credits.
Committee
Amshu Vengala – President
Sophie Cheung – VicePresident
Prakriti Kapoor – Treasurer
Thu-An Tran – Head of Design
Anoushka Singh – Head of Literature
Cecilia Vecchi – Head of Events
Alisha Fichera – Head of Marketing Design Team
Ji Su Park – Designer
Margot Gover – Designer
Tia Patnaik – Designer
Literature Team
Keyuri Gawde – Writer
Nainika Chaudhari – Writer
Radhika Singhal – Writer
Snigdha Nair – Writer
Zara Mitchen – Writer
Anoushka Menon – Editor
Constanza Bayod Carrasco –Editor
Elizabeth Scheer – Editor
Purvi Jain – Editor
Echoes of Parallel Lives
began as little more than fragments of images and words, and to witness how these pieces have come together to form such a tapestry of voices is incredibly humbling This is not just an anthology; it is a reflection of the spaces where silence and stillness stretch between us, the echoes of our desires and losses lingering in the shadows of our lives. Like ripples over water, stories of unspoken realities, missed opportunities, and quiet yearnings unfold in the silence and settle over these pages, inviting us to pause, listen and reflect. Here, we present our attempt to explore the quiet existence of these parallel lives. Each page is a shadow that haunts us, not with emptiness, but with the fullness of what could have been. We are deeply grateful to the voices within these pages, whose work breathe life into these shadows, giving form to what lingers in the spaces between, and hope that it resonates with you as much as it did with us
January 3, 2014 6:48 AM
got milk?
writtenbysnigdhanair||editedby anoushkamenon
Dearest diary, I LOVE mornings! It's so bright, new, and fresh, and everything's just out there waiting for me! And I love school Okay , maybe not everything about school, like Mrs Davidson’s math class, but otherwise it’s super fun I hope Melissa’s mom packs her string cheese again - she hates it so she always gives it to me And I lovee breakfast I’m supposed to be eating it right now instead of writing so I’m not late for the bus but I just got this fuzzy journal yesterday and it has a unicorn on the front and it cost me my entire allowance so I need to show my parents I’m actually writing and not petting it And besides, I just have to tell you my favorite things One of my absolutest, most favorite things is milk We live near a farm, well not really near but walkable so my dad always wakes up super early to get me milk. We know the cow there, Bessie (cliché name I know, like why aren't there more cows named Glitter???).
And she’s just so so cute. My dad says milk is supposed to make me grow taller. I’m already pretty tall so I guess I have milk to thank for that. I have mine with a spoon of honey and it’s just incredible. When I drink it, I can literally taste the sunshine and grass Bessie munches on in the fields There’s this velvety softness to it, and as I gulp it down, I feel all warm and happy, like the morning is giving me a smile and a big thumbs up It’s pure magic in a mug Weird how something that looks so plain and boring could taste SO good. I really need to get back to my french toast sticks now, but I’ll talk (write) to you later.
February 16, 2028
3:19 AM
I am buried alive in deadlines The enormous pile of textbooks and to-do lists are suffocating but I can’t tidy up yet. I need to call Tom back and let him know the lab reports haven’t been faxed through yet. I should be working instead of writing in this journal, but it’s my only solace right now My last futile grip on sanity. Dad called me during dinner. He insisted I make myself a glass of milk “It’ll help you sleep better,” he said. I don’t get much sleep these days. The work is relentless, and my sleeping pills are a scam, an elaborate scheme to get money out of desperate insomniacs
So then it was just me and the glass of milk. It had been out too long and there was a weird milk skin clinging to the surface, yellow-ish and gross It was staring at me like an unspoken dare, goading me Somehow, even though I probably would never drink it on a normal day, I felt strangely compelled to obey my dad’s wishes tonight.
I held the glass up, nearly gagging at the rancid smell Still, I managed to take a sip The curdled bitterness clawed its way down to my throat, lodging itself there uncomfortably. What was I thinking, to drink milk as if I was a child?
