“Tell me a flying story,” Aditi demanded, the way she did every night. Her father switched off the light, and in the darkness of their Pune flat, the ceiling slowly became a sky.
“Tonight,” he whispered, “we are riding a comet.” And just like that they were off — past the moon, past red and dusty Mars, into a great glowing cloud of pink and violet where new stars were being born. Aditi gripped the edge of her blanket as though it were the comet’s tail. “Are the baby stars scared?” she asked. “No,” her father said. “Every big star started exactly like them.”
Why do bedtime stories matter so much?
They sailed through nebulae and ring-bright planets until Aditi’s questions grew slower and softer. Long after she had fallen asleep, her father stayed, watching the imaginary sky fade from the ceiling.
A child’s imagination needs only a voice and a little darkness to travel further than any rocket. Stories are the first journeys we ever take, and often the ones we remember longest. Somewhere between the comet and the nebula, a small girl had learned that the universe was nothing to fear.
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