Rutuja's Felicitation

Today, 18-Jun-2023, Rutuja gave a wonderful Father's Day Gift.

After scoring 97.6 % in her Class X CBSE, which I had rounded up to 98%, she was extremely happy and we all were even more happier. Topping in Sanskrit & Social Science in entire CBSE, by scoring perfect 100, was icing on the cake.

On insistence of Kavita, we had got Rutuja into Shobha's tuitions. This was done after much of necessary research by Kavita through her sources & fact findings. Just like so many others, it turned out to be a wonderful decision. During the Class IX itself, she had found her gear & was much relaxed in her studies & way of tutoring. Rutuja worked extremely hard & studied with great intentions. She told us that she feels her marks would be in the range of 90-95 maximum. However on the result day, she was stunned to know her score of 98%.

Shobha's had arranged felicitation for all the students who had scored above 85%. Obviously Rutuja was going to be one of the awardees. Me and Kavita were more excited than her. We were bubbling with all the enthusiasm, for the day. As usual, Rutuja was calm, collected and unfazed about it. 

Felicitation function started from around 10:00 AM & went up to 1:30 PM, interspersed with students being called upon to receive their medals, trophies and a small memento. She was called twice to receive the medals for scoring perfect 100 marks in Sanskrit & Social Science. I was unbelievably emotional seeing her on the stage. 

But Rutuja was again, very cool, not emotional at all. She was obviously happy with the medals but not too much emotional at all. This has to be the way. And more surprisingly, I found out that all the students were pretty much cool & much in the same mental space as Rutuja was. I was not able to relate due to my overwhelming emotions.  

When she was called on the stage for receiving her trophy, I was struggling to hold myself together again due to being overly emotional. But Rutuja & all the other students were happy, calm & not at all fazed by the occasion. Most of the kids were just plain in the moment, clicking pics, posting on Social media & putting filters on their photos for Instagram. I felt so annoyed that kids were so engrossed in mobile more than the function. But that is probably the way of this generation. There is nothing absolutely wrong or perfectly right in this, but I certainly felt little odd.

Rutuja received her trophy to a thunderous round of applause. Both parents were called on the stage during her felicitation & I have never felt prouder being Dadda. I was almost on the cusp of shedding happy tears but I managed to hold myself composed. Rutuja with her couple of medals around the neck & trophy in hand took lots of pictures with her teachers. All of them were very gracious & chatted so very nicely to us. Kavita did so much well than being on the emotional front. She was just simply happy & overjoyed. Simply smiling with all the happenings of the day. May be I have so much to learn from her. And may there be more such occasion where Rutuja will be awarded & we as a parent will witness those moments...Insha Allah :) 

But in overall, it was a beautiful co-incidence that function was held on Father's day & there was never a better Father's day gift to a dad by Rutuja.   

I remember writing a blog when I attended first meeting in school when we got Rutuja into New Horizon Public School. I very clearly remember the joyful emotions on that very day, good 14-15 years ago. It is a perfect end that her school life is wrapped up with awards from Shobha's for securing wonderful marks in Class X. 

Love you Rutuja for giving this wonderful moment.