TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

My name is Chhavi Bhargav. I'm the author of a new book called A Kids Book About Diwali. I'm the cofounder of the non obvious company and IdeaPress Publishing, and you're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. Yeah.

My name is Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions where each person can proudly say trust me, I know what I'm doing. Periodically on trust me, I know what I'm doing, we share a spotlight conversation and feature brief chats with an individual from the community about a special topic or a unique endeavor. And I guess there is no more celebrated or more special of a topic than Diwali. It's a centering feeling of home for so many.

And as a growing global spotlight shines brightly on this lit up tradition, there remain great opportunities to help support even more excitement and meet an even more eager curiosity from the entire world. In a way, as equally fulfilling and festive as it is to recognize and celebrate Diwali, just because you and your family and your neighbors and your community have always done so, there also needs to be great simplicity and understanding for those who are just getting to know Diwali and its significance or those who are refreshing or reacquainting themselves or even those who are hoping to help create new Diwali traditions. Thankfully, entrepreneur and author Chhavi Bhargav has written a new book called A Kids Book About Diwali to help start and continue these conversations. Chhavi is an Indian American and was an elementary school teacher in Canada for over a decade. Her deep experiences in building curriculum, especially organizing learners around diversity and inclusion, informed her to write a book about Diwali to showcase the Hindu festival as an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming experience for everyone.

As more and more school districts in the United States are observing Diwali, a kid's book about Diwali may serve as an entry point for more open discussions among neighbors, teachers, and administrators, not just to learn more about Diwali, but about respectful curiosity and empathy for all of our differences. Chhavi and I caught up recently to chat about the book, and I started by asking her particularly about that centering feeling of home. You you know, in in the spirit of welcoming Ram Sita Lakshman back in and back home for that matter and given your background, of course, maybe you can share a little bit about what parts of making this book sort of felt like home for you. That's a really interesting question. Yeah.

Diwali has always felt like home. It's like a celebration of light overcoming darkness, good triumphing over evil. When I wrote the book, it was something that's been stirring inside me for almost 30 years, to be honest. And when I grew up, when I was a little girl, we celebrated all these holidays and beautiful holidays, and I couldn't share it with anybody outside of my family or my, South Asian friends. And so to be able to do what I'm doing and the meaning and the reason behind it, it really feels like home.

It really feels like this is the right thing. It's the right time, and it's the right place to be doing it. Did any of that come as a you know, because still writing a book is is an operational process too. And did any of that feeling come either as a surprise when writing the book or or for that matter, make it just that much easier to actually withstand some of the operational part of of writing a book? So I partnered with, Kids Co, and they have a certain way of writing books.

They have a certain format. And a lot of it there's no actual characters, but the character is the author. Yeah. And so when the author speaks, they ask you, you know, the very beginning when they asked me to start writing the story, they said, why is this so meaningful to you? Mhmm.

What kind of message do you wanna get across to these children? Share a little bit about what Diwali means to you and how you used to celebrate, and how did it make you feel when someone did or didn't wish you a happy Diwali. And so those feelings came about when they asked me a lot of these questions and really dig deep into my feelings. And so those feelings, I hope, show when you read the book. Yeah.

And I mean, I imagine that because it's such a heartfelt thing that's sort of been I wouldn't say smoldering is the right word, but sort of there for 30 years and and really, you know, waiting to be expressed. I imagine that this was really kind of, like, not just a passion project, but a real excellent way to, you know, express yourself and really share on top of that. I'm curious. You mentioned this is sort of like it feels like it's the right time. It feels like it's it's home for you.

What do you think is maybe the way that connections are happening for that matter for any human in connecting to Diwali in 2024? So right now, Diwali is being celebrated in schools across the country. They're, it's becoming more significant, and they're recognizing it as an official holiday. When I wrote the book, I didn't want it to be too religious. I wanted to explain the significance of the valley and why it was important to me, and I wanted the book to feel very universal.

Right? Mhmm. Be focusing on the values that Diwali embodies, like kindness, generosity, togetherness, the connections. I wanted children who read it, that have never celebrated before be able to see themselves in the book. I wanted them to understand by explaining to them that it is a combination of holidays, something that they already celebrate or are familiar with.

So Diwali is festival of lights, and we celebrate the festival of lights in many different ways. We celebrate Christmas. That's a festival of lights. We celebrate Hanukkah, festival of lights. The Lunar New Year is a festival of lights.

And a lot of these things all have the same meaning behind it, light over darkness, good over evil. So I wanted to spread that same message that everyone that was picking it up could understand. Okay. Well, Diwalis, like Christmas. It's a really big holiday.

It's also like Thanksgiving because we're we're giving back, to the community. It's like Independence Day because we have fireworks. It's like New Year's because there's a New Year's. And so when you take all these holidays together and when you explain that to someone, they really understand how large this huge holiday is and why it's so significant to so many people, billions of people around the world. Mhmm.

