Little Wonder

Soundarya Hariharan is a surprise package. Though it is true every generation is getting smarter and smarter, Soundarya goes many steps ahead and exhibits such versatile skills which belie her age of four years.
Daughter of proud parents Bhooma and Capt Hariharan, residents of Vasant Oscar society, Mulund West, Soundarya was like any other child till 18 months.

Soundarya poses for our camera

"My husband being a captain with the navy, we used to sail for months and I could not put Soundarya in any play school. When she was a year old, I came across the brain stimulation course for children, taught by Revathy Sankaran at Chennai. It was a chance thing as we had gone to Chennai for the prayer offering of her tonsure ceremony.

According to this concept the baby starts learning as early as three months when the eyeball starts rotating. Revathy told us that we are too late to start but gave us 12 kg of study material, most of them placards with alphabets and figures," informs Bhooma.

Every child has a photographic memory and remembers what you show them. Bhooma was not too convinced but paid the Rs 4,000 rupees for the material equating it to a purchase of a silk saree, which is seldom worn."Revathy would guide us on phone while we were at sea and there were tags with clear instructions. I carried the material to the ship and would show the placards to Soundarya three times a day as per instructions. Each time it would take just five minutes.

One fine day she started picking up the placards and telling the correct names. I sent a video tape to show other parents who may be sceptical."The parents realised this child's craving for more learning and Bhooma started teaching her capitals of various countries.

"Today out of 190 odd countries she can tell 110 without faltering," says Hariharan. When mother and daughter would take an auto ride to Mira Road to visit Soundarya's maternal grandmother Bharati, Bhooma would teach the little girl math tables. Soundarya knows up to six tables by heart. Over and above she recites Hanuman Challisa rapidly and answers quiz questions quickly.    

What started off as fun activity became serious learning not only for the child but mother too. "Even when I am cooking, I make her sit on one side of the long platform and talk to her and she absorbs information like a sponge."
She has absolutely no affinity for television or cartoons.

Her day is tightly packed with attending kindergarten at Sri Sri Ravishankar School, phonetics classes where she learns to split the spelling and pronounce with silence and sound emphasis, as need be. This her mother informs is a US based concept called Spelling Bee, which believes that every spelling has its phonetic origin in some language, English, Italian or Sanskrit.

She attends drawing classes and I Math classes (She has already finished Level 1). This precocious nature is not only related to brain work but also to physical activity. She started with skating round the building for fun when she was just two, an age when children have just learnt to walk properly. Seeing her skills, Bhooma put her for advanced training at Kalidas under Bhagyavan.

"At first he refused saying she was under age as the lower age limit is five. But once he saw her skate he agreed to train her. She is now at par with ten-year-old children who undergo advanced level in skating."

While the proud mother keeps listing her little girl's achievements, the child just squats on the floor colouring her drawing book with absolute concentration. She just poses for the photograph and gets back to work.   

"I have heard that Swami Vivekananda had the capacity to recall pages from books. This '0' level memory comes from years of meditation. Children are like this from first year to five years and you can teach them anything under the sun," says Bhooma. 

"We as parents are too proud but we have to be extremely careful as to what we talk in front of her as she is so quick to absorb them," concludes father Hariharan.
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I have heard that Swami Vivekananda had the capacity to recall pages from books. This '0' level memory crimes from years of meditation. Children are like this from first year to five years and you can teach them anything
- Bhooma, Soundarya’s mother