Stage Fright Syndrome

How many times have you experienced your head spinning, legs shaking, tongue twisting, voice trembling, lips drying, ears deafening, mind baffled, eyes rolling upwards, the failed attempt to understand the senseless highly-stammered words which you utter yourself, everything going dark and finally blank? This happens quite often when you are asked by your prestigious teacher to present something in front of a whole lot people. At that “nazuk surat-e-haal”, you simply can’t help but ask for forgiveness from your Lord. This, my friends, is called “Stage Fright Syndrome”. And believe you me; the situation is even worse than Madam Firdous Aashiq Awaan holding a degree of medicine!

A wise man once said and I quote, “Sir Ghumay Chakkar Khaaye”.  I believe the quote was said for this very purpose and later used for Bollywood. The wise man must have had his say once before the thousands of couple of eyes. In fact it’s the “couple” of eyes which bothers me. The eyes looking at you from the top most strand of your hair to the lower most sole of you shoe with observation more minutely than a surgeon. And if the people with very eyes are asked to perform surgeries, they tend to forget their gloves WITHIN the patients. Talking of eyes reminds me of the dumb looks. If at all you succeed in overlooking the eyes, the dumbness is always there to welcome you. So even if you have the nerve to say something gallantly, the response shall pull you back on the earth. And suppose; literally SUPPOSE they are not dumb, the continuous winking always does well in raising your agony. The feeling at that time is worse than of a dejected Romeo, who keeps on waiting for Juliet the whole day; and “bijli” the whole night. That makes it fair enough for all.

The therapists say it is not hard to overcome it. Once you take a step towards the stage, forget the world behind you. Believe that your audience is nothing but a set of dummies who know nothing and you having the supreme knowledge of all. (I have to admit the sentence makes us all feel “HIS/HER HIGHNESS”). In short they want us to live in the world of pretentions. And here lies the problem. First they ask us to face the real world and when we do, they tell us not to. I would rather believe Raja sahib planting more power plants than this.

Recently, a medical cure to HIV AIDS was introduced by the scientists. And as far as we humans are progressing, one day they shall find the cure to this disease as well, caused by a hazardous parasite. So let’s keep our hopes high.

Written by: Komal Chaudhry