"No Fictional Characters. Narration of actual incidents as happened"
Everyone wants to be famous in their college, we too wanted to be same. It was time for our MVGR College of Engineering "Annual day" and it was a chance for us to become famous. We formed a dance group to perform on the stage with friends from multiple branches. Raghu (IT), Sagar (Electrical), Pavan (Chemical), Myself, Naveen, Karun, Kiran (Mechanical). Raghu was our dance choreographer. We were well known for our dances in our respective branches during Freshers party, departmental functions, but it was confined only to our branch. This is the time to show our talent to whole college.
Chose the songs for our medley with "Koditey Kottali Ra (Tagore), Thakadimi thom (Arya), Naraazu (Johnny), Larger than life (Backstory Boys)". Raghu completed the choreography and we started practising it. By the time we achieved perfection, lecturers started selecting groups for performing on the main event. Though they didn't had any apprehensions on our performance, they wanted to see how it has shaped up. We did the audition and staff were pretty happy with our group and the energy we pumped in. We were excited with the response and were anxiously waiting for the main event to see similar response from our friends.
Finally, the big day has arrived. After few performances, it was our turn to explode. Black pants and White Shirts was our attire for performance. Midst of huge roars from the whole college, we entered the stage. Just after the 1st song of medley started, audio got struck suddenly. We were amused, thought it was a minor glitch. Checked the CD player, re-winded it and played it from 1st again. CD got struck again and this time it looked embarrassing for us. Meanwhile, we started hearing boos from audience. As there are many performances lined up, staff asked us to recheck and get another CD later, meanwhile other performances will continue. We were shell shocked with what happened. Raghu was damn furious with it. However we couldn't let this opportunity out of our hands. We got the medley copied on another CD, rechecked multiple times and then went to stage after sometime. Our morale was already a bit down but wanted to set everything right. This time the medley played properly with minor hickups, but we couldn't perform to the level we prepared. Beauty for a group dance is sync between all and that was missing and I was to be blamed for not following the beat properly, might be due to less sound or disruptionss in between. We have completed our performance for namesake but we ourselves knew this is not what we were supposed to deliver or our stamina.
From next day, everything is normal again, college, classes, friends, etc but it took sometime for us to come out of what has happened. Not sure we would get another chance to prove ourselves. After few months, one fine day morning at 8:45 AM, got call from Raghu to meet urgently. When i went to meet him, remaining group members were already there. News is that there is dance competition in Raghu college that day, which is just few Kms away from ours. Everyone wanted to participate in it desperately, thought this could be our second chance. Pavan couldn't come due to some mandatory class / lab.
We came on casual dress to college as usual, not dreaming of going to a dance competition. When going to some other college for competition, our attire should compliment the group dance. Since Naveen's house is near to college, all of us went to his house. His love for black colour saved us that day. He had 4-5 black shirts, T Shirts with him and as we were all of same size and shape, those shirts perfectly suited for us. Everyone's shirt turned black now, though trousers remained different. Just practised the dance to recollect once and went for the competition.
By the time we reached Raghu college some performances were already underway. Again among huge roars, we entered the stage. It was just like replay for us. Just as "Koditey Kottali Ra" from Tagore started, the cheers were so loud that we couldn't actually hear the music for few seconds, Thanks to Megastar for setting the platform right. From thereon, it was a flawless performance. Not a beat missed, perfect sync, huge cheers. The crowd was with for entire 5 minutes of performance, cheering and charging us. Except for few friends in Raghu college like Kishore, Lokesh, Soujanya, I didn't knew many of them there. But the response we got after coming down from stage was once in a lifetime. We knew none, but everyone was shaking hands with us, clapping for us, appreciating us, "Wow, What a High". An epic heal for the injury we had in our college. While we couldn't get the applause in our college, we were lifted to sky in another college.
It was not just a second chance but also our best chance. The performance was recorded in a video and handed over to us later. We were also informed that we won the competition. That video was kept in YouTube and till date we were able to share it with our family, kids, friends, relatives and cherish it. Also all our friends in college who couldn't witness the uninterrupted version were able to see it now. Mission Accomplished!
If you have put your 100% efforts and if you fully deserve it, life would always give you a second chance. Remember it's not just second chance, it is your best chance, better than first. Whatever the case may be, job, education, love, friendship, match, deal, etc. You would get a second chance. Just be prepared to grab it with open hands.
Myself,
D E C Narayanan
https://youtu.be/3quY8ytEg5I
