It was a noisy hall, but all I could hear
was the thud of my heart. The compere had just invited another dignitary to the
podium. A bald man wearing a black suit walked from the dais holding an
envelope in his hand and greeted the crowd with a smile. The chatter of the
audience did not reduce when the bald man said, “Here is the list of the 21
participants who have qualified for the national level contest in the
alphabetical order…”, but the darkness inside my head turned pitch black.
The theme was “Economic and digital”.
Participants had to make a presentation on how technology could be used for the
upliftment of the poor and development of the impoverished classes of society.
I did mine on “Distant Online Education” and spoke of how much easier, cheaper
and effective it would be to spread education using internet. Out of a hundred
and twenty participants from the state, only twenty one would qualify for the
national level contest. And right from the beginning I knew that I would be on
top of the list. But now that they were announcing the names in alphabetical
order, I expected Mohammed Irfan to be somewhere in the middle.
Dreams – they can literally choke you. On
one hand there is this hope of experiencing inexpressible joy, that can
overwhelm you. And on the other hand there is a terrorizing fear of losing what
you ventured upon.
Having your picture in the newspaper, to
have your name called out in the school assembly, to see your parents show off
your achievements in front of a relative… For a tenth grader, these could be his
wildest dreams. And as I awaited the results, I knew that those dreams were
just seconds away from being real. I could almost feel my finger touch that
moment – the moment that I had nurtured in my heart for 4 long months, the
moment that I had dreamed of every night in the past 16 weeks – it was just
seconds away.
And as the bald man called out names, the
other side of dreams grabbed hold of me – heart wrenching fear. 4 months of
hard-work and hopes and aspirations and expectation would be flushed out if my
name was not read by him. No amount of confidence in the world could suppress
that fear, or even diminish it.
“LOKESH P. NAIR”, he announced. The next
letter was ‘M’. I could feel my chest compress, my breath falter, each second
seemed like forever. Two sided monster – Dream. I dreaded every passing second,
did not want time to move at all. But I couldn’t wait for my name to be
announced, it might be next! I rubbed my hands restlessly and the bald man
announced, “MAHESH SRIDHAR”.
There cannot be too many names with ‘M’.
The next had to be Mohammed. This is it! Here is comes. Speakers screamed,
“MOHAMMED NIZAM…”
I – J – K – L – M – N… Alas! ‘N’ did come
after ‘I’. Now there was no way ‘Irfan’ would be read out. It was over…
At that moment I was able to console
myself. But peace didn’t last long and within one second frustration took
complete control. “BLOODY BLUNDALEOMITE – WHAT COULD BE WRONG?” Anger was
pumped into every cell of my body. Tears gushed out of my eyes. I clenched my
wrists and pressed them on my face. “MRIDHULA D. JOSEPH”
I couldn’t imagine one flaw in the project.
There was no way I couldn’t win. It was perfect… except… Except one spelling
mistake that I clearly recall… Could that be the reason I lost? I had misspelt
my name. ‘Mohammed’ was written as ‘Muhammed’…. Wait a minute… R – S – T – U…
The speaker announce the next name, “MUHAMMED IRFAN”
There was another moment of peace. One
moment of silence. One moment that passed on like any other, just one. The very
next second I exploded joy. Fears vanished, victory achieved and dreams come
true… I ran out of the auditorium and simply could not stop shouting. Wrestling
away friends who slapped my back, I screamed!
