Have you ever moved out of your hometown? Oh! Yes, it’s a tough decision to start anew but a surprising way to see great things in life. This is an inspiring story of our Shakti Kritika Chaudhary who moved from her hometown with an empty bag, filled it with surprising valuables, and continues to fill it. Let’s delve and find out!
SHE IS A BEAUTIFUL SAPLING
Kritika and her family moved to Gurugram years back from West Bengal. At present, she lives with her parents and a brother in a small rented house in Sikanderpur Ghosi. Her father is a painter and her mother is a maid. She’s in 11th grade and her brother is in college. She is studying at P.M. Shri Government Senior Secondary School, Chakkarpur.
Kritika is full of potential and always longing to achieve big in her life. She joined Sarvam Shakti in 2019. She got interested in dance and started learning Bharatnatyam.
The Early Struggles
Being relocated from a different state her major challenges at the early stage were the language and the level of confidence. She struggled with both Hindi and English and in turn, it affected her confidence in every aspect. The insecurity and the lack of trust made her parents turn down Sarvam and didn’t allow her to pursue dance initially. She never gave up and continued her practice despite their pressure. The struggle continued until the day of her first stage performance. After seeing her performance her parents felt very happy. She proved her potential to them that day and gained respect for herself. Then her parents along with Sarvam started encouraging and supporting her to achieve her dreams.
A Day in Kritika’s Life
Kritika wakes up early and gets ready for school. She eats breakfast helps with some household chores and goes to school. After school, she directly goes to Sarvam. In Sarvam, she practices dance and yoga. She takes computer and English lessons. Since she struggles with Hindi, she practices peaking in Hindi with everyone here. And then she goes back to home. Her tiny life rewards around her home school and Sarvam.
Nourishments to the roots of the sapling
Kritika was a quiet, introverted girl who considered anger and shedding tears often as her weakness when stepped into Sarvam back then, but never short of capabilities. She actively involved herself in learning dance yoga and languages. These learnings slowly started to create a positive impact on her body and mind. She can find a lot of changes in her personality, and behavior, and positive feeling of confidence and clarity. She started to get rid of her weaknesses and discover her strengths. Shakti Sanjeevani (nutritious food and drink) in Sarvam is adding strength to her body as well. She is starting to walk on the right road and framed three goals for her life.Â
She wants to make her parents happy by buying a new house for them.
She wants to help the people in need by starting an NGO like Sarvam.
She wants to become a Bharatnatyam teacher.
While marching towards these goals she said she wanted to turn the poor person to rich and fight and stand up for women’s suppression in interior parts of India if she had a superpower to change the world.
She always feels happy and very grateful for Sarvam and proud of herself for traveling this long way.Â
Blooming towards the Sunlight
At times, Kritika loses confidence and decides to go back to her old self. Ms. Himangi Bhatnagar talks to her during those times boosts her confidence and reminds her about the path she travelled. A sapling can bend but never break and this paved the way for glorious moments in her life. Kritika always considers Miss Himangi Bhatnagar as her role model and she gets emotional seeing the care from her which is more than her mother’s care. She remembers her first performance which changed her life. She showcased a Bharatnatyam performance at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurugram, and received a lot of appreciation for her expressions and moves.Â
Witnessing her blooming talents and skills, Kritika was selected as one of the five students for block level dance competition by her school where two schools competed. We take a pride moment here to announce that all those five students are Sarvam Shaktis! She won this competition and took her first successful step in her life.Â
Second block level competition In this competition, six schools participated. She was too nervous as it was her solo performance for the first time. The stage fright made her forget a step at last, but she used the skills learned from Sarvam and managed beautifully and won first prize.Â
District level She moved to compete at the district level following the win. It was held in Sadar Bazar Girls High School. Her efforts and perseverance fetched her first place at the district level too. She was all smiles and she met a few of her old teachers at the event. They were surprised to see her transformation and her talent in Bharatnatyam dance. All of them came forward to offer her help to achieve big in classical dance and they are overjoyed to see her growth.Â
State-level Kritika advanced to state-level dance meet which was held in Panchkula, Punjab. She had to travel alone for the first time without her parents. She always expresses this heartwarming memory of Ms. Himangi Bhatnagar on how she called her every few hours and kept checking in on her. She worked very hard for this competition and met many talented competitors from all over India. She secured 4th position and felt very great to achieve this milestone. She gained a lot of experience and had an opportunity to meet great dancers who were the judges in the competition. Her parents are so proud to see the efforts and hard work she has given so far. Right from the moment she adopted Shakti Sadhana(dance) and Shakti Strong(yoga), she is showing a remarkable transition and getting recognition for her talents and moving towards her dreams.Â
Remember the empty bag at the beginning? Kritika’s achievements so far are because of the confidence and the talent she is building, perseverance, and a healthy mind and body. These are the surprising valuables that are peeping out as leaves. This sapling is growing into a mature tree blossoming with leaves, fruits, and flowers and we continue to water it to achieve her dreams and she strives to provide shade and shelter to others like her in the future.Â