Yet, as if I was seized by some external being, I forced myself to lift the glass again And I drank I kept drinking, and drinking, until it was all gone. Every vile sip felt like a reflection of my pathetic, lowly life. The resistance I’d felt earlier gave way to a quiet, insidious presence that whispered, “Good You deserve this ” Every voice of reason had been drowned out completely, like grains of sand in an hourglass rushing out - quickly and quietly. All at once.
When I finally set the glass down, I felt overwhelmingly sick, soured like the milk I had just tediously bought myself to consume The aftertaste clung to my lips and the nausea began to build. It bubbled up quickly. Violently My stomach churned and I knew I could not keep it down any longer. I had to rid myself of this, fast
I stumbled to the sink, clutching the counterskin burning, muscles clenched My ribs exhaled. The world blurred. And then, I let it go.
A tidal wave of bile and remorse I heaved until I was nothing, mirroring the forgotten glass beside me. Was this some newfound lactose intolerance? Some psychosomatic manifestation of stress? A malignancy seeded by years of ignoring the warning signs? I’d figure it out later For now, I let the silence swallow me whole.
Haunting Melodies
WrittenbyNainikaChaudhari||Editedby ElizabethScheer
The soft, white moonlight hit the door as she walked toward it. All was still, more still than she could remember, aside from the dead leaves rustling in the light breeze. The front step’s brick was brittle, it had been since she was a baby. Dad always said he would fix it one day, but now it lay abandoned It crumbled slightly under her weight She took a deep breath and turned the door knob
The door creaked as it opened It was a harsh, scratchy sound, but a familiar one Did it remember her? All the times she would bang it open as she ran through with laughter. Did it hate her for leaving? Did it miss her? She shut the door with a sigh, her voice muffled by the loud bang The house lacked something human; that didn’t change when she stepped in. Her eyes glossed over the staircase and settled on the living room. The furniture was long gone, sold to friends and neighbors, but everything else had been boxed Mum’s coffee table books, the ones she used to love flipping through over tea, peeked out from inside one.
Only the grand piano was left untouched, as if moving it would’ve tainted their memories It was sleek, hidden for weeks before being unveiled at midnight to cheers of ‘Happy birthday!’. She remembered the first song played on it, her first composition. A simple three-note melody she repeated while they sat on the sofa Now she sat on the dusty piano bench and stared. Her fingers twitched on the fallboard, leaving prints in the dust. The picture frame that had sat on top of the piano was gone As she left the living room, the three-note melody haunted her.
Her feet led her to the kitchen, her body unwilling to acknowledge the staircase. Boxes there too, on the marble countertops and scattered on the floor She pushed open the window above the sink and stared at the full moon. A prettier sight than what was behind her Less hurtful, too The breeze ruffled some paper, and she looked back to see the calendar still hung on the wall. It was stuck in July. Some reminders were scribbled on with a red pen, a few dates were circled She took it down and dropped it into the box with her drawings and some fridge magnets. So many drawings, all once displayed proudly She remembered her first art class, her passion, the praise. The certainty that she would become the next Picasso. The blank eyes of her portraits stared at her now, burning her back as she walked out
At last her fingers brushed the staircase railings as she looked up into the darkness There was something sinister about it It was a void, a reminder of all that she had lost, and it beckoned her closer for one last look. She walked upstairs with the moonlight bouncing at her heels, each step groaning under her weight. She passed the first door shut firmly and walked into the room at the end of the hallway
A flood of memories washed over her, and she leaned against the doorway, looking in Her bed had been stripped of its bedsheets, probably stuffed somewhere alongside her teddy. She could see her life packed up in neat boxes, labelled carefully She sat on her knees as she rummaged through them. Her old notebooks, filled with stories written with the moon as her nightlight. Lyric sheets written in hopes of performing under a spotlight
What happened? Somewhere between her leaving for college and them dying, she had withered away, becoming a husk of her former self. When did the colour of her life turn into shades of black and white?
