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Dear DoubleSpeak Enthusiasts,

If you are reading this, you must be on your mobile phone or computer or a device of some sort. In the times we inhabit, it is only natural that one might swipe to another screen in search of something else. Well, I shall wait a moment until you return to this letter 

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You are back, I hope.

And let me guess—you may have just read a piece of news: of lives lost senselessly, of nations urging their young towards conflicts that seem to yield little but grief, of markets persuading us to desire what we do not need, of the quiet but relentless rise in the cost of living. Yet, perhaps—though not always granted equal visibility by the algorithms that shape our digital worlds—you may also have glimpsed something else: ordinary people stepping forward. Peasants, office-goers, teachers, professors, and students gathering in public spaces, raising their voices not in isolation but in solidarity.

It is within this fragile and often contradictory landscape that DoubleSpeak has not merely survived, but quietly endured for five years.

Why does a free magazine continue to thrive in such times? Perhaps because the need it answers is fundamental. The need to speak. The need to be heard. The need to articulate, through words and images, the texture of human experience in all its contradictions. As George Orwell once observed, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” That right, though often contested, remains essential.

DoubleSpeak exists as a modest but persistent space where such liberty may find form—not as noise, but as dialogue.

We have seen contributions emerge from across continents: the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Nigeria, Uganda, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Italy, Russia, China, and Uzbekistan. Each submission carries with it not merely content, but context—a fragment of lived reality shaped by geography, culture, and history.

What remains particularly striking is that, even as the Government of India navigates a diplomatically uneasy terrain with certain neighbouring countries, artists and writers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and China have extended their work, their trust, and their voices to DoubleSpeak. In doing so, they quietly transcend the narrow constraints of national boundaries. It is a reminder that artistic expression often moves where politics cannot.

Many of these contributors I have never met. Yet, there exists an unmistakable sense of kinship. It is as though we are all part of an unspoken procession—walking side by side, carrying no single banner but that of free expression and equal human dignity. There is no uniformity in thought here, nor should there be. DoubleSpeak remains open to the left, the right, and the centre—provided there exists a genuine willingness to engage, to question, and to listen.

In this, I am reminded of Albert Camus, who wrote, “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.” That purpose need not be grand to be meaningful; it may reside in a single honest sentence, a carefully framed image, or a perspective offered without pretence.

This January, I had the opportunity to meet Peter Cordwell—a regular contributor to DoubleSpeak—in London. We had never met before. Yet, there was no awkwardness, no need for elaborate beginnings. Conversation unfolded naturally, as though it had merely been paused rather than initiated. The warmth extended by him and his wife, Martha, was not performative but genuine. It served as a quiet affirmation that human connection, when unburdened by agenda, can remain simple and complete.

As I write this, I am conscious that DoubleSpeak is not defined by any one editor, nor by any singular voice. It is shaped by all of you—those who write, those who read, and those who reflect.

To each of you, I extend my gratitude.

And with that gratitude, a hope—that this space continues to remain open, thoughtful, and alive to the many ways in which we attempt to understand the world, and one another.

Standing by you, with you

Arpan