by Ankitha Kishorchandra, National Balshree Awardee for Creative Writing
I still remember the day that found my mom and me shooting off to Jawahar Bal Bhavan right here in Mysuru. She was taking me to participate in the district-level Balashree Competition under the Creative Writing category. She had seen the circular in this very paper, Star of Mysore. I was initially hesitant and unwilling to participate in the competition for the prestigious Balashree Award which is a Presidential Award. I never knew the intensity and importance of the whole award then !
Finally, I groused, groaned, moaned about losing a whole afternoon [which would have been spent in reading books, nevertheless…], I sat behind my mom on her two-wheeler and found myself in Bal Bhavan.
There, I could see kids around my age and older, carrying things that totally matched the category they were participating in. I saw a few kids in colourful Bharatanatyam costumes and some carrying musical instruments. Others were holding bags overflowing with brushes, paint tubes, and pencils. Some were balancing science models precariously in their hands. The rest were like me; wielding nothing but an exam pad and a pen or two… All of us kids under the ‘Creative Writing’ category were made to sit in an auditorium in the campus itself. Parents were asked to move out, and my mom taking her cue, flashed me a ‘thumbs-up’ sign and requested me to take the whole thing seriously as taking things seriously was not something that I usually did for any competition.
The competition started. We were told that there would be three different sessions and were given sheets of paper. The first session was to write an essay on ‘India’s Heritage Sites.’ With a rather resolute sigh, I started penning down whatever I knew about our heritage sites, and almost coincidentally, just when I was finishing my essay with a flourish, a person came to take the sheet away and gave us new ones for another session.
This time, we had to write a story with mythological elements… This was my piece of cake ! I made my protagonists the avatars of Indian Gods [I know what you are thinking…But I had never even heard of the Kane Chronicles then!], and they saved their city from blood-thirsty demons.
The next hour was truly poetic… We had to write a poem on ‘Nature.’ We had to write only four stanzas… Nothing more, nothing less. I made it as beautiful as I could… and thus ended my saga here at Mysuru.
Two days later, the good news reached us! I got selected to compete in the Zonal-level between Andhra Pradesh [it included Telengana then] and Karnataka. I couldn’t have been more pleased! Heartened by this good happening, I started believing my own abilities better. So, the D-day arrived and we found ourselves in Hyderabad for the competition. There were arrangements for us to stay in a very nice hotel, which was quite spacious [and I do miss the food!]. On the first day, we did some sightseeing and did some shopping too. The sessions started on the second day. Forgive me, I only remember two sessions out of the four sessions that we had. One session was a poem that we had to write on ‘Superstitions’ and the other session was about writing a story on ‘Time Travelling.’ I made a few friends too — Pabitra, Ansar, Sathvika and Prathyusha.
Soon, we were heading back to Mysuru. I had done my best in Hyderabad. It was now up to the guiding light above me, to put me through to the National-level or not. The long wait ended with good news again. I was through to the National-level to be held in Delhi. But what was more exciting to me was all my friends from the Zonal-level had also made it to the Nationals! So, in August of 2014, we headed to Delhi [we first got down at Agra and paid a much needed visit to the Taj. Wah, Taj! My friends and I had a happy reunion in Delhi National Bal Bhavan, where only we kids and our escorts were supposed to stay. Our parents had to find other places for accommodation. It was a rather wild, ragged experience, staying away from my mom for five days.
For the National-level, we had seven sessions in all and I remember every session very vividly. But I don’t think I can give an elaborate writeup on every one of them, as unfortunately, my time is running short… It is a mysterious thing, time, always being fluid at the wrong hour. Anyway, that is not relevant. Back to square one.
The first session was a common session for all the four categories. We had to dish out different uses of a cotton cloth — that was quite brain-storming. The second session was to write a poem on ‘Mythological characters’ — this was a little tricky as we were given word and stanza limits. The third session was also a poem on ‘I remember.’ The fourth session was to write a story based on a picture that was given to us. The fifth session was again a story on ‘I lost my way’ [I gave it a tinge of terror]. The sixth session was to write ‘An autobiography of our School Gate’ [Yes, you read it right], and lastly, the seventh session was to come out with an advertisement to invite people to our home city for an event it was famous for [I proudly showcased our Dasara], but this had to be done in just 6 sentences!
