The Art and the Magic of the Read-Aloud

Bachpan Baithak: Investing in Childhood is the first issue of the Bachpan Baithak Archive, documenting reflections from a gathering of parents, educators, policymakers, funders, researchers, and practitioners at Makkala Hubba, Bengaluru’s citywide children’s festival. Through letters written to their future children in the imagined year 2050, participants reflected on what it truly means to invest in childhood—through time, care, environments, restraint, independence, and rethinking progress itself. This zine brings together those letters and the themes that emerged from them, moving the conversation beyond policy and into the everyday realities of care.