The most memorable aspect of my childhood, I think would be the fact that I was the ‘black sheep’ of my family. The youngest of 3 daughters to my parents who moved all the way from Bihar to Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana). The reason was rather simple – the 3rd girl child! I have lived with that for many years now. Being referred to as the 3rd daughter and the relatives who would very subtly say “we were expecting a boy this time”. So I lived a life of an immigrant (yes!) in southern India. I was considered a person from the ‘North’ and my cousins would say we are from South. Go figure out that now !!
My elder sisters were class toppers, in fact district toppers, and me well, I was good at so many other things 
. Education was not one of them. I was good at it, but I was not the topper. I would be somewhere in the in the top 5. What I really enjoyed was debate competitions, elocution, essay writing, poetry and even basketball. When I was in Grade 3, I still remember this as if it were just yesterday, I was selected to give a ‘speech’ in our school assembly. The topic was kindness. My dad and mum curated the speech for me (of course). All I had to do was memorise it and say the speech which was for 3 minutes in front of the school including high school!! No big deal, no pressure. Guess what? I came out with flying colours and received a long ovation (can’t be standing as we were all standing already )
What I learnt that day was the power of #Confidence and #Conviction. I went on to win many elocution and debate competitions across the state, inter states, and even country. I would always remember how my dad said “Have confidence in yourself and you can do anything you want”. And so I believed this to be true and went on with this as my foundation. There was this one year, I think I was in class 8, when my school was celebrating its silver jubilee and I won more than 6 gold medals and I was flying high. I reached home and mother had this unique ability to bring me to the ground so quickly and had I not been careful, I would have even crash landed. This was summer time, she took me to the back yard of our house and pointed to the huge mango tree that was full of fruits and asked me a simple question – “is the tree flying in the sky or is it close to earth?” So I responded “close to earth”. She then gave me the most valuable lesson in my life. She said, “its easy to fly high and be arrogant, proud even, when you become an achiever, but what makes you a human being is staying close to the earth and to your roots !!” I have from then gone to achieve many things in life but I have always; to the best of my ability stayed humble and approachable and close to the ground. One word that will not be used to describe me (ever) will be arrogance. Two words always to describe me will be Courage and Conviction.