The sessions were brain storming, but nice and different.
We all had an awesome time and it was then time to bid adieu to Bal Bhavan… another sad farewell to my friends and Delhi too.
And then, the eternal wait started… My mom anxiously scoured through the official website of National Bal Bhavan at least a gazillion times everyday. The number of times she went through the site everyday actually resulted in ‘National Bal Bhavan’ becoming a suggested site on the Home Page. I just kept silent, and when anyone asked me about my chances of winning the award, I gave an aloof ‘I don’t know’ and acted like I didn’t care. But I did. A lot. It would colossally crush me if I didn’t get it. And then one fine day, on March 17, 2015, to be precise, my mother was doing her routine check on the site [this time on her phone]. She saw a marquee ‘National Balashree Results 2013’ flashing past. She immediately swept away to the computer to check it on a ‘big screen,’ all in a state of great confusion and impasse, on whether I would get it or not. This was it. The sounding board. The judgement of my ability. The state of my ego. My entire life. I was totally freaking out and I tried my best not to hyperventilate. My mom clicked on that marquee with a shaking mouse, or rather, a shaking hand. The first category was Creative Performance, the second was Scientific Innovation, and the third was Creative Writing. As we went down the list of awardees, I felt my heart in my mouth. There was no trace of my name. Not yet… And there it appeared! Serial No. 41-ANKITHA KISHORCHANDRA, all in bold! My mom gave a resounding scream of delight and thereafter, she burst into volumes of tears. I admit, I teared up a little. It was a huge relief for me. Then there were the phone calls to our family and friends and the good news went around.
Life went on normally after that. Then the time came for us to send certain details about me to Bal Bhavan, Delhi, for the Award Ceremony and all this was done through e-mails and couriers, and my mom took great pleasure in sending all these herself.
The days, instead of slowly passing by, started whizzing past on full thrust… The day of the Award Ceremony dawned upon me like a bright star. But I had to taste this sweet with a huge pinch of salt. My father could not come to attend the Award Ceremony as someone had to stay behind to look after our pet dog, Bonia, and he chose to. I was of course, engulfed with sadness, and I knew that no pleading or compelling on my part would help.
So, again January 31, 2016 found us (my mom and me) in National Bal Bhavan, Delhi. None of my friends from the Zonal and National-level had made it, so I made other friends, though I missed my old friends very much. The stage rehearsals went on in full swing on February 1 and 2. We, the Creative Writing awardees had to write a poem and we decided on the topic ‘A clean India in the eyes of the youth.’ We didn’t focus only on the garbage littering the streets of our country but also on the social evils that have almost swallowed India. The Creative Performance kids had prepared a beautifully choreographed dance ready and the Creative Arts Awardees got busy with painting huge canvases. All these preparations along with rehearsals kept us busy for those two days.
And then the day arrived… February 3, it will be etched in the memory of all of us 62 Awardees forever in our lives. We were taken to the Vigyan Bhavan at 8.30 in the morning where we had another round of rehearsal.
The Plenary Hall, Vigyan Bhavan was the venue. Our parents followed us at 10.30. Time flew past in great dollops. The chief guest for the day was Hon. Minister for HRD, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani. She arrived exactly on time, 12 noon. The ceremony started. Though every second passed by faster than the speed of light, I remember each second clearly… The Award Ceremony began with the Creative Performance awardees.
Soon, my name was called out to go and receive the award. I was not nervous, but I did feel trembly, happy, proud, confident and satisfied, all at once (and I do not know if there is a word that includes all those feelings). I received the award, spoke a few words with the Minister [everybody later told I spoke a lot…] and went back to my assigned seat. The ceremony got over just as quickly as it had started. I was extremely happy for myself and for my parents too and knew they felt the same. The next day, we were on our way back to Mysuru.
The whole experience was very nice, memorable and made me think and view things differently. The feeling and the Euphoria of winning a Presidential Award has not yet sunk in, and I do not want to think too much about it. I want to be the humble person that I am and keep reading more and more books always…
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / March 03rd, 2016