Parul Kaushik

Parul Kaushik’s stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, and The Masters Review: New Voices. Her work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and has received Honorable Mentions in both the 2025 AWP Intro Journals Project Award and the 2024 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition, and was recently shortlisted for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of North Texas, where she was awarded the Graduate Fiction Award in 2024 and 2025, and also holds an MFA in Fiction from Pacific University.

The Pendulum

Boisterous cab drivers, chewing betel, buzzed around the queue at the pre-paid taxi counter of Agra Cantonment Railway Station, detailing the attractions of Agra to tourists. Shipra strutted across the station facade, halting the crawling taxis with her outstretched hand, before joining her father in the queue. Her poise and ease generated the impression of a native used to honking scooters and howling taxi drivers.
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