My Little Princess Gajja Pooja

About this book

One week. One family. And a seven-year-old girl who decided she could do both.

Manu has been learning Kuchipudi for six months when the call comes: the great master has given dates for her Gajja Pooja — the ceremony where a young dancer ties on her ankle bells for the first time. The date falls on the night before her final maths exam.

What follows is a small, true story of a large Indian family closing ranks around one child: a mother who keeps the house breathing, a grandfather who drives four hours through traffic he hates, a grandmother whose hands know exactly where to go, an uncle watching from a phone screen on the other side of the world, and a five-year-old brother who insists that two plus two is fish. There is a fever. There is a makeup man stuck in traffic. There is a maths paper waiting on the other side of the night.

Told by her father, in the days as they happened, My Little Princess is about the moment a parent stops carrying a child and starts watching her stand on her own — and about the people, near and far, who make sure she never does it alone.

A tender, funny, quietly unforgettable memoir of childhood, classical dance and family love in modern Hyderabad. Written by her father. For her.