by Arti Jain | Nov 17, 2025 | Fiction
It’s her lipstick that piques my interest. A blood red crescent drawn precisely in the middle of her full mouth, like a young Geisha’s, except the pigment doesn’t keep within the confines of her lips but extends down her chin in a sharp line. Is it meant to look like...
by Arti Jain | Jul 11, 2025 | Print and online
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...
by Arti Jain | May 7, 2025 | Creative Non-Fiction
by Author : Arti Jain https://arti-jain.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/8-Nov-2024-at-12_57_23 pm.mp3 A new song sung; nay, belted out by a familiar female voice floods the car as Idrive to the library one morning— Main thaare paon ki jutti na Ke jad jee kare per li...
by Arti Jain | Sep 26, 2024 | Creative Non-Fiction
“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?”...
by Arti Jain | Sep 26, 2024 | Fiction
One Wednesday in August, I decide to haiku and eulogize my mother. Not at the same time, of course. I could never fit a haiku around my Ma. 17 syllables would be far too many for her euphony. Ghrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrr was the only sound she made; even before she...
by Arti Jain | Sep 26, 2024 | Print and online
Is this love? Is mossy green the right shade for Earth? Why doesn’t love last? Why doesn’t blood? Why does this longing? How to paint gnawing? Can’t figure out and yet I paint brokenness, roots—why? Where did I read about Shiva’s third eye? Did they say it symbolizes...
by Arti Jain | Sep 26, 2024 | Print and online
When I was young, I saw whispers escape the fog of their memories and spread on the kitchen floor. They sat facing the fire burning the timber of tales of partition in such a way that it sealed the knots, grain of every pain felt, seen, heard—of sisters who jumped...
by Arti Jain | Sep 18, 2024 | Travelogue
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,...
by Arti Jain | Jul 29, 2024 | Print and online
“The sex is so good.” I used to gush like a mynah bird. Heard a bulbul sing recently? Intently? Kyun nahin, nahin, kyun nahin, nahin. Sounds don’t translate; words do. Be mindful where you place your words, your love. Making love is not the same as love making....
by Arti Jain | Jul 29, 2024 | Print and online
this thin world all full of talk talks of cyclones that blew out stars stars too dim to listen to prayers we send send to them as kites tethered to lines of crystal crystal when crushed cuts through flesh flesh bleeds, fridges rust this thin world Read at USAWA...
by Arti Jain | Jul 29, 2024 | Print and online
We drive to the park for our weekend walk. You, me and our angry complaining silence superglued to us tight. Shut. I turn the seams of my thoughts inside out can’t find any traces of the us we’ve practiced all these years. So, I turn the radio on—for company. Noise....
by Arti Jain | Jul 29, 2024 | Print and online
Don’t commit the folly of using your eyes to pick the best. Ripe, luscious, juicy. Tsk. Don’t have a clue, do you? Superficial fools! Listen, pay attention—close your eyes. Don’t peak. Hover over the fruit with other senses; smell, touch, gut, historical evidence....
by Arti Jain | May 8, 2024 | Fiction
Published in the Kindle Mag “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...
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...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Print and online
This defined Love (of stories and tragic ends) La ILA Majnu Romeo Juliet, Heer-Ranjha is a kite carved out of SKY poured and pushed into frame-hearts of mortals to pulsate with pulse in a lover’s chest. Lines of colour, of religion and all games earthly made-up tether...
by Arti Jain | Feb 17, 2024 | Print and online
All the things I’m meant to receive today; sun warmth on yoga mat bird song orange jasmine lush lime peeking through windows vacuum cleaner whirrs; the cleaner is back sweat on brow hover over me like a child whose mother died; she’s four years old unsure, she waits...
by Arti Jain | Feb 14, 2024 | Print and online
Deodars tall. Tall and rock-hard. Soft, the softest mist on mountains melts you into me— hidden half, in full view those valleys and those peaks. I sprinkle pink Himalayan salt on sliced tomatoes, freshly washed rocket leaves. Our memories. Daisies must’ve filled the...
by Arti Jain | Feb 14, 2024 | Print and online
Plant your gaze on anything but his face. His face—less than ten in years lived holding orbs cave-rimmed dark, deep. At the traffic signal. Your car hums a cool song at 42 degrees Celsius. Pick up your phone and stare at the screen. His eyes, masterful...
by Arti Jain | Feb 5, 2024 | Print and online
Devi Divine of garden pots (and patch of green plot) stood verdant resplendent at my dehleez and said Your garden, my child, is full to the brim. I’ve done what I could with hibiscus and neem. Not forgetting frangipani, of course. She holds, like all my creatures, the...
by Arti Jain | Feb 5, 2024 | Print and online
I pick pebbles from riverbeds and distant shores mark them with names: places they were picked and arrange them on my desk, windowsills. Indelible bookmarks of a day in the sun, family fun. Holidays far from home. Kashmir, Chicago, Cyprus. Holidays. Homes. Hiraeth run...
by Arti Jain | Feb 5, 2024 | Print and online
The moon split in half – unequal, lopsided hides behind unseasonal clouds half-hidden, clearly visible as I take one step after another on my evening walk. “Why do we need feminism?” a question I’d read recently follows me down the quiet road. The road swallows up my...
Recent Comments