Saikripa 'chained' to her key hobby.

KOCHI: The day of Saikripa starts with the mellifluous tinkling of her 4000-odd keychains which take the major space of her bedroom. The eleven-year-old has been attuned to them since she was three years old. Sai who was fond of her grandmother could not leave her.

Her parents, to change her attention, started to gift her with keychains which in course of time grew into a full-fledged hobby.Sai says that due to space constraints, she could not hang about one thousand keychains. “Though I have lost count of my keychains, I presume that there are about 3000 on the wall and the rest have been kept in a carton.”

To remember easily, She has also categorised her treasure trove into themes like gods, dolls, fruits, vegetables, insects, towns and tools. Amongst them, gods and dolls are her favourites. Ask her what makes them her favourite, her curt reply is, “People just love gods and there is no reason for it.  Gods and dolls are very cute with their attractive attires,” she says.

The best part is that, apart from having such a huge number of keychains, Sai can talk extensively about her collections and on what occasion it was gifted. For instance ask her about the ‘Eiffel Tower’ keychain, she can elaborate on the Eiffel Tower. According to her parents, they made it certain that Sai also learns something from her keychains.

She says,”Whenever father buys me a keychain, he would narrate its detail. It has indeed helped me to have a clear picture on various things like numbers, colours or any particular aspect of that keychain and thus improving my general knowledge too.”

Though she wants to add more keychains to her collection, she has stopped buying new ones for fear of duplication. “I have so many of them that there are chances of duplication. The key chains gifted by friends and relatives also result in duplication as they do not know about which all keychains I already have. It will defeat the purpose if there is a lot of duplication,” she says.

Saikripa’s hobbies do not end here. She collects coins, stamps and stickers too. Dancing and singing are her other interests.Besides, she has won laurels in various other competitions like designing ‘Kolams’ and chanting ‘Lakshmi Sahasranamam’. Saikripa lives with her parents S Sethuraman and Latha Sethuraman in Fort Kochi.

published in The New Indian Express