Co-creating a community of children's book lovers
Arushi Ralli I am Arushi, a heartivist who feels very deeply, and has birdies and dog friends more than human friends. I live in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh with my loveliest partner and my soul baby, Jet. You will often find me talking to birds, plants, rocks, books and dreaming about a life the child in me could have had. It is a very child-like need to still wish for a ‘happy family’. I come from a family of deep complexities where love and abuse co-existed. As an adult now, it becomes blurry to understand love in its purest essence. When people around me speak about their childhood, I feel a lot of joy to know that they remember, because all I remember are memories of loneliness and the pressure of figuring out what’s wrong with me. I still carry that pressure through questions I ask my loved ones - “is there something wrong with me?, “am I a mistake?”
With one of my dog friends
It’s been quite a journey of losing my father, losing my sister and now close to losing my mother as she battles stage 4 cancer, and becoming an orphan. Sometimes, I wonder if I was always an orphan and it is only now that I have started coming to terms with it. I write this as I see the magnificent mountains around wrap me with a warm big hug. Family isn’t always people. Some of us have had to go through hardships to build our own families. Children’s Book For All is my family.
My relationship with childrens books is mystic and difficult to put it in words. I think they found me more than me finding them. I was never a reader while growing up. Disassociation is what I went through almost all my childhood. After going through a loss at the age of 17, when death knocked my door again with mom’s cancer, I knew I needed psychic cushioning. I needed to cry, break, howl, fall down and grieve. It was at that time when children’s books found me. I remember going for 12 hours long chemotherapy sessions carrying a backpack of children’s books to soothe me. I remember reading Totto Chan to my mom while chemo drugs were engulfing her body. One of the firsts few I read was The Junkyard Wonders, The Heart and The Bottle and Ruby’s Worry. They held me as everything around me broke; they allowed me to break in safety. The child in me has danced, cried, roared and somehow, didn’t feel as lonely as I thought I would. Since then, there’s no going back. Children’s books are my family.
Discovering the Lion Inside me with help from children’s books
And once I knew they were my family, I wanted to share the joy and loss with everyone around the world. People started joining me while I read. One person, two people, three people and slowly, a community took the shape of a BIG heart! The right people entered and stayed. We are a community who read children’s books together. We love them, cherish them, allow them to take us on a journey of self-reflection as we play, cry, and have fun together! We have built a community (read: family for me) where each of our child-like self is seen, heard, respected, honoured, loved and nurtured. I do believe that the space that has been built through nourishment by everyone exists because of everyone. When I see everyone, whoever I have read with, I see their heart is wide open, and I believe, isn’t that what we need/want in our lives? Isn’t it when our hearts are wide open that love flourishes, violence vanishes, we see all of us as each other’s possible selves? Can you even believe children’s books can do that? Next time when you feel something as complex as grief, my hope is for you to pick up a children’s book and I can feel it in my bones as I say this: you will experience love. I hope you do.
Building a community around children’s books
Whoever has read my story till the very end, firstly thank you really. Secondly, the child in you is waiting for you to open a children’s book. I hope you do open them and fly between the illustrations, the words.. and find yourself in the river of ebb and flow.