She is one of the two children from the Brain Gym Learning Centre, Kondhwa to become champions in the competition held at Shiv Chhatrapati Sports City on February 15 the other being six-year-old Kirti Agarwal, who won the pre-school contest AMAL. The centre had 31 winners in different categories.

“She never sought any help from me. She enjoyed practicing it; preparing for abacus was never a burden for her. I feel her confidence level has increased a lot,” says Parveen Shivani, mother of Muskan, who was also the national champion for 2008 competition.

Muskan had given 72 right answers while Kirti gave 53 right answers in five minutes for the 125 questions asked.

“We never had to force her to do the Abacus home works. She loves doing it,” says Manoj Agarwal, Kirti’s father.

“Abacus is not just about maths. It’s about developing analysis power and building confidence. We don’t have a typical classroom atmosphere here. A lot of overall improvement could be seen in a child after some classes,” says Clifford Paul, head of Brain Gym Learning Centre.

Muskan is a class two student of Vibgyor High International school while Kirti is a 1 st standard student of Hutchings High School.

“I feel on top of the world, it wasn’t a surprise for me though. Both of them were confident and prepared well,” says Muneera Dalal, teacher of both the children at the centre.