Yeah. No. It's great. And it's so important to think about how it integrates into so many things that are actually already out there. And I know that both children and parents and grandparents and everyone can can hopefully relate to that really, really well.

You made this children's book particularly geared, it looks like, for elementary school aged kids. And, of course, it has great messaging for everyone. But Mhmm. I I might add that particularly age appropriate and developmentally very thoughtful approach, to all of this. So as a pediatrician, I'm very, very grateful for that.

But what do you think parents are learning and absorbing and synthesizing with this book? Did did you have some particular intent for parents in mind with this? Well, so the kids book about series is meant to be read with an adult or a grown up. Right? It isn't meant to just be read by yourself.

It's a lot of the books in the series, they have books from a kid's book about cancer, a kid's book about, school shootings, things that are very difficult Yeah. For parents and children to discuss together. And they also have books about advertising and banking. And so this book is their very first holiday book, and which is really exciting because they chose Diwali as their first holiday book to bring into the series. And so when you read the book, it is important for parents and grown ups or teachers and educators to to to talk to children about it because it does stir up feelings and emotions for kids.

They might feel that sense of belonging. Some of the kids that they might resonate with the feelings that I had growing up, or they might feel the same way celebrating a holiday of their own. So I want that time to be where parents and children can connect and talk to each other. What I have found that's been really interesting is I wrote this book starting out for kids, and then I had my 17 year old read it. And he loved it.

And he's and he helped me, gave gave me some advice as well. And then I talked to parents, and I actually asked about 300 South Asian moms the significance behind the valley, how they celebrate, asked them all these questions. And what I learned is while many of them did celebrate in many ways, Sikhs, Jains, Hindus, they celebrated all different ways, what I found is a lot of them did not know the significance behind Diwali. They had grown up learning about it from their parents. There wasn't actually a resource that they read or that they could read to their children.

Or when they came into classrooms, they were coming in with maybe a a story, and there's stories out there. They're fiction. My book is nonfiction, but there's stories out there that are fiction, but they don't really go into depth about all the different things and why we celebrate and what happens in the 5 days and the the significance behind the Ramayana. And it's told in a very engaging way so that all parents and children can learn to appreciate all the magical and beautiful things that Diwali consists of. Yeah.

I think finding ways to both be culturally appropriate and be a resource and yet be inclusive is huge, with all of this. For all the learning that's happening for children and and for their parents in reading this book together, I'm curious for you, what did you actually have to unlearn about yourself when it came to trying to make this this book happen? Wow. What did I have to unlearn about myself? So I being a teacher, you focus on one classroom.

Right? You focus on the age group. And, I really needed to figure out how to deliver this message so it's universal, right, that it applies to everyone. The one thing that I realize is there's things in my head, and I just I I I think everyone understands it when I when I write it, but not everybody is is seeing or perceiving it the same way. So we actually hired sensitivity readers to go through my book and make sure that I wasn't offending anybody or I wasn't saying anything inappropriate or I wasn't missing anything, like an important detail that maybe I just assumed that somebody who's reading it would read.

So I had to really deconstruct all those things. And then Diwali is a huge holiday. Right? There's so many stories behind it. How do I take a huge story like that and condense it into a short story, into a book that doesn't have too many pages that kids will be able to sit and listen to.

I mean, I could have written so many more pages. Right. But I was limited, and, you know, kids have an attention span. But the one thing that I realized what I would do is you don't have to sit down when you're reading a book and read the entire book. Right?

You can sit down and take chunks from it, and that's kind of how I decided to write it so that you can read about the 5 days of Diwali, and that's it for 1 night and learn about that and talk about that. And then you can read other sections of the book. And then there's another part where you can see all the different things that you can do. So I divided them that way so that it was easy for me to be able to do book readings in classrooms, for teachers to be able to do lesson plans with them. I took all of my teaching that I'd had for so many years and really thought about what would it take for educators to open this book and say, yes.

I can teach it in my class. They can go to the administration and say, yes. This needs to be taught, and there's lesson plans with it, and there's you know, it goes along with the curriculum. I really needed to think about all of those different aspects. It was hard.

It was so hard to put all that into one little book. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I imagine that, you know, in designing not only a book that can be engaging and fun, but really that can be used as as a curriculum. Did did you have to become in any way sort of more patient with yourself to think about things with, you know, that have to come in chunks as opposed to, like you mentioned, there's so many stories behind Diwali.

It's such a huge tradition worldwide, not just for a Hindu's or anybody else, but, you know, in a way, it's kind of like boiling the ocean. Right? Like, you could where do you start with this? So did you have to kind of prioritize and and maybe have some patience with that? Yeah.

