While history can not hide the truth, books can make the truth bearable.

Nidhi spoke about The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. The story revolves around the life of Kamila Sidiqi, a woman who lives through the Taliban regime, faces the loss of the men in her life and is forced to find a way to make ends meet. This is a true story of entrepreneurship. “I like books that tell us about people who find a way. There is sadness in the world- that’s a given, but how do people live through it? In this book the protagonist is bombarded with restrictions and yet there is only so much that oppression can do to the human spirit,” Nidhi said.

This reminded Eklavya of a book called In the Land of Invisible Women by Qanta Ahmed. This is another book that talks about how life thrives in spite of restrictions. The author is a Western trained doctor who in a strange twist of fate is offered a job in Saudi Arabia. Her observations are delightful and reveal much about this much misunderstood kingdom.

Aadit, a youngster, talked about the book Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. Aahan, a ten year old, spoke affectionately about his favorite illustrator, Quentin Blake. The book he mentioned was The Boy in a Dress by David Williams. He is also busy creating a Pani Hotter (the transposition of alphabets is intentional) series. He spoke at great length about how his collaborative effort includes a bit of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, an array of Greek Gods and a Chinese dragon. You can read more of what this youngster writes here: https://aahansinha.wordpress.com/.

With this, we come to the end of our Delhi chapter this 2016.