If beauty is skin deep, then how deep is Intellect !!! ;) ;)
Time passes so quickly. I didn’t even realize when my first year of engineering was over and soon I started with my second year. It was the first lecture of the 3rd sem. 3 more students had joined our course after completing their diploma in engineering. I was sitting in the last row. After about 15 minutes since the lecture started, there was a knock on the door. Someone in a sweet voice said, ‘may I come in sir?’ The professor, ignoring the sweet voice gave her a stern look and said in a disgusted manner, ‘It’s your wish’. She came in and sat for the lecture. The two diploma engineers were Abhilash and Nilesh, and she was the third one.
Ms. Valarmathi Pazhaniappan. I fell for her at the very moment I saw her. She was wearing a pink salwar kameez. Her hair was long and curly. As per what I had heard about her from others that she was very clever and smart. It didn’t take her much time to gain publicity in our college. She even became the General Secretary of the college. I somehow could feel the vibes that even she liked me, but I was too shy to go and talk to her. I also feared that she would ignore or insult me in front of everybody, so I used to avoid talking to her.
But one day she came and complimented me for an answer which I gave in the class during the lecture. I felt joyous and decided to talk to her more often. I wanted to impress her. But unlike her, I didn’t have good leadership qualities, confidence and fluency of language. Still to attract her attention, I participated in our college’s (Xavier’s Institute of Engineering) annual festival, ‘Spandan’.
Our 3rd Semester went off well with college tech fest and without any KTs. ;) The annual college fest ‘Spandan’ was about to begin in the month of January. I was a bit apprehensive about participating in it as till date I had never volunteered for any of the college fest. But this time I had a much stronger purpose to participate and it made me forget all my qualms. I registered my name for two events – singing and mono-acting.
Valarmathi was the general secretary of the event. So I used to go to help her during free lectures. We used to have coffee in our college canteen and discuss about the event. Soon the event date arrived and I was all set to impress everybody with my singing and mono-acting. After the opening ceremony the first event was singing.
I stayed in Marol and my college was at Mahim. On the day of the event I got a lot of traffic on my way to college, because of which I was late by 30 minutes. As soon as I reached the place of event, I got to know that my name was being announced and it was my turn to perform. I was stupefied but I had to do it. I went on to the stage and held the mike in my hand and after taking a deep breath I started singing my song, ‘Tu hi re, Tu hi re, Tere bina mein kaise jiu…..’. It was a bilingual comprising of the 1st two stanzas in Hindi and the last stanza in Tamil! I had planned a bit too much. I failed to put up a great show and thus I felt embarrassed in front of all because I couldn’t sing well and more so because I spoiled my impression in front of Valarmathi. I came home disheartened.
I had my mono-act skit the very next day but I decided to give it a pass. My friend Rohan, called me in the morning and persuaded and motivated me to come to college for the event and so again I gathered courage and went to college.
I reached college well in time and was busy preparing for the skit when Valarmathi came to see me. She greeted me and said that even though I was not able to sing well yesterday, she believed that I would perform well today. After saying this, she left. I was so very motivated and encouraged. My role was from the Tamil movie- Anniyan. The climax part of this movie was very intense and so I chose to do it. I had seen the Tamil version but did not have the courage of seeing its dubbed Hindi version as it was completely out of sync of its original script. I had watched this climax scene on youtube a hundred times in which Prakash Raj – the cop, mercilessly beats and tortures Ambi (Vikram)- the lawyer. I had rehearsed for this scene umpteen numbers of times. While I was on stage, I gave full justice to the role by performing nicely. Everyone was impressed. There was lots of applause all over. And finally I landed up getting the first prize for that event. I thought this was enough to impress my dream girl but fate had something better in store for me.
I discovered that my nervousness was affecting my singing skills but not my acting skills. On the third day during the event there were some ‘fillers’ required in the entertainment section. I was approached by the event committee to be a part of the small skit organized by them for one such filler. I readily agreed. I got to do the role of Jamal Malik from Slumdog Millionaire, wherein he falls into a pit, comes out of it running to take an autograph of his superstar, Amitabh Bacchhan. Here I was supposed to wear boxer shorts and come running from behind the audience, through the aisle in between, towards our college’s director, Father Reggie, take his autograph and come on the stage. I gave my 100% to the role and again I gotapplauded for my act. On the fourth day, we had traditional day. I was wearing a pure white Kerala Dhoti (mundu) and a deep blue formal shirt as if I was impersonating some Kollywood Star!!!. All other boys were wearing kurta pyjamas and girls were wearing saris. Jenefa ma’am saw me and she was in awe. She praised me and then prodded me to participate in the ‘Persona’ event. She forced me to register for it. All the participants were given a set of questions to be answered and the panelists shot some questionsto me. I answered all of them with sufficient level of confidence. And eventually I got shortlisted along-with 11 other members. The event was scheduled in the next week.
