Home-New | Arti Jain

Poet | Author | Storyteller

Arti Jain is an award winning spoken word artist, a poet, an author and a storyteller. Her works have appeared in numerous international literary journals and anthologies. She lives in Doha, Qatar, with her husband.

About Me

Latest Published Work

I dreamt I orbited high above the deepest reaches of the Earth’s core where Wisdom winters

Published in the FlashFlood

2019 Benaras Ganga Aarti near Aassi Ghat</p>
<p>Photo by Goutam Dutta (Wikimedia Commons CC)

Photo by Maddy Weiss at unsplash

When it was time, I stepped into the bath full of spider webs. Some quivered with rage. Some crackled like silence does, like pomegranate seeds do. I crusted over their collective mutiny of light, shimmer, shade, and thought to myself—it’s time to rest my maudlin brain.

Read at FlashFlood

Of Songs, Thresholds and Slippers

Published in the Epistemic Literary

A new song sung; nay, belted out by a familiar female voice floods the car as I
drive to the library one morning—

Main thaare paon ki jutti na
Ke jad jee kare per li utaar di

I’m not the slipper on your foot
that you use and discard at your whim

Read at The Epistemic Literary

Aap, Hum and Comfort in a Banarasi Traffic Jam

Published in the Hooghly Review

2019 Benaras Ganga Aarti near Aassi Ghat

Photo by Goutam Dutta (Wikimedia Commons CC)

Subah Banaras, shaam Banaras

Rehta har dum jam Banaras

Morning Banaras, evening Banaras

Stuck forever in a jam (traffic) Banaras

Khatt-khatt-khattak—khatt-khatt-khattak—the rhythm of the train, a lazy sun, trees, shrubs, grass—snuggled, smothered under winter fog, soft and surreal—sprawled across the window—came to an elaborately drawn-out noisy halt at precisely ten a.m.

Read at The Hooghly Review

Published Books

Don’t Climb on the Bullock Cart

Children’s Book

It was the summer holidays in Dehradun, Northern India. The children had been told to stay indoors to avoid the hot afternoon sun, but Arti found it impossible to sit still.

Little Arti’s adventurous spirit and her wild imagination make a great story for children of any age

Buy this book £13.99

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And all the SEASONS in between

Memoir

Nostalgia: sweet, tangy and utterly unforgettable will take you to a garden in Dehradun in the late seventies and the house that was attached to it.

Unique, relatable and beautifully written, the story of Artemis and the memories of the author’s childhood come together as one story, party lived, party dreamed.

Buy at Amazon

Short Story published in KINDLE, Magazine,

Jamun Tree

You can’t play with those boys under the jamun tree!” warned his grandmother as Amit reached out to push the heavy black metal gate open.

“Why?” He wanted to scream the why out, but knew better.

Read at Kindle

Published Creative Non-Fiction

“What about Mummy’s saris?” I ask my father after thirty years

“Tsk…later, eat these first.” Daddy points to piping hot samosas. ‘Got them specially for you.’ It’s been thirty years. He doesn’t know I’ve turned gluten free. I ask again. “We must’ve given them to the maids or something…it’s been thirty years.” “Not even one?”...

Accoutrements of Hiraeth

Deep winter. Dehradun. I’m five years old. Papaji, my grandfather, is collecting glowing embers of coal from my grandmother’s chullah (earthen stove) in the courtyard. He’s using a pair of old iron tongs, no bigger than his large farmer’s hands, to scoop out...

At Home in My Skin

Born of Punjabi stock, I've inherited the following traits: 1. An innate urge to use made-up, superfluous, and rhyming words. For example, kee laoge—cha, sha, ya paani, shaani? (What would you like? Tea/shea or Water/shawter?) 2. An involuntary impulse to...