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Touch me not

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  Adi and Anku Learn to stay safe: The body safety guide for preschoolers   Authors: Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul Illustrators: Tuhin Paul, Aishwarya Shah, Siddhanth Verma Age: 3 years and above Price: 295/- Publisher: Menstrupedia Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Pages: 20   Touch me not! Arti Pandey, Anshumalika Rai and Nimesh Ved   Thanks to   Teacher Plus   for publishing and Richa for comments on the draft. The authors are well-known names in puberty education. Their previous books  Menstrupedia  (2014) and  Gulu  (2021) have been well received. These books are a big help to parents and teachers to discuss topics like growing up years and changes in our bodies during these years!   The book   This book talks to an age group that is younger – preschoolers. It focuses on touch, privacy, and safety.  The text is well thought of and sensitively written. Two pages, towards the end, have notes for parents and teachers. Simplicity and bareness are the strengths of the book.
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Hospital : Some conversations

Last fortnight (In a not very good state of mind) Snippets of some conversations,  Glimpses that underscored how at the end of the day we are all humans, Very similar to each other, very different from each other, carrying our contradictions,  At the reception (or the waiting area, around midnight) Another person waiting: यह साले हॉस्पिटल वाले ऐसी खुरसी क्यूँ रखते हैं? मरीज़ के साथ आने वाला बंदा ना तो ठीक से बैठ पाए ना ही ठीक से सो पाए! वो साला खुद ही मरीज़ बन जाए! At the lift (on way for an emergency C T scan) Me to the fellow pushing the stretcher: क्या हुआ? चल क्यूँ नहीं रही? His response: नीचे से कोई खुला छोड़ दिया है दरवाज़ा, बंद करने जाना पड़ेगा. At the operation theatre (after the surgery) Doctor (assisting the surgeon): Do you want to click a photo of the blood that was removed? My response (with folded hands): I just want my mother back fine. At the pharmacy counter Aunty standing next to me: बेटा यह उपर नीचे करते करते तो मेरी हालत खराब हो गयी है, और दवाई लेने आना पड़ा तो मुझ
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With dadi

Sometime last week. Somewhere in the hospital. It was a conversation. I was asleep but it was not a dream. You asked me if I was taking care of mumi in the manner that mumi had cared for you. You wore white, were standing, had that twinkle in your eyes and looked at me for an answer. Yes, I said, after moments of silently looking at you. You agreed. You never argued even when you were around. I said yes but later your question, your tone, got me pondering. Was I doing enough? Was I giving it all that I could? And, like I had expected, you reappeared a few nights later to reconfirm! This time your hand was moving like it used to and you had a smile. What could this be - your love for me? my being answerable to those I love? else? Mumi , being the patient, used to get Marie biscuits with tea in the afternoons. This biscuit seldom fails to remind me of you. You used to get irritated when anyone either gave or asked you to have it - saying it is good for old people. Boodha ho ga tera ba
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Leafy talk

Brooming away Previous post on the topic Most Sunday’s I wake up to the sounds of cleaning, of brooms pushing leaves. A sound that makes my hair stand on end! Men, most of them in the second halves of their lives, brooming away with an energy that they seldom display otherwise. They consider leaves as trash akin to plastic disposables and are happy to burn both plastic and leaves together. For some of them, each day is a Sunday. What does one do? Label this as brahminical and sound woke? Question that rare ‘house-work’ which men take up with rigour and earn the wrath of women? Wish that these men took up some other activity? Meditate? Assume that the activity is meditative for the ‘broomer’ – this is difficult given that, most if not all, ‘broomers’ carry that ‘venting out frustration’ and the ‘do not mess with me’ look! My neighbourhood is not an exception. Once, at the sprawling campus of an NGO I had asked why were leaves being removed? Were they not a part of the ground, grass and
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Two books

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On a recent trip to Kalimpong came across two books at the library at Buddha Pada , These books ~ ~ are short, stark and uncommonly simple, ~ can be read anytime, from any page, ~ very different, yet not so, ~ are as stark on re-reading as they are when first read,  ~ connect to incidents in our lives - as we read, ~ have a common message at the crux - life is simple, we often complicate it, ~ tell us work on ourselves, before we venture to solve the world's problems,  By Duc (pixiduc) from Paris, France. - Thich Nhat Hanh Marche meditative 06, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19478461  The Miracles of Mindfulness :  Thich Nhat Hanh There are 2 ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water on in thin air, but to walk
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A tryst with trust

