Why false promise? Where is the shadow show?

The mail from syntillations about the Pongal celebrations also announced that there would be a shadow show, which did not happen. Why? How many of you found this, it’s that we do not bother as we are in a society where we hear lots of promise which we know will not come true. Still we cheer when someone makes a promise. How many of you questioned this? Well if someone wanted to know then. Yes, the Anandapadmanaban and his son Tejaswi was here. Most of you might have seen Tejaswi, he was once introduced to all of us last year immediately after he got recognized as the youngest juggler in Karnataka. I have visited his home. The bright student in his school, back from his school learned magic from one of the book he got. Looking at his interest and skill, Anandapadmanaban, an employee of Biocon, started buying him more books and videos on magic. While we appreciate movies like Three Idiots and Tare jameen par, and we preach about bringing up children with the real interest they have, back home we ignore to practice it. “Well my son, I know, he wanted to be a doctor, is that not by boy?” In the middle of the people like us Anandapadmanaban practice this in his real life. When asked about his boy’s studies and his daily activities, Anandapadmanaban said,” He had never given me a chance to worry about his studies, I do not want to bring the culture of comparing him with his friends, I do not do that, eventhough he is one of the best in the class. Only thing I do is that I make sure that he is not de-motivated. He like to show his talent to people and he gets great satisfaction, So I take him to any possible stages where I could take him. I take leave in my office. I think my boys interest is more important for me”. Now the boy is interested in shadowgraphs and is doing his own experiments.

This father and son were not allowed inside by our security. They said that the boy is just 14 years old and it is a violation and child labor is not allowed. Is that the security guard did not had the differentiating capability between an artist and a labor. If that is the case then how could we have Sachin in cricket, Kamalahasan in theater, They were all child labors when they started performing. We proudly say about Lata Mangeshkar that on the first day in the school, she started teaching songs to other children. When the teacher stopped her, she was so angry that she stopped going to the school, where she sang her first song when she was 13 year old.

The boy and his father kept waiting in the reception for an hour and returned sadly without performing. The right of a boy to perform was questioned when National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) itself allows child artists to perform for certain duration of time. Even in the United States, federal law "Specifically exempted minors working the Entertainment Business from all provisions of the Child Labor Laws." Any regulation of child actors is governed by disparate state law.