Though November 20th is witnessed as the universal Children's day, in India, this celebration was preponed to 14th of november to mark the birthday of our 1st prime minister Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru for his immensible love for children.

Today when i was hearing to radio, which is my usual pass time when commuting to my workplace (about 4-5 hours a day on an average), almost all radio stations invited kids between 5-8years to host the show on the occassion of "children's day". I was fascinated the way they actually hosted the show. They were very much on par with the actual RJs. I happened to remember my childhood days when i used to happily ride a cycle to my school.

It used to be a memorable day on this occassion, for all of us in the school, for, there were loads and loads of activities in which we were to take part. There used to be dance, skits, fashion show, fancy dress, sports, the band group, prize distribution. And there were these magic shows in which the magician turned a flower into a pigeon, made a bunch of roses from nowhere and things of that sort. After the show, the students were given a special "magic book and a pencil" which was really handy for two reasons, the first one being, we never had to mend our pencils and the second being we could erase whatever we wrote without using an eraser :) There also used to be this special programme where teachers used to take part in activities like skits which had themes of patriotism after which the students were asked to take up a "who is who" quiz. And i can bet that learning cannot get any better. And the best part of the celebrations was at the end, when really really yummy sweets and ice creams were distributed. This was the usual tradition in our school.

The most memorable of all the children's day celebrations at our school was when i was in 2nd standard. The reason was, i had hit a hat-trick and had bagged 3 prizes in 3 discrete events held on that occassion. The first event was a "story telling compitition" for which my father had come up with a really creative story, the story that was never heard of before. Well, don't be worried, i wont narrate it here :P . The second event was the musical chair and the third one, the fancy dress, in which my father had dressed me like "Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru ji" with a rose in the pocket and the typical Nehru cap. ( i still have it locked safely in my wardrobe :) ). I also remember the punch quote of Nehru that i had delivered in that event - "The destiny of India is smoking in its classrooms; the children of today are the citizens of tomorrow". May be this is the true reason why it won a prize even though the rules of the compitition was not to be vocal. ;)

How i wish i was still a child... :( The josh, energy levels and enthusiasm those days makes me awe if i was really me then. There never was the "fear factor" for speaking on a dias or anything for that matter.

And now i gotto hurry up as i have to push my father for a treat on the occassion of his "birthday"(turned 60 ;) ) or rather the "children's day" :)