He wanted to say something but his words were struck in mouth like someone suddenly snatched his speaking power. He was trying hard but his voice was not crossing his throat. He was feeling as if somebody is strangling him. He could feel drops of sweat on his nose. Legs were shaky as if he had a cold bath in iceberg. Heartbeat pouncing as if wanted to jump out of his chest. All he could hear is his breathing noise. He wanted to run away and hide his face so nobody could ever see it again but he was not able to move an inch as if he was glued to floor. All he was managed to do is biting is lips so hard that they actually started to bleed. Audience before him was looking at his face as if he was some kind of Alien. They were expecting him to at least say something or to make any sound but he was there standing still and cold like a dead body.

      

       Inter university speech competition was in progress and it was my turn to deliver a speech. I never had a speech in my life before not on a stage like that before. All I was seeing 300 people in auditorium just ready to laugh at me. It was not that my confidence shattered but it was my fear that was keeping me from uttering a single word. I was feeling that if I  spoke people may laugh at me or my pronunciation would be so dumb that I will sound silly. I had the fear that my parents are sitting in some rows back there , it was fear of not getting position and failing in front of parents. I had the fear of forgetting script in middle somewhere. It was fear of me not being perfect at what I do.

    I was standing there as dumb as box of rocks. Looking down at my script page everything was fading away. I was watching letters from script flying and moving and then just disappearing in the rows of audience. My inner soul was calling me to quit but my mind was not ready and there was a war going in between my soul and my mind. I was at the verge of giving up , just before I opened my mouth to say sorry I heard a clap from the back rows . It was the only one clap I was hearing and suddenly it changed too two claps ,Oh my GOD ! claps goes on increasing till the whole auditorium was echoing with sounds of claps and it was such a melody for me to hear.

   My fear started to fade away my voice became little audible and here it was I heard first thing coming out of my mouth was "Mr. President sir " . I just started delivering speech ,words were coming out of my mouth like a gun firing .I was feeling as light as feather and all those people who were silently watching me were now clapping at the pauses I took during speech. Last word came out of my mouth and it was "I thank you all". 

Turned around and went straight back to my seat . I was not worried about the results , in fact I knew already that I did my part well so it was not a matter of winning or loosing to me anymore. I was the last one to deliver speech and the only one to get standing ovation from audience. Soon results were announced and I was the winner of the contest. 

• I learned one lesson that day  that I will not worry about losing before trying. I will never fear no matter what how much difficult the situation is . Fear is nothing but extra weight that will make you sink. another very important lesson that I learned was to support the person who is in need no matter what limits I have to go. That one clap I don't know about who was clapping saved my confidence as a speaker. If that clap was not there I would not have ever been  able to deliver speech. 

• I hope you must have learned something from this story and if you do like it please press the up vote button it wont cost you anything but it will keep my morale high as writer just like that clap kept my morale high as speaker.

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                                                 @diverse-thinker