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  Taking stock of books (and ourselves) When kids help in taking stock of books Text and images: Anshumalika Rai and Nimesh Ved Published at the Deccan Herald .   What happens when we go with our guts and trust children? A quick look at our school before we jump on to the details. We focus on languages , Hindi and English . The book room is a favoured place; many of the 250 children and 15 teachers can be seen reading here. Children of classes 7 and 8, the senior most children, also join us in taking care of the book room. The idea is to deepen their engagement with books . This year we got a tad ambitious. The annual stock-taking turned into a project: 1 room, 5 days, 1,500 books and 30 children of class 7. As we look back, we realize, that throughout the project it was not the children assisting us, as we had once envisaged, but the other way around - we were assisting the children. This brings smiles to our faces and reminds us of P L Travers’ , “ you should trust the
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Allahabad Again

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Let us begin with the previous post previous post on the town  That was BC - aka Before COVID Since I have been to the town for the book-stores : Vaani and Rajkamal . Here, I also look forward to are the times at Indian Coffee House (nicely located between these two book-stores) and Bushy's .  I, with colleagues, have also made trips to the G B Pant Insitute for its museum ,  This time we began with the library, one of the more stunning libraries for sure - when it comes to buildings, as a  Kader Khan or Sharabi film fan would have said: लाइब्रेरी की बिल्डिंग हो तो ऐसी,  वरना  ना हो  The park with it multiple resources reminded me of Kamati Baug ,  This board was also the first time I read of map being referred to as मानचित्र The park also has its share of quirkiness  Image: Dheeraj It also houses  The Allahabad Museum ,  There has been work done here as well since I last visited, especially the new interactive galleries and the hall at the entrance.  Image: Dheeraj At the Allaha
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Kalimpong Again

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Posts from the previous visit Walking Food Gods and Flowers Eating places The dining hall at  Buddha Pada , a place to sit,  to do nothing , The table outside, took me to evenings in  Saiha . Was fun to sit here for long, to eat, to write, To soak in Kalimpong at Café Kalimpong Coffee places Locally grown – roasted - ground coffee, an ease in the ambience, And, welcoming conversation at the Himali Aroma Cafe . Reading places At Buddha Pada,  Amidst those by Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others, I came across  Kalimpong: Where the mules quenched their thirst Museums Tharpa Choling Monastery houses a café, a souvenir shop, a library, Besides, of course, the museum. One that reminded me of the museum at Aligarh .  The Lepcha Museum , not far from the Gangjong Handmade Paper Factory   These private museums , a world apart from the large ones, but equally important for preserving our heritage. Reminded yet again - so many manuscripts we have to save, to restore, to digitize. Fun for Se
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Books on Banaras (2)

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Previous post on the topic Glimpses from the past ~   Sarai Mohana.  1940. Some of the young people began asking for a library. Ethel applied for a grant and pressed the College Trust into donating a piece of land. The young men themselves decided to build the Reading Room in their off time and found used bricks for the purpose. While the men built, Ethel planted oleanders and made paths, making the front yard into a playground. In the end, she says, they had a very charming library. They got books and magazines, daily and weekly papers from various offices. The Reading Room became a popular feature of the village, until the day-school teacher, who Ethel was discovering was quite a faction-maker with his own ambitions, tried to take it over for a night school for children to make extra money for himself.  In the census of 1872, the occupation of all males above 15 years of age are noted. I give some of the items.  Alms-takers: 184 Beggars: 3,490 Barbers: 979 Pundits: 96 Priests (temple
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Together, learning languages

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Learning languages together This piece finds place in the Deccan Herald . Thanks to the team there. Thanks are due to colleagues for being together during the journey, the questions, and sharing not only confusions but also memories.  Thanks Richa for the comment on the draft.  Some time back we initiated capacity building sessions for teachers at our school. These sessions focus on English and Hindi; languages.   10 out of the 15 teachers at the school teach languages; they are the participants. Our school is located in peri-urban eastern Uttar Pradesh; these teachers converse in Bhojpuri. Today, while it is not easy to pinpoint what has worked and what has not gone right, it is not difficult either to discern the positive energy these sessions have or the learning they enable. Looking back and gleaning through the journey is fun; we have experienced more learning, more surprises than we had bargained for.   Sessions. Together the 11 of us walked the language path. From magaz
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