There's you have to simplify things. Right? I mean, I've been taught to do that my entire life. Sometimes so much so that my children are like, we get it, mom. You don't have to say it 3 different ways.

Right? Because when I used to teach, I used to teach and modify lessons for everyone. So I would teach for the hearing impaired or for special needs or for children that didn't understand a different language. So I had to teach in a way that, you know, was with ADB, you'll understand. So I I do that all the time.

So when doing that in a book is a little bit different Yeah. And, yes, I had to be patient with myself because I just wanted to put so much in the book that, actually, it what an interesting story is, I I did all my research. I spent months months doing the research, and then I actually wrote the book in one day. Wow. And, the kids' book about series, like, at that time, they, sat me down with an editor, and we, like, hammered through it from 9 in the morning till 5.

Like, we had breaks in between, but we hammered through everything. And I had brought all of my material, and I said, this is what I want. This is what I want. And we went through it all in one day. And then after that time, we actually took months to edit it, to go through other things that I wanted to add, the sensitivity readers.

I wanted to add pictures and illustrations, and and that process took a long time. Sure. But the actual writing itself, the main portion of it was in one day. Amazing. And, I mean, it's amazing how, like, when you when you sort of have it crystallized, how perhaps simple it can be to just, you know, get it out there and and really sort of help it get distilled in in a day.

One of the things that that strikes me about any endeavor like this, Diwali is is such a grand tradition. Right? It's you mentioned, I mean, it's a Hindu tradition, but it's celebrated by so many faiths around the world. And the idea of kind of this fine needle to thread, right, where we're trying to really have families sometimes to engage in being proud about the tradition and the heritage and identity, but also sort of finding ways to be really inclusive and to make sure that we widen the tent and, in a way, sort of help make new traditions for for people who are just learning about Diwali. How have you been able to reflect on that part, which, you know, sometimes can can be striking for for purists and then also be a contrast for those people who are just getting to learn about the tradition?

That's an interesting question because, like, tradition, I think, at the core, it's meant to be passed down. Yeah. Right? But each generation, I think, inevitably leaves its own mark on how it's celebrated. So, I mean, I I don't think Diwali's that much different.

I think future generations will continue to embrace the festival in new ways. But I think the main you know, the heart of it, the light over darkness community, the renewal, I think that will remain constant. But what I'm noticing, though, with younger families, especially, there's a shift towards making Diwali more accessible to the broader community. People are posting about Diwali. More schools are officially recognizing it.

More non South Asian families are taking part in the celebration. Even if it's just by lighting a dia or coming to a Diwali celebration or coming and joining a garba or just wishing someone a happy Diwali, I think it's it's happening. But I think it's also important to find a balance between preserving the essence of tradition and also, like, allowing that space for for new interpretations. One of the organizations I work with, it's a nonprofit for teens, it's called Seva. We have, Diwali mock wedding.

And that is when, the teenagers, they incorporate the modern elements of the valley, which they love to do, and they they have a wedding, a fake wedding. It's not a real wedding, but it but all the things of a wedding, they have the the barat. They have the dinner. They have the speeches. And in the speeches, you learn about all the different elements of Diwali.

You also have dances, so we teach the kids about garba. So we do all these things, and the kids actually lead it. And they're the ones that tell us what they want and what Diwali means to them. And I think it's important to let them, you know, explore what Diwali means to them because, ultimately, they're celebrating it differently than the way we grew up celebrating it. But it's important for us to still guide them and tell them what it meant to us.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true and so powerful to think about, like, why and how these traditions matter to us. And in the end, of course, you know, it's it's only as as good and heartfelt and thoughtful as the the next person who's able to take that and synthesize it forward, be that a new person who's learning about Diwali or, you know, the next generation who's taking that forward in in 2024 for for all of us. Right?

I mean, we live and you alluded to this already, but we we live in the confines of a very digital culture. Right? So, I mean, sound bites and short video clips and reels and and all of this, all these experiences sometimes are a lot more compelling and attractive to kids than a book. So I'm curious. How do how do you help cultivate trust in the human experience of Diwali and particularly the relationship building that is so central to making the meaning and the power of Diwali so resonant for for folks.

How have you been able to kind of synthesize that that human aspect, that nondigital aspect, and that sort of relationship building to retain its its relevance and power. Yeah. What's interesting about that is Diwali has this powerful way to give children a chance to feel pride in their cultural heritage. Right? And then at a time when children are navigating questions about their identity and their belonging, celebrating the valley, I think, gives them, like, an anchor, a sense of where they come from.

And through my book, you know, my hope is to expand that understanding beyond just those who celebrate, to introduce it to classrooms and to kids from all different backgrounds. It promotes inclusivity. It promotes empathy, and I think, ultimately, it promotes trust. Right? When you share something that you are celebrating, that you are doing outside of your home with others, they can empathize.

