Facing Fear

My head aches a lot while I’m at university, I’ve realised. Maybe it’s a combination of bad food habits, sleep schedule mess-ups, academic stress and a thousand other things I let bother me and ruin my mental health and physical health. IN fact, even today, I was assaulted with a kind of banging pain and I could not fall asleep either because it felt like my head was dislocating and I could not do anything about it at all. That is not a very nice state of being, but then that’s exactly how it was. So when I collapsed into a weird position on the bed, sideways, hair blocking the light because it hurt my eyes, I was just hit with this uncomfortable feeling of my head being disjointed from my body.

I performed at the open mic today and I was so scared of it, so much so that I started panicking and I cried. When my friend called me to check on me, I had been crying and I felt so embarrassed to pick up the call but I had to because I knew she was checking on me to ask when I would come for the open mic (which I had signed up for in the first place). Long story short, I did not want to show my moment of weakness to the whole world. Well, I ended up showing quite a lot of weakness when I freaked out quite a lot and I also don’t think it was that good a performance, but I think that’s alright. They don’t know me, the people in the audience and the people who do matter know me well enough to know that I can probably sing better. And even if they don’t I don’t think I should really let that colour my considerations. That said, I was glad I sang nonetheless, even though I felt it was quite a bit of a waste of time. It is done and dealt with, I am facing my fears as bravely as I can and that matters enough, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Singing Shows and Wishes

Image source: Screenshot taken of a scene from Super Singer Season 5, from Hotstar.

The picture is from one of the most popular singing TV shows on Tamil TV channels. It is a singing show called Super Singer and I watched it with a passion ever since I knew about it. It had two versions, Super Singer and Super Singer Junior (for kids aged below 14). Eminent singers were brought on the show as judges, along with many famous music directors, actors and other famous personalities. The show was the epitome of bling and wonder, each of the participants never ceasing to wonder and awe the wildly appreciative audience (me included).

There were or rather, are many such shows on TV these days. Across languages, across age groups, crossing and overcoming the barriers of music from belonging to just an elite group to something that could be opened to the public. The promise of the stage and the fame obviously drew many people and their aspirations to the crowded city auditions, zonal auditions, etc. And what a crowd it was, line after line of people, all eager to meet the famous judges, to get a chance to sing in front of them and get their few minutes of TV time.

I was also one of the people very taken with the bling and the promise of the stage. I, a child, one who had always wanted to train in music but never got the opportunity to. I keep on telling myself that I never learnt music. What for? I do not know. Maybe it is my way of reassuring myself that whatever I sing right now comes from my own persistence and will and not because I ‘learnt’ it from someone in the traditional sense. There is a sense of pride in being self-taught after all. Or maybe it is because that I have grown to derive comfort from feeling sorry for myself, like the attention seeking little girl that I am. But I guess, I will never know the answers to those questions.

Each of those aspiring ‘singers’ get the chance to be on TV, get to sing in front of great and famous judges while being promised a chance to sing with them someday and so on. Add in the PR tactics, promos to increase TRP and every other manipulative trick used to increase viewers and gather support. After all, people run the entertainment industry. And I also wanted that chance, I wanted the chance to get to sing there too. In my mind though, I told myself that I wasn’t good enough and that I will not be able to sing half as good as those on TV. After all, they all got a voice coach who would work with them and help them build and develop their singing. Somehow, my brain only saw myself as being alone against what I believed to be an unfair competition.

But my parents were busy, working doctors who could not spare the time to take me to these auditions. I never nagged them about it much too because I was far too afraid of the stage, why I even wanted to get there in the first place, I do not know. I never got the chance to get there. Add to it, the fact that there was this girl in my school who I was jealous of. Her father was a famous musician and she was always the one and only person who sang in every school event. My school never had an official music team, it was understood (unsaid) that she ran the show. This girl got the chance to go on these shows and I used to spend my evenings watching her on TV, extremely jealous but still fascinated and slightly rueful.

I recall, with shame, the time when I was delighted because she got eliminated in a round. I felt that she had got in the first place without deserving it. I will not try to justify myself because I know it is not justified. Whatever I thought, I thought out of spite. A spite, I desperately hope, will never show in this (hopefully) grownup me. And it is difficult, especially when you feel you have been wronged by someone who goes on to become ‘successful’. She is currently in the 6th season of the singing show and to my (surprising) delight, she is doing pretty well. I still have grudges toward her but I think I have grown enough to appreciate that she does sing well. Well, she was trained, you see. And I guess, somewhere, I still feel rueful for not getting the chance to learn to sing or not having the opportunity to sing on that stage. I am still terrified of the stage, but a wish does defy logic many times. And I guess, just because it is not logical or exactly realistic, I shouldn’t stop wishing right?

And that’s my memory for the day.