One Boo and a Boom!

At the last Caferati meet on last Saturday the 20th of September 2008 at Oxford Book Store, we were booed. Yes, booed and snubbed. Good and proper, and we deserved it. Well, we went prepared but not prepared enough. We tried singing a poem we had written, and being the choral singer that we were, till not long ago, we were confident that we could perform it. And, we rehearsed it at home and it went all right, the pitch was right, the beginning which were a bit queasy about, was also right. But when we rose and walked to perform it, all music left us, stage fright possessed us and we started shaking. Oh, misery!

The women in the audience immediately started bitching, as they are wont to. “You were supposed to sing it,” “we are disappointed,” “this word and this word don’t rhyme,” etc.

The next day we had two events to attend. One was the traditional “Onasadya” at the nearby Kairali cultural association, and after that was the confirmation of the children of our church in Sanpada. The Onasadya had the usual Malayalis of CBD Belapur congregating to eat Avial, Sambhar, Thoran, Upperi, Pappadam, Sharkarapuratti, Erisseri, Pulisseri, Payasam in the traditional Kerala cuisine at the Kairali building in our locality. There were rangolis prepared from flower petals, for which we were the judge. Ah, being a judge gives us such pleasure.

At the confirmation function we were given the responsibility of saying the intercessionary prayers, quite a big responsibility. Around 200 people had turned up with our Bishop doing the honors; and the galleries were full of parishioners and their relatives. It was after a long time that we were facing such a large audience and with a large audience a lot of things can go wrong, a lot.

We were a bit apprehensive, what with the memory of the booing fresh in our minds. Anxious moments were spent fidgeting as worshipping service progressed. But all went well; we were able to throw our voice, pace ourselves, and “boom” it clicked with the audience.

So it was “boo” on Saturday and “boom” on Sunday, in quick succession, in quick juxtaposition-ing of events, and confidence was restored in us, and our ability to perform before an audience, well, sort of, hmm.