When I was in class XI, my best friend wrote a skit that we were supposed to act together on teacher’s day i.e. 5th Sep 2001. Since it was written by my best friend so I had to be the part of it. And yes, it was the first time when I had to act. So, of approx. 15 minutes skit my dialogues were of 4 lines only. And all I was full of fear. Fear of delivering those 4 lines in front of the whole school. Then something happened, the dialogues were reduced from 4 lines to 2 lines. Again I was full of fear. Further it got reduced to 1 line that too in group. Yet again I was full of fear. When the time came to deliver (remember in group) my heart pumped out loud in fear.

For a second time in February 2002, we had thought to prepare a skit for our class XII seniors as farewell. This time I was supposed to write the dialogues for my role as well. At the time of act, this time though I was able to speak my lines yet I could not look to the audience. And bingo…
It was FEAR!! Stage Fear!!

The year I joined my Engineering college, the first year decided to perform a skit on Engineer’s day – 15th Sep 2003. During the ragging (those were really fun days), they found out my talent to act. So I and my friend sat together with the skit she had written where we discussed about my role. We practiced as a team for the skit numerous times in the hostel where full hostel was our live audience. Our regular practice in front of all gave me a lot of confidence. Just before the performance, all had some stage fear inside but here I was “Yaar darr hi nahi lag rha aaj” (I had
no fear). And finally I rocked the stage with my dialogues and confidence.

This was how I finally learnt “Practice makes one perfect”.

The take away from this experience was always confront your fears. Whatever you fear conquer
it with your actions, consistent actions.