“You are a genius. I must say your parents are lucky to have a child like you. I am sure you will make your parents very proud one day. God created you for a greater purpose. Your sense about music is divine.I almost forgot that I am listening to a 8-year-old child. May god bless you. You are selected for our Mumbai round.” One Judge said during a music competition. Entire nation was shocked to see such a talent. In every nook and corner of the country there were talks about this one child. Million people clicked the like button of this YouTube video. Facebook, twitter, Orkut, newspaper, almost everywhere you will see the video or photos of this kid’s audition.
Parents of that kid became the most gifted parent. Everybody recognized them, His father was respected even by the company president and her mother was invited to many functions to give speech on how to raise your kids so that they become genius.
This show continued for 3 months and the genius had gradually started his journey towards becoming a normal participant in that show. There were many occasions he was criticized for not singing well on the show. His parents did not fail to criticize the criticism by the judges. This musical journey preëmpted when this kid failed to get the desired votes. Everybody consoled, “Coming to this level out of 1.2 billion people is not a easy stuff. You were best 5 among 1.2 billion people. So, you must feel good about yourself and work hard so that you become successful.”.
This 8 year old could not take this at all. He could understand and believe only two things, First, what the judges said to him in the audition and second, his mother’s loose talk with one of his friends mother that there is a conspiracy. She said that, this channel wanted to gain popularity by showing sympathy to that physically challenged boy and people vote for the contestants from their region not by quality of the singer. These two beliefs best suited him and he embossed these in his cute little brain.
Pressure to study hard so that he remains topper in school and the bitterness of the failure made this kid from a genius to extra-ordinary to ordinary kid. He gradually lost interest in learning the root of the music and focused on popularity of the, songs and the singer in him. He was given couple of opportunities to sing in some Hindi and then regional movies. As every year these kind of geniuses come to the market so it became tough to compete any further. So he remained as a boy who sings only in his school and later college function. He forgot the music that his grand father used to teach him just before going to the TV show and forgot what he said on TV show when his grand father died while he was performing on stage. His promise to take Indian Classical Music to another level as per his grand fathers dream which attracted many more thousands of votes remained unfulfilled. But he still remembered very well that he is a genius, as the judge had said during his audition and a genius today is genius forever. So he still is a genius and if anybody disputed this then that person is partial as the other region people were. He developed on these memories too. He was initially very regional, where he never trusted anybody from another region of the country and then he developed negativity towards other religions as they too voted for the kid of their religion and the he became anti national when he realized nobody in this country gives him respect because they do not recognize a genius. Time came when he was proven unsuccessful in all fronts and finally had to live an below ordinary life with a big pride and enormous amount of hatred. He failed to get the job in last campus interview that was conducted in his college and could not accept this humiliation. He committed suicide. The same newspapers who printed big pictures about him, printed one small 30 word column saying ‘Child prodigy committed suicide.”.
If you investigate whose fault was there in the suicide, then you may blame none if you look at the suicide as an independent incidence. But if you truly investigate then you will find the fault was when he was taken by his parents to the audition.
If a kid is genius then there should be efforts to make sure he remains genius or become super genius by nurturing his talents, getting right education and developing a never-ending quest to learn. A genius kid needs super genius parents. And the quality of super genius parent is to make sure that the genius never feels that he is genius, Protect him from excess or undeserved fame and appreciations that can distract him.
But unfortunately those parents believe, when you are getting fame and appreciation free of cost then why worry. You raise the scale that measures how much a kid deserves so that you can accept anything
This is not only about a kid and a singing competition. We adults have many kids within us. Like, I found that I have a kid who can write. So I let him write blogs. He started writing just for fun. Then a day came when he started wrote something that hit the cord of dozen of people. He got exposed to so many at once and he started believing that he is good. Then as the popularity increased he started believing that he is a genius. His focus became of the facts that can make him more popular than the factors that can make him a better writer. He disapproved every criticism thinking they are biased or ignorant. Fortunately I being the parents of that kid, realized this kids negative growth and stopped him from believing that he is not anything better than mere ordinary. Trust me it works. He is focusing more on content than popularity. Let me see how many days I can stay as good parent to myself.
Namaste!!!
– Stray Dog
Life as Sakti 
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