Bogie Sangha

 On a typical Wednesday morning, you can see the primary children trotting to the bogey library for their ‘book sangha’ – a morning of conversation on books, reading excerpts from favourite books and talking about the worlds we enter and the worlds we imagine through reading. 

A favourite during these sessions is A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick. This is a stunningly exquisite collection of letters from people across the globe – writers, poets, artists, dreamers, thinkers –  all addressed to young readers. 

On one morning, the students of grade 8 encountered a letter where a holocaust survivor, Helen Fagin, recounts her experiences of reading Gone with the Wind  to young girls in the Warsaw ghetto. Reading anything that the Nazis hadn’t approved could get one in trouble, and hence this didn’t last too long. Years later, Helen had the chance to meet one of the girls from her class again. 

Many years later, I was finally able to locate her and we met in New York. One of my life’s greatest rewards will remain the memory of our meeting, when she introduced me to her husband as “the source of my hopes and my dreams in times of total deprivation and dehumanisation.

There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.

When this letter was read out to the children, there was silence. The children, before this letter was read out, were having a conversation on why they didn’t enjoy reading. And through this letter, they had encountered a world where books could help one dream, keep hope alive in what was arguably one of the darkest moments in human history. 

There was no discussion post this reading but as the children filed out of the bogie, their silence spoke.