Sonali Sahni Herrera, Sheetal Sahni Singhal ([1] The Hindu)

“We all need a masi, the person you go to for fun,” says Sonali Herrera. “Someone who can spin tales for you and take you on adventures.” Herrera and her sister Sheetal Singhal founded [2] Meera Masi, a publisher offering children stories on Indian language and culture. (“[3] Sharing heritage with next generation, Immigrants from India write, market kids’ books in Hindi“)

While Singhal had the opportunity to attend boarding school in India and reads Hindi script, Herrera came to the U.S. at age four and does not read the script. Both can use Meera Masi books to read stories aloud to their children because the books include Hindi script, English transliteration of the Hindi script and an audio recording of the text to ensure correct pronunciation.

[4] Watch the interview with the sisters on ABC’s View From The Bay, including “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in Hindi (“Chhote Mote Makade”) from their Khushē Manäo series. Meera Masi also offers a DVD featuring Laddoo the Elephant introducing children ages 6 to 30 months to Hindi, Tamil or Telugu.