Patience

Like everyone else, I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing moments. But the incident that I’m about to narrate was so humiliating that I still cringe at the thought of it…

I always knew I could sing right from a very young age. However, I never had the confidence to sing in front of anyone so no one knew that I possessed this talent. However, after discovering Nirvana, around the 8 grade, my life completely changed as I finally started getting the confidence to perform in front of a crowd.

I also started teaching myself the guitar, which initially proved difficult. This was because I'm a lefty and I didn't have my own guitar. I was forced to play a regular right-handed guitar in a left-handed way, with the strings upside down; this meant I had to learn the chords also upside down. However, determination proved to be the key as I slowly but surely started getting better.

After the tenth grade, I moved to a different school and that proved to be a blessing as that place gave me several opportunities to showcase my talent. We had a sort of a class band and whenever there was an event, we would play covers. After playing a couple of songs (vocals and guitar) on two different occasions, I grew confident and soon a very big opportunity came my way.

The school was organising a bigass event called the Inter-Har (Harmony) fest. Around five schools were coming to participate in various events spread across a period of 6 days. A big welcome ceremony was being planned and three of my classmates and I were bestowed with the honour of playing a song on that day. All of us knew that this was an excellent opportunity for us to gain some popularity not only in our school but also in the ranks of the other participating schools.

We wanted to play a song that would leave a lasting impression in the hearts of all the people attending. So after a lot of discussions that resulted in many arguments and disagreements, we finally settled on the song “Patience” by Guns N' Roses. We agreed that I would be on lead vocals, with the other instruments consisting of two acoustic guitars and a bass. We started rehearsing the song almost a month in advance so that we could perform it flawlessly on the main day.

Our efforts bore excellent fruit as we sounded better and better with each passing day. Finally, with a couple of days to go, even our principal, Fr. Matthew was impressed with our rendition of the song. The only slight problem we faced while rehearsing, was with the intro, the whistling segment of the song. The mic had somehow not been able to properly capture the sound of my whistling. However, towards the end, the problem was resolved as I figured out that the trick was to cover the mic with a handkerchief.

The whole atmosphere of the school was buzzing with excitement as the dates of the fest neared, with my bandmates and I being doubly excited. Finally, the day of the fest arrived and the other participating schools made a grand entry (Kinda like Durmstrang and Beauxbatons in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). We were all checking out the girls of these schools, making sure we told them that they would be seeing us on stage very soon.

Everyone soon assembled in the main auditorium (a massive place that was easily able to accommodate our visitors, in addition to our whole school), where the opening ceremony was due to take place. We were already backstage as Fr. Matthew delivered the welcome speech and gave a brief explanation of the fest. He then introduced our group before retiring to his seat.

We felt like we were playing Wembley as we walked on stage accompanied by thunderous applause.

As we entered the stage, we were greeted with thunderous applause and this made me feel as though I was about to perform in Wembley stadium. There were millions of things going on in my head as we started setting up our instruments. Although I was excited, I was also feeling the nerves as I had never performed in front of such a big crowd. These feelings were compounded as I heard some students screaming my name from the audience. Nonetheless, I was confident that we would nail the song as we had rehearsed it like a million times.

Suddenly the auditorium fell silent as one of my bandmates started plucking the intro riff of Patience. My moment had come…I confidently gripped the mic and as I started the first melody of the whistle, I realised with horror that my mic was only picking up a signal that sounded like heavy breathing. What had gone wrong…? I had remembered to cover the mic with a handkerchief. I stole a glance at our soundman, Mr. Ekka, who also seemed to be desperately trying to adjust the tones of my mic. My mind was flooding with all sorts of negative emotions as I tried to figure out the problem but in the meantime, the song continued.

The whistling segment was completely and totally screwed and this had a massive effect on my confidence, which quickly plummeted. As I began to sing, I realised with another fresh dose of horror that my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I looked around for a microphone stand so that I could prop the mic on it and stow my hands somewhere but it was nowhere in sight. I had no choice but to continue on. A babble of laughter erupted from the crowd and this sapped the remaining bits of my confidence.

Unable to face the crowd, I turned my face in the opposite direction as I continued singing. The laughter transformed into jeers and this was the first time I experienced the phenomena of time dilation. After, what appeared like an agonisingly long time, the guitar solo segment of the song had finally come. During that time, I somewhat steadied myself in preparation for the final segment of the song.

The solo, which was played flawlessly, seemed to pass by in an instant and it was soon time for the final round of vocals. After blazing past it, I exited the stage as soon as the song ended, not waiting around too see the crowd’s reactions. The people backstage were all incapacitated with laughter.

I was so humiliated that I developed a fever and that allowed me to hide out in the infirmary for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the fever didn't last and I was soon forced to face everyone (including our visitors) as I was participating in a few events of the fest. However, thankfully those events went by smoothly without me making a further fool of myself.

I’d had to endure the humiliation for a solid two months before everyone got bored with that incident. That dreadful day haunted me for a long long time before I could move on. I have to thank my lucky stars that YouTube didn't exist back then.