by Arti Jain | May 8, 2024 | Fiction
“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. “Because they’re dirty, filthy scum…those jamadars and bhangis!” She...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Creative Non-Fiction
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...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Travelogue
“What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.” W. H. Davies A couple of years after relocating from London to Doha, I found myself struggling with my first existential crisis. In London, my life had been hectic—managing a full-time teaching...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Creative Non-Fiction
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...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Print and online
when days were mangoes, I sliced open a Sun slid one half over the horizon and kept the other in my pocket pulp, juice, smell, innocence I was copying my grandfather – his kameez pockets were always full of jaggery the mango seed, I scraped clean with my tongue, my...
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