On the 19^th of October, the world woke up to discover that the little kid from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai wasn’t so little anymore. Not just her, even the cheeky baby Bink from Baby’s Day Out has now grown up into an athletic 19 year old with those mesmerizing blue eyes intact. Bidding adieu to their pigtails and freckles, these actors have blossomed and how! Have a look at the transformation the years have made to some of our favourite kid stars:

Sana Saeed

Then: There are few things in life that we can declare with such certainty and this is one of those: When it comes to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, neither Rani Mukherjee nor Kajol can hold a candle in front of this adorable 8 year old with her multi coloured hair bands and bobbing ponytails and that special way of saying Miss Anjali. Sana Saeed’s superpowers include making her hunk of a dad come rushing to her side with just a sneeze and winning over the heart of her daddy’s estranged BFF with just a tilt of her head. In fact, word has it that Cupid is secretly taking extra tuitions from her on how to fix two people up!

Now: Cut to 2012 and the tiny Anjali Khanna has been replaced with Tanya, a peppy cheerleader who plays the dumb blonde to perfection. Sure, she stumbled along the way, experimented with a couple of daily soaps, (one of which saw her playing a wheelchair bound invalid) and finally found her calling as the blonde extraordinaire in Karan Johar’s Student Of The Year. Standing with her pompoms held high next to Alia Bhatt, (who spent the entire movie practising her two favourite expressions: blank and blanker) Sana sure blew away every last one of her critics!

Macaulay Culkin

Then: Meet Kevin McCallister, the average kid next door, who does everything that kids of his age do: attends school, sings in the Church choir and gets bullied by his elder brother. Oh, and his favourite hobbies include putting the fear of God into rowdy burglars. Accidentally left behind on Christmas, Macaulay makes the most of his parents’ absence by turning the whole house into a booby trap and gleefully roasting, tarring and scalding a pair of burglars who dare to set foot in his house.

Now:  Even though Home Alone went on to spawn many more sequels, Macaulay Culkin was wise enough to leave when the going was good; he smartly opted out of the series after the second instalment. After hosting Saturday Night Live at the wee age of eleven, Macaulay moved on to star in Richie Rich and Getting Even With Dad as well as making an appearance in Michael Jackson’s video Black or White.  And lest we forget, he recently starred in The Wrong Ferrari, a movie shot entirely from an iPhone! Does anyone else have a complex yet?

Parzaan Dastur

Then: Name does not ring a bell? Stretch your memory back to the 90s; a kid sulking adorably at the train station even as his parents try to bribe him with jalebis. Now flash forward to 1998 – At an age when most of us were figuring out the intricacies of a for apple and b for ball, Parzaan was stealing hearts left, right and centre with his silent sardarji act at Camp Sunshine.

Now:  Fourteen years have passed and Parzaan has done a lot of growing up since. The 19 year old now pursues business management even as he experiments with films and tries his hand at composing music. Last seen in 2009’s critically acclaimed Sikandar, Parzaan looks back at his kiddie beginnings with a grin, “I laugh because it brings back happy memories. I still remember those 20 days in Ooty with Shah Rukh and Kajol — both are great actors and human beings.”

And yet, no matter how much they’ve grown up and matured, the kiddie gleam is still there in their eyes. So this Children’s Day, awaken your childish side; wear a clown hat to work, watch some reruns of Small Wonder and challenge your friends to a round of Monopoly.

Here’s to keeping the kid inside us alive forever!