I adore Bengali cuisine. So the invitation to a Kolkata Book Club for a talk on my book, The Begum and the Dastan, was an almost karmic manifestation. I had wanted to visit the city to research my next book and I had a long list of dishes and iconic restaurants to explore. Chief among…
Some of our summer plans may look a little different this year, with a lot of us spending more time at home, which makes for a great opportunity to check in with our emotional well-being. We may feel sad or disappointed that the typical summer events like vacations, beach days and family picnics will not…
This week we’re focusing on science inquiry, exploring and experimenting! We put together a collection of science activities that will allow children to think creatively, make predictions and practice hands-on learning right at home. Most of these activities can easily be done with materials you probably already have around the house. Make Delicious Ice Cream…
This week we’re focusing on fun ways you can play with math in the summer! We’ve put together a collection of activities that will allow children to practice math skills like adding, measuring, and estimating using items you probably already have around the house. We also provide a few tips on how to adapt the activities for children of…
An excerpt from ‘The Begum and the Dastan’, by Tarana Husain Khan. So, this is the story of Feroza Begum, my grandmother and your great-grandmother. May Allah forgive my tongue for any transgressions. The year was 1896 or 1897, the reign of Nawab Shams Ali Khan had just begun, and Feroza Begum desperately wanted to…
Books are defined, at their most basic, as stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But classics like the Mahabharata and The Thousand and One Nights are enjoyed for how frequently these three sections are interrupted. Structuring a book to consist of stories within stories allows author to escort the reader through some…
By Tarana Khan, Ph.D., and Rosemary Miller, Ed.D. PBS SoCal families read together with their children. PHOTO COURTESY PBS SOCAL “Tacos are semicircles,” my 2-year-old announces as we are cuddled on the couch reading “Round Is a Tortilla” by Roseanne Greenfield Thong. The book says tortillas and tacos are round, and the folded crunchy tacos…
They came in cheap, gruesome pink cardboard boxes; shriveled disks, dotted with sesame seeds-an unappetizing sight that hardly merited any gastronomic yearning. Yet my Nani and gaggle of aunts, congregating for the summer break with their brood, would send fervent demands for Mumtaz Bhai’s andarsey to be sent post haste from Rampur along with the…
Rampur ahl e nazar ki hai nazar mein wo shahar Ke jahan hasht bahisht aake huey hain baham (In the eyes of the discerning, Rampur is a town where paradises have converged) Ghalib Mirza Ghalib’s relationship with Rampur dates back to the years when Nawab Yusuf Ali Khan, the crown prince of…
‘The best conduct (for the storyteller) is to expend in God’s path whatsoever he acquires and to behave with humanity towards everyone…. Perhaps this way he will win the heart of some afflicted person, and ease a frustrated mind-so that it may be the cause of expiation in this world for the telling of his…