Since 2021 · Stories That Truly Matter
ISBUND
A platform for stories of home, displacement and identity — told through ordinary moments and conversations that stretch across time zones.
ISBUND is a digital magazine and community for people living between cultures, languages and generations. These are the everyday stories that shape who we are — what we carry, what we leave behind and what we are still becoming.
Born from one story. Built for many.
At every Kashmiri wedding, there is a moment when a grandmother or an aunt takes isbund (Peganum harmala) in her fingers, touches it to your forehead and drops the seeds into the embers. She is warding off the evil eye and blessing you with everything good.
The herb crackles, releases its wild fragrance and suddenly the room feels warmer, as if something magical just arrived. That feeling is what we named this magazine after. It is what we want every reader to carry away.
Welcome to ISBUND. We have been waiting for your story.
A love letter, grown beautifully loud.
In 2021, Sheetal Raina launched ISBUND as a love letter to the Kashmiri Pandit diaspora — a community that lost its homeland but never its heart. Five years on, that love letter has become a conversation and the conversation has grown beautifully loud.
Today, ISBUND is for every soul who has ever lived between two worlds. For anyone who code-switches at the dinner table, who feels nostalgia for a place they may never return to, who is trying to pass something precious down to the next generation.
If you have ever been asked, "Where are you really from?" You belong here.
Every diaspora. Every story.
The best stories are rarely the loudest ones. They exist in the spaces between cultures, between generations, between who you were and who you are still becoming. ISBUND is where those stories finally get to breathe.
ISBUND is a labour of love, guided by founder and editor Sheetal Raina and Junior editor Aria Raina Kumar and made extraordinary by every contributor who has trusted us with their story.
What Drives Us
Our Values
Roots
Knowing where you come from is often the first step toward knowing who you are.
Resilience
Rebuilding a life without losing your soul is one of the bravest things a person can do.
Identity
You are allowed to be many things at once and all of them are valid.
Legacy
The stories we tell today become the inheritance of tomorrow.
The People Behind It
Meet the Team
Sheetal Raina
Founder & Editor
Sheetal founded ISBUND in 2021 with a vision to celebrate cultural heritage and give the diaspora the platform it deserves.
Aria Raina Kumar
Junior Editor
Aria brings a new generation's perspective to every page, helping shape the conversations that connect communities across cultures and borders.
Write for Us
Your voice belongs here.
Collaborate with us, contribute your story, or simply pull up a chair and join the community. Like a bonfire that grows brighter with every spark, ISBUND thrives on each new voice that joins.
So, what's your story?
Contribute a Story Read ISBUND