The night before yesterday, when i was rehearsing for my first TED talk i happened to have burped on the mic and for a brief moment we all laughed. I even had to ask the person who was timing me to pause. It was midnight and my leg was hurting but i had to do at least one dry run before i could go on stage the next morning. This was my first outing since feb 2016. My parents had planned a lot about taking me to indore whenever i am allowed to travel the first time as my maasi and cousins family is there and we need to visit all the temples where all my elders have prayed for my well being. But, "hoth wahi jo ram rache rakha" ( i am not sure if i wrote that correctly but basically i wanted to sound intelligent)..basically my first trip happened to my birth place. Chennai. Last I was in chennai was back in my 10th grade in 2008 and then I had to make a switch to Goa. So I visited chennai after 10 years today. I immediately noticed the bright weird colour combinations on the walls. I think in India chennai introuduced wall graffiti and didn’t even realise they did. But i didn’t feel at home till i saw a lungi. Though i am a chennai born I just know a few bad words in Tamil because that’s all your classmates teach you when you are a north Indian. I had the best experience of my life giving this ted talk and specially because it was in Great Lakes Institute of management because everything from students to faculty to the director and maam were the most humble and intelligent people i had seen in a long time. They took care of the tiniest of things as i had a lot of food and cleanliness restrictions and requirements. The best part was that when I needed butter to have it with my medicine posaconazol, late at night, the directors wife Mrs Sudha Maam sent it from her house.
So then yesterday the talk happened. I was the first speaker and as soon as they told me that my reaction was “ab zehar bhi khila do”. I hadn’t heard my story out loud ever before. Not even during the trial run as I burped on the mic. The first time I heard my own story was on the main event, at the stage and I had tears in my eyes. I controlled myself just as I started to slur. I was overwhelmed. The very first time I left my 2 years of solitary confinement and I was on stage with a number of people wanting to hear me out. This happens in either the movies or in my life because my life works on “murphy’s law” but slightly modified for the better as I say it “anything that can happen will happen”
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