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The Bedtime Book of August 2022

After the shocking attack on Salman Rushdie, the pain kept cropping up throughout my scrollhazed days. There was the fear of loss. A brilliant storyteller, whose mercurial play with words, conjures vast, magical lands to share the worlds he has inhabited with us less gifted imaginers - Salman Rushdie is a personal deity to me. Midnight's Children was the first Rushdie book I came across on the sidewalks of Kothi and Abids - the secondhand stores that sold books from all over the world - from the communist publications of the USSR to sheet music, and the main draw for the many secretly wild teenage girls - the Mills and Boon doses of heartaches and fantasies. This colossal tome usually with its front cover ripped off would be there and I forget how I actually got my hands on it. Perhaps I borrowed it from the school library in my father's school. The beautiful long hall in the basement with windows high up near the ceiling, a couple of rows of narrow, slanted desks, benches alo
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A Day of Mindful Spontaneity, Kids and Meera Bhajans

My dad always said children are like blank slates. Their minds can absorb everything they observe or are taught like sponges. That is the mash up of tabula rasa and Maria Montessori's philosophy making its way through the muddied waters of my memory. (Look Up Reminder to Self: Is this compulsive, flowery alliteration tied to cortical deficits in any specific brain area?)  But I saw a reassuring article which assuaged my acid reflux inducing guilt for neglecting the education of my children.  I am a Desi mom. How did I abandon my purpose in life? "Mata Nirmaata Bhavati" How in the world did I let my spawn sputter around, get them hooked on Netflix? Good kids don't waste time playing. Good kids always read. They Spell, they Math, they Code, they Chess. They have elephantine memories in which are stored ancient chants and sa re ga ma pa winning song lyrics. Good kids break boards in karate, make round rotis ( if they are female), do the 108 dances of India and sp