODs of past podcasts.
0:50.6	Hello, and welcome to EscapePod, your weekly science fiction podcast. I'm Divya, your
1:14.3	host for this episode. A quick reminder of front that if you have a world-con membership
1:20.4	or if you had one last year, you are eligible to vote for the Hugo Awards. EscapePod is
1:26.8	up for best semi-prozing, and Mur and I are up for best editor short form. We appreciate
1:33.2	your support so much. If you can, please fill out your ballot before the November 19th deadline.
1:41.7	Our story this week is heard half-heard in the stillness by Iona Dutt Sharma. The story
1:49.3	was first published in anathema spec from the margins in August 2020. Iona Dutt Sharma is a
1:57.3	writer, lawyer, and lingua file, and a product of more than one country. Their first short story
2:04.2	collection, not for use in navigation, was published in March 2019. Your narrator this week is Deepthi Gupta.
2:14.5	Deepthi is an Audi finalist, so vast, and earphones winning narrator and actress based in Los Angeles.
2:22.8	Fluent in English, Hindi, and Urdu, her career spans across India, Singapore, Pakistan, and the
2:29.9	United States. As an actress, she switches between big and small screens with ease and grace.
2:37.5	She can be seen in Disney Plus' high school musical The Musical, Netflix's The Politician,
2:44.4	who lose little fires everywhere, and CBS's Meghiver. Look out for her future film,
2:51.2	India Sweets & Spices, which will be released theatrically by Bleaker Street films in the US on
2:57.7	November 19th. Now, get ready for a glimpse of the future, because it's story time.
3:07.8	Herde, half-herde, in the stillness, by Ayona Dutt Sharma,
3:17.3	read by Deepthi Gupta.
	...

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