Ramya Vivek
Once there lived a small tortoise family, comprising of the daddy-tortoise, mummy-tortoise and the baby-tortoise. The happy parents doted on their kiddo-tortoise. He was the apple of his parent’s eyes.
Baby-tortoise was eight when he got a small bedroom of his own. The bedroom was painted in his favourite sea blue colour and his mother had hand-painted small shrubs and beautiful sea shells. He was even encouraged to blob-paint the walls with his small scutes.
One night after finishing off with her chores, the mummy-tortoise peaked through her son’s room to check if he had slept. But she was shocked to hear the faint sniffle coming from inside his quilt. The mummy could not see her son in pain. She scooted closer, hugged her son tight and asked, “What’s troubling you, my child?”
“Mumma…I am not good at anything”, The baby tortoise continued to cry.
“What made you think so, my child?”, asked the worried mummy.
“My classmate, hare, would always call me a ‘slow-coach’ whenever he passes by me in the school corridor. I usually try to ignore him.”
“You did the right thing, my child. We need not always answer rude people. We should let our work do all the talking. Mumma is so proud of you.”
“But Mumma, do you know what happened today?”
“Oh! Tell me, dear!” Mummy-tortoise was anxiously waiting to find what was troubling her kid.
“My friends told me that no tortoise could win in the race. I wanted to prove them wrong. We had a race in our sports period. Even before I took five steps, the hare had finished the race. When everyone was hooting with laughter, I felt so bad, Mumma. I felt like a loser who is good at nothing” Saying this, the baby tortoise hid his face inside his pillow.
Mummy-tortoise caressed her baby’s head.
“You have made a mistake today and do you know what it is?”
The baby had thought that his mummy would hug and tell him that he wasn’t a loser, but was shocked to hear his mummy’s words. He gave her a puzzled look.
“What did I do, Mumma?”
“My baby, God has blessed every one of us with something unique and special. If hare can run and win a fast race, my child, you can win a slow race. You can sense danger and protect yourself by pushing your torso inside the shell. My child, you are blessed with a long lifeline. You have so many years ahead of you to live life the way you want.”
Even as the baby tortoise was looking all glassy-eyed at his mother, his mother continued.
“Know your strengths, my son, and work on them. Don’t ever call yourself a loser, just because you have tried something new and lost. Your mistake was that you have entered the wrong race today, probably not meant for you. But you still gave it a try. You lost, yes. But you lost only after giving your best shot. I am proud of you and you should be too.”
Saying this, the mummy-tortoise gave her son, a proud smile. As he snuggled closer to his mummy, the baby realized that it’s okay to lose sometimes. He was looking forward to daybreak to congratulate hare on his win.
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Dear friends,
Thanks for taking time out to read my blog. When my daughter who is good at studies, dance and is a black belt holder in Karate, cried one day that she couldn’t catch a tune, I narrated the above story to let her know that we neednot be good at everything in life. That, losing a competition in school isn’t the end of life. More often that not, kids lead a ‘pressure cooker’ life due to the expectations of parents, society and sometimes, even with the self-inflicted pressure. As parents, let’s make life easy for them. “Tomorrow” should be something they should look forward to every day.
Everyone is unique and special in their own way. It’s wrong of us to compare one child with the another.
Hope you liked my humble attempt. I would be glad to read your feedback.
Take care,
Love,
Ramya
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