Worldisastage

Fear of death is Necrophobia. The fear of public speaking is called Glossophobia. Can you imagine, more people are affected by the second! This article is going to be more about my encounter with this monster, who turned a friend, called public speaking!

Do you know, when this monster became my friend? When I realized this whole world is just a stage!! I am sure all of us must have faced this monster at least once in our life. For some seasoned speakers among us, now it must have become a fun friend who brings you euphoria

I still remember my first encounter with the stage when I was in my 5th standard, in a speech competition.

Until then my stage participation was limited to a few stage plays, where I was playing a soldier behind the king & a girl holding the lamp in the centre where all girls will be dancing around me.

I remember my school days, I was the tallest in the class, tallest than most of the boys I was identified as the tallest girl in the school.

So when that tall girl went on to the stage to give her speech she did as tall as the mike, still like a mike in fact, standing there with her eyes widely open, clutching the script with sweaty hands, trying to hold herself up without collapsing.

And the first time when I looked from the stage to the audience from an opposite angle, as I always used to look up onto the stage it was all totally different as if the world was upside down and I was astonished. So astonished in the sense I went speechless. I was randomly wavering my eyes through the crowd until I found my teacher who was gesturing me to look at the script And when I started looking at the script, I couldn't take my eyes off it and................................... that was the story of my first speech which became a sermon!

I read the entire script from the paper in my hand. The judges had a great dilemma about whether to disqualify me or not! And that was my first great stage speech.

And in 6th grade when I move to an English convent, it became scarier to talk even when not on stage, when a shy girl from a Suburban school had to talk only in English with her classmates.

Luckily, I had a friend who was my companion who had equal difficulty in English.