8th standard student of CPS Gujarati medium, Divyanjali stays with her father who is a painter in Kalol. She misses her mother who lives in the village. Since there is no one to take care after her at home, she accompanies her father everywhere he goes; she tags along with him to work as well. Whenever she sees him paint houses, she is at awe on looking at the patterns that her father creates.

She developed a sense of admiration for the art and admitted to her father, “When I grow up, I want to be a painter like you.” This angered her father so much that he did not talk to her the whole day. Little did she know that he did not want her to become the person that he was.

The next morning, he woke her up early and asked her to get dressed; they were going out somewhere Divyanjali had never been to – an art museum. She was only wondering why they never went to his workplace. Once they reached the museum, she was awestruck! There were so many paintings from so many artists that she had never heard of, Jamini Roy, Raja Ravi Varma, Jatin Das, etc. Every stroke of their brush was an inspiration to her, every use of colour expressed different emotion and every abstract art spoke a beautiful story that her father explained to her. This is when her father told her, “There is so much more to painting that you still don’t understand. We all are working for you and you want to be a painter like me? Think big Divyanjali, you will become big; you think small, you will become like me. The choice is yours.”

On her way back, the paintings kept running on her mind. This was the moment she realised that she wanted to become a painter, not like her father but like Raja Ravi Varma. The details in his paintings were so realistic, she wanted to replicate the intricacies found in his paintings. 

Since then, Divyanjali has been taking painting classes. Her father somehow arranges for money to pay her fees. “My father says that he will eat at work and that I should eat at school. This way, we will be able to save more money so that I can learn more.” Her father is relieved because she gets to eat healthy food at school and he knows it for a fact that she will never complain about the food.

She lives by one rule that her mother had taught her at a very young age – “Never waste food and eat enough when you have the chance.” Divyanjali enjoys the food served to her at school but Theplas are her favourite.