They they feel included, and, they learn to know a little bit more about you outside of school. And that ultimately, I I believe, you know, develops that trust. Yeah. And I guess the idea behind that is is that doesn't matter perhaps how you cultivate that empathy and trust. At the end, it is all about human relationships.

And whether you share a video a video or a reel, in the end, reading a book, lighting the the, thinking about the meaning of Diwali are probably what in the grand scheme of things, matter the most beyond just the sort of social media and the digital aspect of this. And have you found that's especially in the feedback from readers that that's what's resonating the most for them? And what's interesting about that is there's a lot of people that have come back to me, and I feel like there's, like, this hunger that families have for stories and make that cultural celebrations feel like it's accessible to everyone. Which is great. Yeah.

I've had families share how their children who have never celebrated before, excited to learn about it. And for families that do celebrate, it's a way for them to share their traditions with pride. One of the biggest takeaways from me, I think, was the importance of representation when children and they open the book, and they're like, yeah. That happened to me. Yeah.

I get that. Oh, Diwali's like Christmas and New Year's and, you know, they understand it. They get it. It validates their experiences, and that sense of belonging is so important. I share about how it felt for me when no one wished me a happy Diwali growing up.

Mhmm. And, I mean, just think about it. When was the last time someone that wasn't South Asian came up to you and said, hey. Happy Diwali. When was the last time that happened?

Right? Yeah. Great gratefully for me in in my neighborhood, we it it's, not too uncommon for that to happen. But but for a lot of people, that's not very common at all. Yeah.

It I it hasn't happened very much in my neighborhood, and that's and my my son who went to school in 3rd grade, I said, honey, you have the day off of school. It's Diwali. He's like, I wanna go to school. I don't wanna stay home. And I said, why?

He goes, because nobody understands what Diwali is. I don't get it. I don't I don't wanna be different than anyone else. Yeah. And that day, I called the school principal, and I said, hey.

Would you mind just celebrating or talking about Diwali on the PA? Just make an announcement. Say, anyone that celebrates, happy Diwali. Right. And at that time, that was about 7 years ago, he said, I'm sorry.

I I can't do that. You have to take that up with the school board. And I don't think it was because they didn't want to. It's I don't think they felt that they could Yeah. At the time.

And that really struck a chord with me. I was like, if someone outside of my culture can wish my children a happy Diwali, it validates to them that this is a holiday that everyone understands. So that really was that that that day when when that principal told me that, I just felt so awful. Like, how do I instill this in my son? So he learns to appreciate the holiday and have pride in the holiday as well.

Yeah. Super inspiring and super galvanizing because, I mean, I think more than anything else, those are the questions that we need to keep asking that, like, you know, how can we actually make it so that we do feel validated, more affirmed, a lot more inclusivity that's out there? You know, the messages of Diwali, of course, transcend and go well beyond sort of, like, the fall holiday season. And so we as we celebrate now and as we look forward to even more celebrations, and as people are reading your book and engaging with your book and and thinking about how this can resonate for them in in the various aspects of their lives, I'm curious what questions you hope it actually inspires for readers of just about any age. The questions I wanted to inspire are I want them to to think about other cultures than themselves.

What are other people doing that resonate with them? I want them to ask and be curious and and just have that desire to learn about various countries, cultures, religions. I mean, I grew up with you know, I'm I'm a Hindu, but in my home, we had a a a cross. We we we learned about Jesus Christ and Christianity. I went to the mosque.

I went to the Gurdwara. My mother made sure that I learned about all these different holidays. And she actually said go to church for a year. Go to the Gurdwara for, like, 3 months. Go.

And and I did because I said, why am I only learning Hinduism? And she said, you know, listen. After you've done all this, you've been to church now for 1 year. You've gone to the gurdwara. You've gone to mosque.

What has what is it that you've learned? And one thing I realized was a lot of the things that I had learned were very similar. The teachings are very similar. The message is very similar. You're just going into a different building to learn them.

You're just learning it from someone else. And having that open mind and that curiosity through your entire life, I think, builds a community And not just a South Asian community, builds a community that's around you, around the world. And it it makes people trust you. It makes people love you. It makes people understand you.

And, ultimately, that's what I believe, you know, Diwali is all about. Well, being inclusive, making sure we're curious about the world around us, and building a lot of community through Diwali, really, really so grateful for all you're doing. Chhavi, thank you so much for for joining us. This was really a treat, and we wish you all the best for the book and for everything around it. Thank you so much for having me, Abhay.

This has been wonderful. Great conversation with you. Thanks, Chhavi. The book is available everywhere, and please visit book about diwali.com for more. Shubha Deepavali and a peaceful, healthy, and happy Diwali to everyone.

Till next time. I'm Abhay Dandekar.