As she sat on the floor with her back against the bedframe, she looked around. This room had held hope, once upon a time It was a place of ambition, of dreams She couldn’t remember when all of that changed, when the three-note melody turned into cruel silence.
She knew she should go to their room and ensure everything was packed and nothing was left behind. She knew, but she couldn’t. Instead, she retreated down the stairs, one step at a time, the weight of regret pulling at her. The mirror at the bottom showed someone else a shadow of the past or a different universe where she continued playing the three-note melody. Maybe that person would have existed if she had just kept going, or maybe she was always destined to live at the cusp of greatness, never fully reaching.
As she walked out, she looked back once, just as the front door slammed itself closed Her old home had shut her out, and she didn’t care to fight her way back in She walked away that silent night, the moonlight a poor substitution of them guiding her. She walked, and walked, as far as she needed to to reach a different life
There is a red sun that used to sit over me.
written by zara mitchen ||
bypurvijain
I remember it well. Many times, when I think of my formative years, I see the scarlet hue reaching out from that giant star, coating everything in a deep mist It stains most of my memories If I close my eyes, I can still see the sunrise The eternal sunrise that illuminated the sky day and night; a canvas of bright oranges, soft pinks and violets How I miss that red sun and its beauty.
As familiar as it was to me, it’s strange to think that the red sun wasn’t always there In fact, when I was very young, I was certain the world was cloaked in a miserable grey. Surely there was more to see? Surely there was more to life than a bleak existence? When gloominess is the only thing you know, all you can do is dream of different colours
Then, when I was 9, I fell 9 feet deep, straight into a gaping hole of damp earth and utter blackness That was when everything changed.
I had been running through the forest near my home, I don’t remember why All I know is that I was too confident and quickfooted for my own good. My little feet hurtled through the green landscape, dodging low hanging vines and swerving past giant tree trunks. I only noticed the sinkhole when it was too late.
I lost all sense of time
How long was I stuck there? Hours, days, weeks? All I remember is dirt, dirt everywhere: in my eyes, in my ears, on my skin I lay there, my body caked in it, too shell-shocked to scream. When I emerged from the ebony tomb, I was petrified and delirious They dragged me out by an entanglement of thick ropes and pulled me towards the sky. Apparently, I was close to starvation; my body was thin, splayed limply against the harness Then, a ray of sunlight caught my eye. I was so unadjusted to the lack of light, I couldn’t see clearly at first I squinted in the harsh light to make sense of the view before me There - there it was. That was when I saw it.
My sun. My red sun.
A blazing crimson orb in the centre of the sky. Drawn so beautifully, so perfectly it was almost as if a painter had reached up and carved it himself The sky’s canvas was alive with sunsets, sunrises, mountains, valleys, hope and endless possibilities. For the first time in my life, everything seemed meaningful Intentional It was mine The red sun stayed for many years after that. I am convinced we all have a sun It’s not the same for everyone For some people, it’s white, perhaps turquoise or even purple It doesn’t need a name and it’s not the colour that matters: it’s warmth and belonging and home You see the light it emits everywhere you look; it douses the world in such vivid colours. For those moments, when it's shining above you, you are fearless
Nothing prepares you for when it leaves
I turned to her then, but my mother was already asleep Her lips were turned slightly upward as though she hadn’t thought to drop them before she closed her eyes It was just as well, I thought later, that she died with a smile Sometimes, I walk past the place where the old sinkhole used to be. It’s long gone, boarded up with wood and displaced by overgrown vines that have weaved their way around it
When I’m feeling sentimental, I bring a blanket to lie on and stare up at the sky. The red sun has completely gone now It’s been replaced by a different sun, the one I realise was there all along. This yellow sun is brighter, harsher most often It purges everything in its revealing light, but instead of casting out the darkness, it only exposes the shadows Which, in some ways, is better. At least now I can see more clearly I miss my red sun, more than I miss most things But I’m getting stronger now. The more I come to this forest, the shorter I stay I like to think that my red sun is dancing above someone else now, igniting their life with colours I no longer see It makes it easier. A little. Moment by moment, my eyes adjust
On’s my mother’s
last day on Earth, I sat by her on her hospital bed She was frail and weak by then, only a thin sheet of skin covered blood and bone When she felt I was there, her eyes fluttered open. Pink flooded her cheeks with the effort it took to look up to me
