once in a youth festival time

That was my 5^th standard youth festival time.All my classmates were busy deciding the items for participation. Most of them cancelled their selected items due to practical difficulties like practicing and performing.Finally 2 group songs were left from our class in youth festival competition. I wished to enter in any of the 2 groups but they didn’t add me as the groups were already filled. So I decided to form a new group.

 I approached merlin baby,one of my classmate who had shown a motherly affection on me for help. She said she would arrange a song and promised me that she would write the lyrics and hand over to me the very next day. I felt so much happy and thanked her many times and I formed a group of my own with the remaining students who wished to sing like me. We wished to sing , not have any qualification that a singer should posses. We wished that’s it. I gave the name of participants and participating item to the teacher. She asked me ‘who is the leader?’ I said i am with a great pride. So one more group –chinchu susan thomas and party were formed from our class. One more chinchu was there. She was also a leader of another group. So the teacher wrote my full name to avoid judge’s confusion. 

Merlin baby handed over the lyrics and cassette. I learned the song from home and taught my team members. I don’t actually remember who were all my team members. 2 other members inaddition to me had good voice. 

The youth festival day had come. We were ready on the back stage and was listening to chinchu anand’s group performance on stage. That was an excellent performance,they could be the team who won the prize. I felt like fainting and loosing my power. My legs were shivering.my body heat went down. When my name was called for the next performance I lost my vision too. When we moved on to the stage chinchu anand said an all the best.I smiled at her with all the confidence of a singer but my heart beat was countless. I felt thirsty.Nothing could have be done other than singing. We positioned as I told them before. I was standing at the center. The mike was closer to me. We started the song.during the 2^nd half I felt some difficult in singing. My throat became dry. My sound was heard like a disturbing unpleasent noise. We finished it anyway. 

 I saw chinchu anand standing at the back stage. I asked her about our performance. She said it was good but from the 2^nd half portion I heard a noisy sound’. I said ‘ really who was that?,I havent heard such noise’. She said she couldn’t identify the person with a dry voice. I became happy. My wish had succeeded and I decided not to participate in a group song anymore guided by me.

 From next year onwards chinchu anand added me too in her group by god's grace. She never known the fact that it was  my voice that created a disturbance  on stage performance. We were together for national anthem competion too. We got prizes because of her and I got the idea to stop singing when my voice become dry later on and I did moking only. I  kept this  as a secret of my own for years till now.

 My life as a singer ended when my classmate arathi bhargavan’s father,a music teacher made a voice test for all the participants who were going to sing in district level. He did voice test twice on me. He told me that my voice is not good for singing and he said I had pitch problems too. He threw me away.

 When I came back to my class my friends asked me why did you come back from song practice?’. I said I am dispalced. My friends got angry and asked me again ‘how could you displaced?You were also there when your team won the youth festival prize , weren't you?Why they avoided you in next level?’. I said ‘that man was so cruel and he added some other girl instead of me  to hide my pitch problem from my friends. That was the end to my desire of singing. When my friends were talking about doing some tricky play on arathi bhargavan,I was thinking about the next area where i could show my talents. 

first day outside the class

That was my 1^st day in 6^th standard.I was in a happy mood for meeting friends after a 2 months gap.I was wearing a new frock which my big mummy bought from usa,a black coloured with a small white design throughout , with a wide neck and 2 knots on both side of the frock to tighten the dress.When we met,we talked about the letter which meera posted us during the vacation time.She posted the letter to me,keerthy and remya.That was the 1st personal letter we were receiving  so were in an exciting mood to discuss about that letter.During that conversation meera asked me ‘where did you buy the dress?’.I told her about the 2 trolly full of dresses that  big mummy bought fo me.She was wondering and told in general-‘God always gives new dresses to those who have many and not giving to me like poor people.I felt a little uneasy and i prayed him in mind’God please don’t listen to her,give me again’.

We were standing outside.We saw a teacher coming targetting to our class.The last bell to enter the class rang.We entered quickly and i seated at the 1^st side bench.Keerthy was sitting next to me.Meera got into the 2^nd last bench with remya.We didn’t get the time to arrange the space to sit together.The teacher entered the class-‘Good morning teacher’ the whole class wished her.The bell rang for prayer.After the prayer she took the attendance and we were told to keep quiet.Then she started talking about the curriculum we were going to cover that year.She introduced herself as our new malayalam teacher.She was good looking,fair with long hair.Her voice was too noticable that it was so blared.I saw a dark line at the middle of her nose like a boundary line that seperates the wider and thinner part.While i was thinking about how that line formed at the middle of her nose,i noticed her left eye blinking.I told this to keerthy.We together started staring to her eyes.When she walked towards the side bench facing us,we saw her left eye closing while her right eye was looking us.That was the symbol of love for school students.We laughed hiding our mouth portion.The teacher saw us laughing even we covered our mouth portion with hands.she told us to stop laughing.That teacher didn’t like me.She looked at me each time with a dissatisfaction.She might have understood that we were whispering about her.She got seated , asked the class to keep silent and she enterd into some work.I tried to imitate her voice with a purposeful left eye blink.Friends seated near to me laughed ,a sort of satisfaction was there on my face that everybody liked my performance.Teacher looked at our area from where the disturbance was occuring.Without thinking much she told me to stand facing the whole class.Everyone stopped laughing.I got out from my bench and stood infront of the class.Teacher commented on me”Did your parents drop you here due to your disturbance at home?”.Hmm i stood silently.I looked at meera’s bench since i heard a sound from that side.I saw meera’s effort to stop her laughing.She filled her mouth with her handkerchief to control her laugh not to be heard by the teacher while looking at me.Meera liked teacher’s comment on me.A sudden smile came to my face while seeing this.I bent my head.Teacher saw me smiling again.She stared at me from bottom to top and commented’sheesh what a dress’in a funny tone.A loud laugh heard in the class then.That was meera.She lost her control.Her handkerchief jumped out from her mouth,a non stop laughter.Even she was caught she continued laughing as if she was out of control without listening to teacher or the surroundings.Teacher told her to stand outside the class.While standing outside she looked at me,we both passed eachother a soundless laugh with love.