The GOOGLE win that changed my life!!!!!!!

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How the Google win changed my life!!!!!!
Google , the search engine giant is a part of our daily lives and most of us open our computers to the google home page everyday ! I begin my day with “Google laye namah”! Google changed my life and my mom’s too in irrevocable ways. I am a teenaged,regular indian Army brat with an awesome talent for painting and not-so-awesome-talent for not being attentive in class and picking up theoretical subjects in school!
I was born a breech baby ( ulta pulta from birth itself!)but healthy and did everything like another kid , the only difference being - i did it at my own pace. I would admire the beauty of the bird outside the class while maa’m taught Sin-Cos-Theta theorems and often I would be pulled up ! i tried my best to mug up and get at least B grading in all subjects , so my mom would not start her “oh my god, what will you do in life?”sob story. Please dont get me wrong, my mom is cool  but like any other Indian mom , has this fetish of “doing well in studies” and then doing art! I would paint everyday but AFTER I finished my studies, or rather “mugging up “. Sad.

To know how the google win changed my life , you gotta know how it was before the win. I hate to write long articles because I myself don’t have the patience or energy to read something long ...so I
will come straight to the point.
I had a FB account but only 14 friends , I had a photo blog “lifeofindianteenager”in blogpost but only 17 views and of course I was INVISIBLE in class and in school ,only two of my best friends knew , I existed. In my school bus, the driver too would leave me and go ,if it was not for my hyper-super-happy-with-life younger sister ,shouting her lungs out “wait for my sister!!!!!!!!”
Now you would think, since I painted atleast the art mams would recognise and encourage me . Wrong, wrong !!! How it goes in many schools is that those who are “good” in studies are “assumed to be good in everything” so they would get called for art competitions too . Sadly, I would be shooed away each time. But my clever mom found out an awesome way around that !
Its called INDIVIDUAL participation. She would go and ask the organisers if individual entry (not from the school ) was allowed and get me to participate ...not boasting but nine out of ten times I would win, still things in school remained the same!
At the home front my dad , the Army Officer would be out most of the time, leaving mom with two differently abled kids! I don’t know why God gives “Nerdy moms” slow kids. My mom does everything fast and in school there isn’t one thing she did not excel in ...right from being the school headgirl to representing India in students council in United Nations. So for her , I think God taught her patience through me!!!!!!!!As for dad, he’s an ex-NDA, only does what needs to be done at the moment ; totally chilled out !
So there I was...a snail or maybe a slug..drawing my way...calm but saving myself from getting stepped on by “yelling teachers, bitchy girls in school and some sarcastic aunties”. But painting , till Google changed everything.
The Doodle4Google contest was on in my school but as always , me-the-slow-snail could not get in as I was late . So mom took the next step , which she always did- Individual entry and like magic I won!!!! I won the Grand Prize! The National winner! when they announced it , it took some time to seep in and then I saw my mom crying and I knew - Ok I have really won the contest out of 1 million school kids in India!
The stay and the prize ceremony was a dream come true but the real fun began after I came back to school! Suddenly my classmates knew me, my teachers called out for me, principal mam even hugged me ...can you believe that? She made the whole school sing “Happy Birthday” to me as my birthday falls on Children’s day when my Doodle was on the Google India homepage . I got calls from the north east who were thrilled I had represented Assam in my doodle. I got an invitation to be the state guest of Assam from the Chief Minister himself. I had televisions crew interviewing me, I had journalists clicking my picture, I had over 430 friends request on Facebook and by the end of the day on 14th November , I was trending second to Kim Kardashian in FB in India !!!! Too much to handle.Thank God almighty!

From an unknown slow slug to a star kid….the best was;  I got to paint, paint and paint! I now participate in International and national  contests and mom allows me to paint BEFORE doing my studies, teachers excuse my “absent mindedness” , random school kids run up to me and have nicknamed me “doodle girl” . I got cash prize from the School Managing Committee and most of all, Principal mam asked me to paint a canvas for her room . Now isn’t that cool !!!Recently I have filled a form for a student exchange program to Japan to learn Sumi-e painting which I so adore. So life’s good and I am not anonymous anymore but I feel for the lakhs of slow slugs slugging it out in schools even right now...well for them , my advice- Keep following your heart , pray a lot and keep Googling ! Thank you Santa Google! FELIZ NAVIDAD

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