“Please, open the blinds ” she murmured “I want to see I want to see the sun ”
We sat silently for many hours. We watched as the sun made its familiar ascent over the atmosphere and watched shifting patterns over skyscrapers and gravel
It was only then I noticed how foreign my glowing star had become It seemed duller somehow Faded It’s pulsing light was waning like the beat of a slowly fading heart
“I can’t recognise my red sun anymore.” I said quietly. The position was all wrong too It wasn’t supposed to be so small in the sky, so distant from me As long as it had shone, there was never a time I hadn’t felt its heat And yet suddenly, it was so cold.
“It wasn’t meant to last ”
LIVINGMYBESTLIFE
Written by Radhika Singhal || Edited by Constanza Bayod Carrasco
allel life. I know that I am not actually in one. A matter how huge and different, is not a parallel life. iving one life, and now I am finishing the year living n the middle, I switched lives and didn’t even realise it My parallel life is the different worlds that I live in At worlds. One in my hometown and one in the town I’m n hear the echoes of my first life in every decision I make
It’s there when I wake up in the morning, when I get ready and go to my classes, and when I am back in my bed It’s there all along, buried somewhere deep where only I can access it Maybe someday in the future I’ll reconcile with my parallel self, but for now, I am busy discovering this new life and trying to make it my own.
In my other life, I am jolted awake from my dreams to the harsh sound of my alarm at 7 a.m. My eyes are closed as I switch to autopilot and head for the bathroom. I get ready, from putting on my school-mandated uniform to combing my hair out of my face and into a ponytail, all in 10 minutes I pick up my bag and sit down to eat the paneer parathas my mom cooked for me
She drops me off with a kiss on h d h b f . I survive the 6-hour school da After school, I sit down in my t) and go to my tuition classes s we didn’t understand in schoo are ready for any upcoming test m the chai stand across the road
We thank her through jokes at her expense I look around me and, although this is nice, I dream of big cities and queues in coffee shop chains. I end the day by going home to a warm meal waiting for me, along with my siblings ready to debrief about their days.
In my oversized t-shirt and old basketball shorts, I lie down in my bed. As my sister lies down next to me, I close my eyes and envision a day where I can live my romanticised life, in my own room, in the big city
As I open my eyes to a new day, I am no longer in my double bed in Delhi underneath the fan keeping me cool. I am in the parallel life I have awaited all my life I stumble out of my single bed at 10 a m for my lecture at 11 I spend the majority of the next half hour doing my skincare and picking out an outfit that will both keep me warm and fit into the ever-evolving fashion trends of London. I miss the simple uniform I had in school. Out of groceries and time, I skip breakfast and go straight for the bus stop I complete the 32-minute commute from my accommodation to my campus in 27, and yet I am the last person to walk into the lecture hall I sit through the lecture and look around me to check if I’m the only person who does not understand a word the professor is saying Yes, I seem to be In the absence of the courage to ask questions among so many unknown faces, I resolve to watch the recording of the lecture later that day. When I finally have time to eat, I roam around the streets looking for some fast food restaurant, the perfect blend of satiating and cheap. I end up getting the meal deal from the nearest Tesco Express The notification of the money I spent shows up on my phone after I pay for my food, filling my stomach with guilt at wasting yet more of my dad’s money By the time I finish my lunch, the sun has already started setting (fuck daylight savings, honestly). I sit down at the Maughan Library and try to answer my questions from the past lectures I curse the readings for being full of overly complicated academic vocabulary and use ChatGPT to simplify them for me After a few hours of semi-productive work, I reward myself with the white chocolate matcha from Blank Street
The long commute back to my accommodation leaves me too tired to cook any decent meal, so I craft something out of the bread, Sriracha sauce, and banana that I have in my fridge. It’s barely edible but I force myself to eat it all. Maybe I can laugh about this disaster of a meal later with my one uni friend. I remind myself for the third day in a row about doing my groceries After making some awkward small talk and trying not to get in the way of my flatmates, I get back to my room to a recent pile of laundry I have yet to fold up and put away
Before sleeping I take a preliminary shot of cough syrup, trying to get ahead of the cold I feel approaching as the seasons change I get into the bed left unmade this morning, and doom scroll on Instagram. As I finally put my phone away and close my eyes, I smile as I cry about living my romanticised life, all alone in my own room in the big city.
