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My daughter didn’t “ask” for Bharatanatyam the way children ask for toys or treats. She asked for it the way they ask for something that has already found them.
One day, she saw a video of a child performing to Aigiri Nandini. The rhythm was fierce, the expressions were larger than life and the energy felt ancient and electric all at once. She watched it with the kind of stillness you rarely get from a three-year-old, then turned to me and said she wanted to learn that.
I smiled, did the responsible-parent calculation in my head and decided I’d wait until she was four. Four felt neat. Four felt like the “right” age. Three felt too small for disciplined movement, structured practice and a classical form that carries centuries of tradition in its spine.
But she kept asking. Not once, not twice, but with the gentle insistence that only children have, the kind that is not stubbornness but certainty. So I enrolled her at Sarva Fine Arts even before she turned four.
It has now been more than one year since she started her Bharatanatyam journey with Teacher Shailja, under the guidance of Guru Dr. Shylu Winston, Founder and Director of Sarva Fine Arts, which is a premier institution for Indian classical dance (Bharatanatyam and Kathak) and music with prominent branches in Singapore and Dubai.
As I look back, I realise the most meaningful outcomes have not been the steps she has mastered, but the person she has begun to become.
Cultural roots in a country that moves fast
Raising an Indian child in Singapore is a gift. This city is safe, efficient and full of opportunity. But it is also busy in a very specific way. Everything moves quickly, everything is optimised and childhood can easily become a checklist of enrichment.
Bharatanatyam has offered something different. It has given my daughter a relationship with her roots that is not abstract or performative, but lived. Not a lesson about culture, but a way of carrying culture in the body.
When she learns a gesture, she is learning meaning. When she practises rhythm, she is learning discipline. When she repeats a sequence, she is building patience. And when she watches her teacher demonstrate, she is absorbing lineage, not just technique.
At such young age, she cannot explain heritage. But she can feel it. And perhaps that is how the strongest connections begin, not through explanation, but through repeated, embodied experience.
Confidence, communication and the quiet magic of being seen
There is a practical side to dance that parents often notice first. The posture improves. The coordination strengthens. The child starts to listen better, follow instructions and regulate their energy.
But something more subtle has happened too.
My daughter has become a stronger communicator. Not necessarily through words, but through presence. Bharatanatyam trains the face, the eyes, the hands and the entire body to express. For a child, that is profound. It teaches them that they have a voice even when they are not speaking and that being seen is not something to be feared.
Confidence, I have learnt, does not always arrive as boldness. Sometimes it arrives as comfort in one’s own skin. It arrives as the willingness to try again. It arrives as the ability to stay on your feet when you could have melted into the floor.
That last one came to me in a single moment, under stage lights.
The moment that changed everything for me
Her first stage performance through the school was SARVĀRPANAM 2025. Like all parents, I was already emotional before she even stepped onto the stage. There is something about seeing your child in costume, hair neatly done, tiny feet prepared to do something they have practised for weeks. It makes time feel visible. It makes you realise how quickly they are becoming their own person.
Mid-performance, she forgot a step.
Previously, my baby would have frozen. She would have gone stiff with self-consciousness, the way many sensitive children do when they feel exposed. I could feel my own heart clench, not because a step was missed, but because I imagined the shame that might follow.
Instead, she cheekily laughed.
A small laugh, bright and unburdened. And then she resumed the correct steps.
That was the biggest win for me.
Not perfection. Not applause. Not “she did so well”. But the way she handled the mistake. In that moment, she learnt something that many adults spend years unlearning and relearning: you can make a mistake and still continue. You can be imperfect and still be joyful. You can be seen, stumble and stay brave anyway.
Bharatanatyam did not just teach her a routine. It gave her a healthy relationship with error.
What a classical art form teaches a modern child
We live in a time when children are constantly measured, even when we don’t intend to measure them. Milestones, comparisons, quiet expectations, the pressure to be “ahead”. It creeps in.
A classical art form like Bharatanatyam holds a different philosophy. It is built on repetition, refinement and respect for process. It is not about instant results. It is about returning to the basics again and again and learning that growth is not linear.
For a child, this matters more than we think.
It teaches them to stay with something even when it is hard. It teaches them that mastery takes time. It teaches them that the body can be trained gently, that focus is a muscle and that consistency can coexist with joy.
And because the form is structured, a child learns boundaries in a positive way. There is a right time to listen, a right time to move, a right time to wait. These are not restrictive lessons. They are stabilising ones.
In a world that often rewards speed, Bharatanatyam rewards depth.
No pressure, just presence
People sometimes ask me if I want her to become “very good” at Bharatanatyam. It is a fair question, but it is also the wrong one.
I do not dream of her becoming the best dancer in the world. There is no pressure on her from our side to excel. What we love is watching her learn, enjoy, thrive and grow.
She absolutely loves her dance lessons and looks forward to her class every single week. That is the part that matters to me. The anticipation. The belonging. The way she runs into class like it is a place she is meant to be.
As a mother, you don’t need your child to win to feel proud. In my eyes, she is already the best in everything she does or doesn’t do. I love her with all my heart, as any mum does and I try to be present for her and support her in the ways I can, which I think most parents are trying to do, in their own imperfect, loving ways.
Sometimes support looks like logistics, hairpins and costume pins. Sometimes it looks like sitting through rehearsals. Sometimes it looks like holding your own nerves so your child can hold theirs.
Salangai Pooja 2026: Nervous, excited, grateful
This March, she has been selected to perform at Salangai Pooja 2026 with a few select students. We are nervous, excited and happy. I know she is still small. I know she will have moments of distraction, moments of fatigue, moments where everything feels too much.
But I also know she has already learnt one of the most important lessons a stage can teach: if you forget a step, you can laugh and continue.
As parents, we often think we are enrolling our children into a class. In reality, we are enrolling them into experiences that shape how they will meet the world.
Bharatanatyam has become one of those shaping experiences for her.
A note of gratitude
I am deeply thankful to Sarva Fine Arts for creating an opportunity and platform for children as young as three to learn, thrive and grow. It takes real care and thoughtful teaching to hold that age group with patience and structure, without crushing their softness.
Because in the end, that is what this year has been about.
Not just dance.
But confidence. Culture. Resilience.
And the small, heart-bursting miracle of watching a three-year-old learn to stand tall under the lights, make a mistake, laugh and keep going.
Also read: Why early reading fails when we rush it: Unpacking this with Learn2Read Co-Founder Nitin Jain
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