Setting an example worth applauding .

{ The important issue starts in the fourth paragraph . Those who know about the "Li'l Champs" contest can very well skip the first 3.}


Recently there was a high profile programme on television calleed "Li'l Champs" which was a music contest among children across India . The permanent judges were Alka Yagnik , Vappi Lahiri and Abhijit ( and a guest judge for every round like Jagjit Singh was invited once ) and the final decider was sms voting . It was a sensation across India and finally after rigorous rounds ( in both classical and non-classical music ) and a very high strung competition between startling musical talents across India and after a lot of controversies ( regarding why so and so who was singing fabulously did not qualify for the next round etc etc ) the final winnner was a girl who lived in my colony called Sanchita !

I had never known her though she lived in my colony and further I had never known of any child prodigy in my colony . Further she is a student of a very much ill reputed and a forlorn local school in our neighbourhood. { Its a different matter that I know very littlle about the people in my colony since once in a blue moon I interact with anyone outside my family.}

Overnight this local girl was a sensation across India ( our small place was finally on the national consciousness map! ) and police had to be enforced to control the crowds who flocked to receive her the day she came back from Mumbai . She has already been given offers to do playback singing at Bollywood . Everything surely justifies her terrific voice and the maturity in singing that enthralled the audiences across the nation .

But the most important aspect of this incident came to my knowledge only today . Sanchita is very poor in academics and performs terribly at school. She failed in class 9 twice. Hence she was expelled from a reputed school earlier and had finally landed up in that pathetic school .

The common mindset in India that academics is the holliest thing to do on earth and it is everyone's national duty to top the class and get a 100 in the maths paper . So it makes it worth noting that Sanchita's family supported her continuing to hone her exceptional musical talents even in the face of such academic disasters .

It really sets an example for the rest of India to follow .

Its only saddening that this bias towards academics and the inbred attitude of putting academics first has ruined millions of people in India who were born with rare talents to excel in fields outside academics . Another girl in my colony had met the reverse fate . She had an exceptional voice for Indian classical music but her music training was truncated by her parents because she was performing badly at school .

Its high time that India starts doing a door to door search for such talents and hone and finance their upbringing focussed to manifest their talents on the international platform . Letting talents to waste away in the dark alleys and lanes of underdeveloped areas like where I live , is the worst thing that can happen to a nation .


These finally show up in things like the dismal medal tally at the Doha Asian Games where India has managed to scrape a meagre figure of 6 gold medals whereas China has something around 150 gold medals .

Success of a nation lies in finding out and honing the special talents from the masses and being able to generate success on the international arena from them and not in a general average development of the nation . Average upliftment can be the second priority .

Have you ever wondered why there are no Field's medalists in our country where people are crazed about getting a 100 in the school maths exams ? Why in a country where people are so sensitive about academics neither we have been able to get any of the Nobel prizes for so many years or get the first rank in the Olympics ?

Its a high time the country sits up and takes a hard look at its mechanisms and the psychology of its people.


N.B :: I always performed horribly in my school maths exams till class 10 and it was an extremely embarassing time for me when my relatives kept asking me about my school maths marks before asking anyother of my academic details .