books

Recently a friend of mine, who is in her early thirties, was asked by a teenager: “so, did you have an iPad while growing up?” while a little taken aback by this question, my friend scrambled for a suitable response; then responded: “no, I grew up with stories”! While she was recounting this incident to me, her face glowed with the memory of the stories she grew up with and how this event in a way, brought them back to her life. As I sat and listened to this, I remembered stories that I remember growing up with. Stories from Bengali folk tale and folk lore – the earliest one told to me by my maternal grandmother – an essential ploy she used to keep me sleeping next to her in the afternoons.