Like all mallus stationed outside Kerala, we - all mallus from our apartment - too decided to celebrate it on a weekend instead of the actual Thiruvonam day! And, as any Onam, our celebrations too had to have couple of basic items - one traditional dance form, some songs to go with the theme & a skit/drama - if not more.
A couple of Mommy friends & myself had signed up for these programs. It all started as a fun thing. But the day before the celebrations, all of us went into a panic attack. The last time I felt the same was before my university exams! Two nights before the exams, all of us would be frantically ringing each other to check out what all are the important points to be revised, what all can be completely skipped, which all modules have been completed by who all, etc etc. This time the phone calls included - did you buy the bangles for the dance, what kind of necklace should we be wearing, who will buy the flowers, are all your costumes ready.
Amongst this confusion, someone mentioned their teenage story on stage fright - her mouth dried up, she went completely blank & fainted. Since none of us had been on stage or had felt the pressure of being judged for a long time, we were all having second thoughts - were we right in signing up? The practise sessions were fine, but getting on stage? That too, when the audience were friends & family... oh! ooo! not a good thought. And now its too late to drop out!
In any case, everything went fine. Though we could feel our mouth going dry, nobody fainted. Just like in exams, after the first five minutes of 'stiffness', all the answers came in automatically from somewhere deep within. In this case, we started dancing a few seconds into the music :) Of course, there were glitches. We have no clue on how the audience felt about the program, but we definitely felt happy after the performance! In fact, we are all looking forward to the next event to get on stage again :)
