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I remember a book by her bedside since I was a child. My own mother wrote beautifully whenever she had the time and is an important part of my Urdu story. She always had one for the right occasion. My memories are rich with her stories beautifully enhanced by lovely urdu quotes. My paternal grandmother dadi was a natural story teller. She did a couple of PTV dramas just because she was friends with Haseena Moin – she was cool like that! Do you remember her as the loving, literary grandma from Kohar? My maternal grandmother nani translated books from English to Urdu and still recites Marsiya. She was friends with the likes of Madam Noor Jehan, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Lata Mangeshkar. My great aunt Sahab Qizilbash was a renowned author and BBC broadcaster. His book store was frequented by poets, authors and great minds of his time like Faiz Ahmed Faiz. My maternal grandfather owned a bookstore in Rawalpindi after he was done with the airforce. (My sister maintains a lovely blog about his work). My great-grandfather Agha Shair Qizilbash was the first to do a poetic translation of the Quran in Urdu. I come from a family where books, language and the written word were always celebrated. They are all on my blog to help other families who are on the same bilingual journey as us and share our Urdu story. We now use fun ways to learn Urdu at home through songs, conversations and activities. I soon realized that I didn’t have to put in much effort for her English language skills but her Urdu desperately needed rescuing. She is also an extremely social child, so English is an essential means for her to communicate. As she started preschool, her vocabulary increased exponentially in English. When my daughter was born, we tried to speak Urdu with her at home but we soon realized that the reason she wasn’t picking up the language as we expected was because my husband and I were talking to each other in English! There was also a dearth of quality Urdu content for children. Research supports that children who are raised bilingual benefit immensely in various aspects: cognitive, adaptive and social. In Pakistan, you speak Urdu at home but the language at school and work is primarily English because Pakistan is a former colony of the British empire. I immigrated to Canada from Pakistan when I was 28 years old after getting married. Urdu is my mother tongue but I was raised bilingual.