Kaleidoscope: Welcome to Teenage!

Tontu turned Thirteen today!

Its amazing how a child grows up, in fact, sometimes almost magical. It is even more amazing to watch this phenomenon of Life. It feels like just a few days ago that I was giving her bath, with a nice religious accompanying Shloka (which almost gave me the feeling of bathing an idol) and somewhere, sometime that process logically ended and she is managing all that herself. I just have to wake her up once, and in a few minutes I can hear her in the bathroom, humming to herself! How did that happen?!

She used to sleep with us for a long time, hugging her mamma....and now she cuddles up with her toy on her own bed in her own bedroom. How did that happen?!

There was a time (long, long ago) when she used to run out of the kitchen, scared of the pressure cooker when it was about to whistle, and now she is able to light matchsticks all by herself. How did that happen?!

We never used to go anywhere without her for a really long time. Where we went, she went with us. And then we started going to the market without her, and she was fine being with her friends. And, for the first time, recently, we went out of city for a weekend without her, and she was ok to stay with her grandparents. How did that happen?!

Its not that the connection has reduced or the love has weakened, and yet, it is fascinating to see the small child grow into a young gal now, where she can manage things by herself, is responsible, able to handle the pressure in the school, work on projects individually, be creative - and do things in general without supervision or prodding or even support from her parents.

In the process, she has expanded her wings and is able to judge to what she likes, what she does not: Badminton class - no; Singing class - yes; Dancing class - yes; Chess class - no; And thanks to us being a nice community with its ample share of friends, lots of activities such as learning how to cycle, how to skate, how to wave board were taught by her peers themselves without us having to run alongside!

Coming to the part about singing and dancing - it amazes me what wonders she has achieved! I mean I still remember the early days when I used to teach her Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma and now, she has successfully cleared her Junior exam with great honor, and has performed on the stage on many occasions. I remembered this pic as she was sitting in the exam hall writing the exam!

Regarding Bharatanatyam - thanks to her Gurus, she has had nice opportunities in performing on stage with large number of audiences, and this not only has removed the stage fear but has given her the confidence of about expressing herself openly and in any situation.

We were extremely pleased when her book The Mystery of Strange Hill got published on Amazon when she was just 10 years of age. We were overly proud when she was the only person from her school to attend the National Spelling Bee competition in Kolkatta when she was just in her First standard.

Add to this, the number of awards from her inter-class co-curricular activities - we are running out of space to keep the trophies! Some of the competitions which she excelled and stood first were areas which she challenged herself - such as doing a book review, advertising a product, etc.

She even made a small movie using just the mobile phone during Covid days. She has mastered making deco pics using apps on the smart phone. She has composed a huge collection of poems. And thus, her accomplishments go on and on. Proud of you, Tontu!

And now, looking forward to the next phase of life. Presenting this blog-post as one more Birthday gift...!!