KVI STORY COORDINATES · LITERATURE · FIRST LOOK
AMMA: Where Life Begins
The many meanings of motherhood
By KVI Editorial · Edited by Roopali Sircar Gaur, Shalini Nandkeolyar, Niharika Chibber Joe and Prasanna Kkumar
Published in October 2026 under the Sabre & Quill imprint, AMMA: Where Life Begins gathers poetry and writing on mothers, stepmothers, mothers-in-law, and others who offer the work of mothering. Its four editors, Roopali Sircar Gaur, Shalini Nandkeolyar, Niharika Chibber Joe, and Prasanna Kkumar, frame the anthology around experiences that are tender and difficult, ordinary and life-altering.
The project was conceived as something more searching than a conventional tribute. Its original call welcomed affection, humor, uncertainty, and difficult truths, inviting writers to approach maternal relationships from their own position rather than follow an idealized portrait of motherhood.
Beyond one definition of mother
What distinguishes the person who gives us life from the person who helps us live it? Sometimes they are the same person. Sometimes they are not. The anthology creates room for that difference without asking readers to measure one bond against another.
The editors behind AMMA
Four editors bring different literary and cultural experiences to this collection. Their backgrounds span poetry, scholarship, cultural exchange, the arts, and literary community-building.
Roopali Sircar Gaur
A poet, academic, and social activist, Roopali Sircar Gaur is a former associate professor of English at Delhi University and holds a doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her publications include Porridge and I: Growing Up with India and Asterkali: Do You See the Stars. Her supplied biography credits her with editing fourteen international poetry anthologies and founding YUVATI.
Shalini Nandkeolyar
Dr. Shalini Nandkeolyar works across poetry, acting, painting, and music. Her creative work includes Hindi and English verse, the devotional album Arpanam, and an English translation of her mother Shanta Sinha’s writing published as Inner Dialogues. Her supplied biography notes a 2026 Rajan Choudhry Sahitya Puraskar award.
Niharika Chibber Joe
A poet and short-story writer whose work appears in international anthologies, Niharika Chibber Joe also works in public service on United States–Japan relations. Her supplied biography lists studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and Jawaharlal Nehru University, service with YUVATI, and an advisory role with the DC South Asian Arts Council.
Prasanna Kkumar
Prasanna Kkumar, also known as The Unruly Poetaster, is a multilingual poet and editor and a co-founder of The Fertile Brains literary forum. His supplied biography identifies edited anthologies including Songs of Peace and Reach for the Sky, with poetry translated into several languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Hungarian, Assamese, Bengali, and Odia.
Book details
- Title
- AMMA: Where Life Begins
- Form
- Poetry and literary anthology
- Publication
- October 2026
- Publisher’s imprint
- Sabre & Quill
- Editors
- Roopali Sircar Gaur; Shalini Nandkeolyar; Niharika Chibber Joe; Prasanna Kkumar
A question for readers
Who taught you what it means to care for another person?
Share your reflections in the moderated reader discussion.
Life taught me what it means to care for another person. My understanding of compassion grew through personal experiences, painful lessons, and witnessing the suffering of others.
Experiencing domestic abuse and watching others endure it changed how I understood love, empathy, and human dignity. I came to realize that caring for someone is more than expressing affection or offering kind words. It is about how we treat people, especially when they are vulnerable, struggling, or unable to defend themselves.
Life taught me that people can speak of love while behaving in ways that contradict its meaning. Those contradictions shaped my understanding of kindness, respect, accountability, and compassion.
I learned that genuine care requires us to recognize another person’s humanity, even when their experiences differ from our own.
Some of life’s most profound lessons come not from the kindness we receive, but from the suffering we learn never to inflict upon others.
For me, caring is not simply an emotion. It is a responsibility reflected in our actions, our choices, and the dignity we extend to another human being.