#Best Actor Award, #UTSAV-2011, #One of the biggest achievements of my life

Receiving Best-Actor award from Dr. Kajale (Director, SGGSIET)

     Being born and brought up in a small village of Maharashtra, I had never thought of receiving an award and that to for performing on stage in front of audience of more than two thousand, because I was never a front-runner when it came to a public speaking. 

It was an inter-collegiate drama competition at UTSAV, which was an annual Cultural Festival of my engineering college. UTSAV (which means 'celebration'), has been really ecstatic season on the campus. It has always been full of life owing to umpteen reasons, may it be dance performances of delicate girls on contemporary item songs or melody voices of aspiring singers in-unison with musical instruments or comedy performances of people like me. UTSAV was for everyone on campus. It was even a kind of bonanza for book-worms to quench thirst of their souls. 

     Before engineering my life was very different. I was also in the league of book-worms to some extent, who used to spend 8-10 hours daily to understand what different authors had a say on the same concepts of physics or chemistry.      Before getting into SGGSIET (Shri Guru Gobind Singhji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Nanded), I used to hear stories of college life. I mean the actual college life, where you can get a girl without much effort and chase. It was really a kind of fantasy for me, because the kind of hectic schedule our junior college had. In fact it wasn't a junior college, rather it was a school. I am deliberately saying this because we hardly used to get enough time for anything but study. A normal day used to commence at 6:45 AM and end at 7:30 PM. My school timing was even much lenient than this 12 hour mental custody. Still I managed somehow to cope up with it and scored well enough to get into one of the prestigious autonomous engineering institute of Maharashtra, i.e. SGGSIET.

     So here I was to pursue my Electronics and Tele-Communication engineering, the most coveted course on the campus. Soon, I realized that engineering wasn't my cup of tea. My grades were miserable from the start itself. But I had to finish what I had started with much enthusiasm. So, I threw away the notion of quitting an engineering after much heated debate with my elder brother, who was also alumni of this same institute. My brother finally succeeded in convincing me that I should complete my B.Tech and do what I am good at! I really didn't know what did that mean?

     I hardly had any idea about what I was really good at. Instead, I was quite sure that I could mug up three-four page mathematical derivation within 10-15 minutes. But that's not what I wanted to do in my life ahead. 

I started introspecting myself to know what exactly I like to do other than study.

     One fine day our seniors announced in our 1st year class room that they needed few students in their drama and auditions for the same would be held in the evening. I was least interested in what all they were talking. Post our lectures one of my room-mate pursued me to join him for the drama auditions. We went to that venue and sat like infants in front of those seniors. There were near about 30 odd students to showcase and unleash their acting metal. We all were given a common script to perform. My friend and I scripted few dialogues immediately and performed in front of those seniors. Especially my performance was well received, lot of applause and mouthful appreciation. That was the first time, I realized that I am also good at something other than study. 

     Then on, I never looked back. I grabbed every single opportunity to go on stage and perform. I performed in dramas for two consecutive years and was  awarded with 'Best-Actor' award in UTSAV-2011. Besides I found that I am good at mimicking, so participated in mimicry competition as well. Sometimes I get poetic. Till now, I composed more than fifteen poems and six of them were even got published in college magazine. I even did anchoring for cultural event. 

Talking specifically about the role for which I got 'Best-Actor' award, 

"The story was based upon how the external circumstances force a struggler in becoming a terrorist. In that I played a key character, who knows the truth of the tragedy but always chooses to stay away from the facts and prefers to watch tragedies happening."

     We the whole drama team (Defaulters) started preparing well before two months for the final performance. I used to rehearse round the clock to make best to come out of my role. Each day I used to spend at least 4-5 hours to make my character evolve better and better. Final performance was a huge team success and particularly my character (Pawan) was famous all over campus for many days. To my surprise one of the deadliest professors of my department literally patted on my back and praised my performance. I believe the trophy and that prize of Rs. 250 was just a symbol of an identity of my own that I was able to create there and it was a token to appreciate my willingness to go an extra mile and create a difference.    

       These are the fond memories that I cherish even today as well and I will cherish them forever. Because the biggest motivation to do all this stuff is the applause and appreciation that one gets from audience for one's hard-work and effort, which I think is very difficult task to achieve. Besides, I personally believe that bringing smile on people's faces is a noble task to some extent and this is something that keeps me happy and energetic as well. And eventually I got acquainted with this unique aspect and goal of my life that I will pursue no matter what, till the end !!! 

"Laughing is comparatively easy but making others laugh needs innovation, perseverance and consistent efforts. Keep on smiling and laughing because this is one of  the easiest but most effective thing that one can do to build lives of other human beings."