Off to Dadu's

Off to Dadu's is a lyrical montage of happy images from the days of simplicity, when life was less cluttered with technology and its over-stimulation with constant entertainment. It's a string of memories from the era when life flowed with the rhythm of nature.

The book reflects on human relationships nurtured in loving without fancy or waste. Many deep elements touched life's daily flow of processes, especially when the old patriarch is anchored in wisdom and grace. Dadu and Didima's stable assurance of dignity and impartial affection set the tone of harmony in the new generations.

Life was just as good, or way better without the gadgets and gimmicks of our overloaded modern life. The joys were tucked into simple moments of wondering and wandering, in loving and laughing, in making mistakes and discoveries.

Balaka has been a journalist, college lecturer, researcher, and special-ed content mastery teacher, 5th-grade teacher for at-risk students before becoming a full-time writer.She's a former public school teacher and a published children's author. Balaka used to organize environment day camps during summer, Earth Days, and green birthday parties and play dates for children between 6 and 16 years under the name of Greenologics. She taught at the Recipe For Success Foundation for a year, teaching cooking and gardening to young students in an afterschool program. Balaka is also an author in India in the Bengali language--four of her books were published by the renowned Ananda Publishers, one of them being the shorter version of Off to Dadu's.Passionate about environmental sustainability, Balaka writes for "green" companies. She reaches out through her social media about living close to nature, showcasing her simple waste-free lifestyle, and upholding alternative energy and technology. She believes that modern innovative thinking has the potential to rescue the environment by shaping a circular economy that doesn't depend on virgin resources. She likes working at the grassroots and has designed an entire outreach program for children to raise awareness around water. It's the AquaSmart program (about to launch) complete with graphic books, games, activities, math story problems, readers' theaters, and poetry. During her work time, she takes a breather, through ghostwriting memoirs and nonfiction books. Balaka's forte is her endless reservoir of stories and a dollop of humor which she uses in her freewheeling posts, articles, and videos in both English and Bengali.