The D Day

"The D Day", so commonly used phrase nowadays. But hardly any day can be considered as D Day, that was my thinking uptil now.

I was wrong, its better to call few days as D-Days in your life. You will get few of those in your life no matter if you want them. Few days back was the D-Day for indian cricket team, the only chance to revive in the world cup 07 and they missed it! Anyway if I start talking about cricket...I will go on and on and on and there will be no end to this universe. So lets just stop it!

Acting...sounds easy aint it? That was my impression when I first went to auditions for the play. getting through the audition rounds was just the taste of what it was going to be later on. But I decided to go for it. It seemed easy...thought all one has to do is, remember his/her dialogues, have some face expressions and deliver. Well I was totally wrong. Everytime I went for rehearsals, the same dialogues over and over made me think, No matter how differently you try, everything was always the same, you are never right! It seemed like there was no end to this. Director's notes and harsh comments conveying exactly how bad your acting was, were like just icing on the cake. Thought that this was getting into my nerves. Then there was a light!...Everything started to fall in place, everything started looking great we were having fun.

The day of the final dress rehearsal at the theatre, I went into the audience seat, looked at the stage...reminded me of the Tilak Smarak, the center stage in Pune almost as good if not better than the Broadway theatre in NY. That was overwhelming...Gosh everything seemed like fun until now...but I realized this is some serious shit. If I dont do this right in my first try..its gonna end in hell. Reminded me of the phrase D-Day. Well may be I can use it here.

Imagine 750 people staring at you....and you are dumbfounded! An amateur actor like me....made them waste their 15 bucks (Dollars mind you not Rupees). Yes imagine how those people would have thought. Let me help you imagine, it will be something like..."I cant believe we paid to see some stupified crack like him on the stage mumbling the words even my pet dog could have expressed better!" That thought rushed through my mind only for a moment when I stood up to deliver my first dialogue facing the crowd. But then there was the first laugh...someone from the third row on my right side actually laughed and the rest followed at my so called funny shayari! What it turned into was a laugh similar to one in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge. That was it! I felt like I was on top of the world. And everything that followed was easier than I thought if not exactly a cakewalk.

It was over....Did I conquer it? Did I rock? Did I at least impress anyone? Did I not screw up? I dont know. Your friends are always encouraging...but do they really feel so? I dont know. All I know is...I had fun!

I look back...was it really the D-Day?...NO!

-Manish