On the day of the final event i.e. the Persona event, there were three rounds scheduled. The first being the ramp walk, second-the talent round and the third one was the QnA round. People were busy with their friends, chatting, having dinner etc. The persona event started at around 11 in the night. The first round started with all the shortlisted candidates walking the ramp. I was contestant number 12. Everybody had to walk in pairs so I and Swati(contestant 11), another shortlisted candidate walked together. All the contestants ,on turning back from the end of the ramp, did some fascinating moves.So, I decided even I should do something. As I was popularly called as ‘Anna’ in the college(there were’nt as many South Indians in Xaviers as much in SIES!!!), I decided to do the trademark Rajini salute! We got good backing from the crowd. Then the talent round started. I did the same mono-act which I had done one week before and won a prize. Swati did a news reporter’s act, others did singing, played guitar,rapping,drums, etc. In the third round i.e. the QnA round, everybody was asked the same question, ‘what would you like to be in life and why?’ Everybody gave different answers; some said they wanted to be singers, doctors, scientist, engineer, astronaut, etc. I said I wanted to be a Director of a film. So Father Reggie asked me the reason, I said, ‘a Director is the captain of the ship. I am a big fan of Director Shankar because he makes movies on relevant social issues, revolutionaries and make a change in the world. So I want to become like him.’ Everybody gave a huge applause. I felt better.
Now it was time for the results to be declared. Father Reggie came on the stage and announced Ms. Swati Nair as Ms. Xavier’s. Then he said that there was a tie in Mr. Xavier’s. To my amazement, he took my name and of another guy named Francis. He was one year junior to me. I felt even more encouraged to do well and win the trophy. The tie breaker question was asked by Father Reggie to both of us- “If beauty is skin deep, then how deep is intellect?” Francis went first; he used some big jargons like beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder etc. All his friends applaused him! Then came my turn, I went on to the stage. There were more than a 1000 eye-balls eagerly gazing at me.I was so tensed that I went blank. Nothing at all came to my mind. Infact, I had to ask the judge to repeat the question.After taking a few deep breaths, I answered, “If beauty is skin deep, then intellect is tissue deep.” Everybody seemed confused as was Father Reggie. He asked me to explain it further. So I continued, “Since I come from a science background, as per my knowledge, tissue lies beneath the skin and I say that beauty is skin deep but intellect in even deeper than it. Thus, my priority would be intellect over beauty”… I again got huge applause for my ‘out of the box’ answer.
Now Father Reggie threw an open challenge at us. He said that whoever woos Ms. Xavier’s in a better way will become Mr. Xavier’s. This time I was made to go first. And to my bad luck I didn’t know the meaning of woo, so I went and stood beside her. Then I thought it might be that I have to propose her or something like that. So I went near her,just put my hand on her shoulder as a friendly gesture, but she backed off and said ‘dnt touch me’. Again she took the mike in her hand and screamed ‘dnt touch me’. I wondered,why did she scream the 2nd time! But that didn’t discourage me. I went ahead and tried to convince her about what a great couple we would make. Then, i left the stage.
Then it was Francis’s turn to woo her. They both were classmates and he was a popular face in his class. He went upto her, bent on his knees, held her hand in his, kissed them and said, ‘your highness, will you accept me as Mr. Xavier’s?’ to which she blushed and said yes. And then even francis left the stage.
Father Reggie came on the stage and asked Ms. Xavier’s, whom would she prefer as Mr. Xavier? She said ‘Francis’. The Judges began comparing their notes to decide on the winning candidate. After a while Father Reggie came on to the stage and announced the Mr. Xavier’s name and to my astonishment, he announced,” Mr. Xavier – Sudhir Iyer” . I was overwhelmed with joy. There was applause all across . People were chanting my name. I was on cloud nine. I was given a sash and the prior Mr. Xavier gave me the rolling trophy. I also got a generous gift voucher and a discount coupon of live wire acting institute. Ms. Xavier also got the rolling trophy from prior Ms. Xavier and a tiara. She got gift vouchers as well. She took it and left the stage giving me a disgusting look. But, I didn’t give a damn about it because I already had the trophy in my hand.
All this was just to impress a girl from my class who was my friend, class topper and general secretary of the college’s students committee.