You never glance at your reflection when you walk past a mirror. How do you do it? I’ve been standing here for hours with my eyes interrogating every blemish on my face. My lips flake, because the gloss has dried them out. How do you always look so put together? What I would do to be you in another life. You’re a kind girl, you’re a calm girl, you’re the type of girl that everyone loves. I’ve never seen you annoyed or
writtenbykeyurigawde||editedby elizabethscheer
angry, probably because people respect you enough not to get on your nerves. You’re funny but you're not mean, you’re never too loud, even when you get excited, you’re flirtatious but not- I should stop.
This mirror is so harsh. My hands trace the hickey on my neck. It hurts. Didn’t you have one too the other day? But you don’t think about things like that. I feel like used flesh, but if you had been there he would have seen you as so much more. I admire that you never ponder over the past, you don’t feel things like I do. He loved you and I think he still does even though he’d never admit it. It must be easy for you not to think about things like this, the way you can just move on, your beautiful smile continuing to light up a room. Everytime we fight he says I dampen his mood, my quietness comes across as hostile and I darken the air around me…I never know how to react. I wish he could see me, hear me, know me, like how he did with you. Because you were never complicated, right? Oh God…I sound so bitter.
There’s a sick feeling in my stomach. I might throw up but I can’t seem to move. My eyes are stuck on my reflection. Who is this person looking back at me? She’s not real, she’s just a messy nightmare who- no, I should be kinder to myself.
It’s odd how often I think about you. When you walked past me in the library the other day I managed to take in your scent for the first time. You smell like a Mediterranean summer, you’re the feeling of plucking fresh peaches off a tree, or sunbathing by the river. It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten. And what book were you carrying? Something about art history. God, I wanted to study it for the longest time. But I had to let it go. Regret overwhelms me but I keep telling myself there’s little I can do about it now. Watching you is like watching myself in a parallel universe.
Lately, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to hold a conversation. I’m so hyperfixated on this face in the mirror, practising how to smile. Trying to look warm, likeable, as sweet as you do. But what words can I use, how do I react? When’s the right time to laugh? How can I stop looking so tired and irritated all the time? I swear I don’t mean to. There’s a lingering fear inside of me that people see me as strange. Big groups shut me down, leaving me too overwhelmed to say even just a word. I must look so rude sitting in my own quietness. Why can’t I say something? I don’t have to keep staring at my phone so intensely the whole time. But these days it’s like I have nothing left in me. I need to say something valuable, maybe something witty or smart. People love to ask you questions, get to know you more. They hear you. They see you. Your quirks, your little phrases, your opinions and feelings. Is it weird I’ve often thought that I could never speak again?
