What's on Our Nightstand · April 2026
Jayashree
Currently reading —
update coming soon
Arasu
Currently reading —
update coming soon
Unschooling · Philosophy
The case against conventional schooling
These are the books that gave us language for what we already felt. Most are out of print or hard to find in India — which is part of why we built our own library.
Dumbing Us Down
John Taylor Gatto
A former New York Teacher of the Year makes the case that schooling is designed to produce compliance, not learning.
Weapons of Mass Instruction
John Taylor Gatto
Gatto's deeper argument: compulsory schooling was never about education. Unsettling and necessary.
Instead of Education
John Holt
Holt's radical proposal: what would learning look like if children led it? Still ahead of its time.
Free at Last
Daniel Greenberg
The story of Sudbury Valley School, where children govern their own learning with no curriculum and no coercion.
Danger School
Various
A sharp critique of what "safety" in schools actually protects — and what it quietly destroys.
The Parrot's Training
Rabindranath Tagore
Tagore's fable about a king who educates a bird by stuffing it with pages from books. Written in 1918. Still painfully accurate.
Disciplined Minds
Jeff Schmidt
On how professional training — not just schooling — conditions people to suppress their own judgment.
Thoughts on Education
J. Krishnamurti
The foundation of our own philosophy. Krishnamurti asks what education is actually for — and whether schools answer that question.
Unschooling · Practice
How learning actually unfolds outside institutions
Stories and frameworks from people who built something different — in India and elsewhere.
Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window
Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
A school run from railway carriages in wartime Japan. The most joyful account of child-centred learning ever written. A Readathon favourite.
Free From School
Rahul Alvares
An Indian teenager's account of unschooling through apprenticeships and independent study. One of the few Indian voices in this space.
Learning at Bodhshala
Bodhshala Community
Documentation of a learning community in India built around seasonal rhythms, craft, and community life.
Learning the Heart Way
Various
Essays on educating from within — following the child's natural curiosity rather than a prescribed sequence.
The Continuum Concept
Jean Liedloff
What a Venezuelan indigenous community revealed about what children actually need — and how far most parenting has drifted from it.
For They Have Their Own Thoughts
Various
On respecting the inner life of children — that their thoughts are not smaller versions of adult thoughts.
Indian Roots · Decolonised Knowledge
What the standard curriculum leaves out
These books recover knowledge systems and ways of living that colonisation interrupted. Essential reading for anyone rethinking education in an Indian context.
Collected Writings of Dharmapal
Dharmapal
The most comprehensive documentation of India's pre-colonial knowledge systems, village governance, and science. A reference, not a read-once book.
Reimagining Swaraj through Indian Traditions
Various
What does self-rule actually look like when rooted in Indian rather than imported frameworks?
Work and Wisdom of Vernacular Education
Various
How education worked in India before 1835 — and what was deliberately dismantled.
Multicultural Knowledge
Various
On holding multiple knowledge systems simultaneously — without forcing one to validate the other.
Narmada: River of Joy
Various
A portrait of communities along the Narmada — their relationship with the river, the land, and each other. Beautiful and grounding.
The Sustainable Lifestyle of the Varlis
Various
Documentary research on the Varli community's relationship with land, food, and seasonal knowledge.
The Call of the Snakes
Various
On the relationship between humans and serpents in Indian ecological and spiritual understanding — a study in living knowledge.
Globalisation and the South
Various
How globalisation has affected indigenous knowledge systems, local economies, and community structures in the global south.
Regenerative Living · The Great Pivot
Books for families rethinking everything
These are for the families who are not just rethinking school — they are rethinking how they eat, earn, build, and belong.
Sacred Economics
Charles Eisenstein
The most coherent account of why the current economic system cannot coexist with regeneration — and what a gift economy actually looks like in practice.
The One Straw Revolution
Masanobu Fukuoka
A Japanese farmer's philosophy of do-nothing farming. Not just about agriculture — a complete worldview rooted in non-interference.
NVC: A Language of Life
Marshall Rosenberg
The communication framework we return to constantly. Taught in our family retreats and referenced throughout our community work.
Towards a Unitive Life
Various
On living without the split between inner and outer, personal and collective, spiritual and material.
Seeds
Various
On seed sovereignty, traditional agricultural knowledge, and the communities keeping it alive in India.
Practical Spirituality
Various
What spiritual practice looks like when it is embedded in daily life rather than reserved for designated times and places.
Readathon · Community Picks
Books that landed with our community
From our first readathon cohort — books that sparked the most conversation among families and children. Updated each season.
01
Malgudi Days — R.K. Narayan
India as story · Community recommended
02
Ahimsa — Supriya Kelkar
India as story · Community recommended
03
The Jungle Book — Rudyard Kipling
India as story · Community recommended
04
Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window — Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
Learning & freedom · A perennial favourite
Screen & Listen
Films and episodes worth your time
Specific episodes and films — not whole series. These are the ones we return to.