Like parent, like child

When Robert Irwin, the charming 13-year-old animal lover and son of late ‘Crocodile Hunter’ star and wildlife expert Steve Irwin, appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, the world couldn’t help but look at the lad in awe, for spreading his father’s infectious love for animals. Robert brought sloths and snakes along to the show as he spoke about how he grew up in the Australian Zoo, catching lizards and all things slimy. No doubt he followed his famous dad’s footsteps to the hilt!

There are many such inspiring tales of kids and young adults in our country as well, including in Chennai, who have emulated their parents and have scaled many heights while doing so. Watching her Carnatic maestro father, Unnikrishnan sing, Uthara Unnikrishanan has tuned her sweet voice so melodiously — that she won a national award for her song Azhagu from the film Saivam — at the age of 10, making her one of the youngest singers in the country to receive the honour. So, how much does her father influence this little hummingbird’s singing? “Right from when I was in class two, I used to sing along with my father. Whenever I have a performance and I’m practising, I ask him for help and I try to follow the way that he sings and do the same. It is very inspiring each time I watch my father perform,” says the 12-year-old who aims to sing as well as her dad someday. One must remember that while Unnikrishnan got his hands on a national award when he was 30, Uthara needed a mere one-third of that time!

For 16-year-old city boy S Shrikrishna, a national Under-18 billiards winner, it was his mother, a former state-level snooker player, who gave him the inspiration. “I used to watch my mother and father practice and it inspired me to pick up the cue stick. Their games taught me how to be aggressive about the game right from a young age. I learnt how to play the shots and the intricacies from them,” Shrikrishna says.

The world definitely wouldn’t have forgotten the time when a little Indian chef was hosted by American talk show host Ellen DeGeneres on her show, to teach her how to make puttu! Six-year-old Nihal Raj aka Kicha, from Kochi, left Ellen, along with the world, bedazzled by his cooking skills. “When I was four, I started watching many YouTube videos and told my father that I wanted to have my own  channel. I used to like watching my mom (a home baker) cook and bake. Then I decided to make videos of me cooking. I love to make mango ice cream, the way my mom does,” Kicha tells us, adding that he wants to, someday, cook in space!

Another father and son duo from Chennai, has been garnering such passion for culinary arts — they even went on to win several competitions on the international level, together. Umasankar Dhanapal and his son Yashwanth Kumar have their way of working with knives and there’s nothing in the world that they can’t carve to make it look pretty. “I developed an interest in culinary arts just by looking at my father. I get inspired by the way he uses the knife and I want to become well-known like him one day,” says Yashwanth, who was the youngest competitor at the International Culinary Olympics.

So what is it that makes a few children excel at the fields that their parents are in, while some kids, even with effort from their parents can’t develop that interest? Child psychologist Smruthi Nair says, the contribution to a child’s interest in a particular area is both genetic and the environment that they are raised in. “Certain children may have a predisposition to sing, but may not have the environment that cultivates that interest. While on the other hand, there could be some children whose parents might be exceptional at an art, but the kids might not have an interest in it. Both aptitude and interest together make for a good recipe for children to succeed at something,” she explains.