It feels like I know you so well yet not at all. You’ve always been so elusive to me, but you’re not a puzzle to be solved or a code to be cracked. You are whole. I find you in myself and everyone I see. Perhaps you’re just an idea in the deep corners of my mind, but I’ve seen you. I see you right now. You’re staring right back at me, aren’t you? In this mirror.
artist intentions.
canh cá
Thu-An Tran (2005-)
Digital design
‘canh cá,’ which translates to fish soup in Vietnamese, may not make immediate sense with the artwork, but is precisely used to convey the playful yet unsettling tones of the piece The two glasses of milk illustrate the contrast between first and second entries; the ambivalence of coming of age; the metaphor of a glass half empty versus half full. This analogy is emphasized with color and texture; the first glass with swimming fish and a thriving pond conveys innocence and a childish joy inherent in our childhoods Comparatively, the second glass of milk communicates the rotting, decaying feeling prevalent in the latter half with wilted flowers, milk curd, and flies. The imagery of lilies and lily pads also symbolize milk as a subtext of maternity in growing up, and conversely how this is rejected in the second entry
Untitled Ji Su Park (2004-)
Digital
Print Design
The design of the spreads engages with the principal motifs from the textual piece, notably the piano and the melody. The central element of the design is an interplay of mismatched piano keys, while the dark navy blue line serves as a contrasting element of movement associated with the melody. This contrast is visually conveyed through colour and shape, accentuating the theme of parallelism Similarly, the layered textural background of the pages aims to contribute to the feeling of nostalgia that encapsulates the experience of the narrative. The composition of the background incorporates layers of floral lace, pale yellow ochre paper, and floral print to create visual noise that conveys the fuzzy-soft feelings associated with nostalgia and maturity. p.7
artist intentions.
shape of the soul and sun
Thu-An Tran (2005-)
Digital design
p.9
The surrealist nature of these pieces forefront “a memory that doesn’t exist,” by communicating the brevity of life. The first page expands on the imagery of seeing the red sun for the first time; memory and time; stillness and movement, illustrated with light, shadow and perspective as ‘limitless ’ Sun and stars are brought to life with an emphasis on contrast of shape and symbols like the pomegranate– a visual parallel for ‘fruition’ of the red sun but also a (Hades and Persephone) foreshadowing to life and death. The second page develops feelings of regret, pain and sorrow through the composition’s translucent qualities. The death of the red sun is explored as the viewer’s gaze travels from the red string of fate, to the luminary red spider lilies and the mourning shadow of the narrator Inspiration drawn from animes Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), Nana (2006), Soul Eater (2008), and music ‘Ceilings’ (2022) by Lizzy McAlpine
Untitled
Tia Patnaik (2004-)
Digital design
p.11
This piece explores the concept of parallel lives, juxtaposing the distinct yet interconnected experiences in Delhi and London. The design symbolises the shift from familial warmth and routine to the reality of the ‘city life’ dream By integrating cultural motifs and personal anecdotes, the work captures the contrast between the warmth of family and home to the coldness associated with London and how isolating it can be. The background shifts from a warm to cool tone and the illustrations relate to the contrasting parallel lives, for example, going from drinking chai with friends to drinking a white chocolate matcha after a solo study session.
Untitled Margot Gover (2003-)
Digital design
p.13
Hints of parallel lives are all around us. Photo albums in particular hold nostalgia, yearnings of potential, snapshots and selfportraits that can be especially evocative when they're revisited in moments of fragility. While designing the accompanying piece for Reflection, I drew inspiration from the scrapbook for its paradoxical potential to frame emotions of impermanence. I embraced negative space collaging style to emphasise how every moment holds the potential to lead your life into a different direction. Lipstick stains are reminiscent of fleetingness, a delicate symbol of girlhood that also evokes the image of putting lipstick on in the mirror. Mirrors are the primary subject of Reflection: a double-entendre title reminiscent of abstract and physical reflections.
a special thank you to all of our writers, editors, and designers! this issue could not have happened without you. we are incredibly likewise you should be too head of literature, head of design,
