The Function (FED)

The indoor stadium was as big as an external stadium. I am not sure of its capacity and I would prefer not going into it mathematics. But., it was huge. It was more like a larger than life room for me. By this time, I had gathered enough information about the function. Thanks to my analysing and probing skills.

Celebration of achievement, celebration of togetherness, celebration of emotions, celebrations of victory, celebration of being wanted. In short, Free Enterprise Day. I have never seen a gathering of 20000 and odd people gather with one purpose, one aim, one motto, one intention, one wish at one place.

All the while till we settled in our respective seats, i was wondering, observing, calculating, thinking, accepting, absorbing, adopting and adapting the situation at hand. Incidentally, it was all of our first such meeting. We were all equally excited. The Amethyst, Krishna (her cousin) and me. While they were busy observing people on the stage, I was busy in analysing something else.

The stadium was peculiar one. Thankfully, to combat the heat and humid climate of Chennai, there were aplenty of AC ducts. I said to myself "huh.. I am saved." People were literally struggling to find seats to sit, for the function was about to begin. Equally and masterly arranged seats, which gave enough room for anyone to stretch either thier arms or legs. We were so glad that we got seats to sit, for our legs, and feet and toes just wanted to be rested.

I guess it was around 3pm that the function began. With music being played like doldrums in an african desert, bass effect as huge as to shake every seat in the stadium. No matter how fat you were, seat would eventually shake. Such was the effect of a comparatively ok kind of music arrangement. I was still curious to know more. To know my purpose of my presence in that stadium. Why am I here? What am i supposed to learn from this event? What will be expected of me once I get out of this stadium? Will my life change? Will there me an extraordinary change? Is this the turning point I have been waiting? many questions.. many questions were popping in my mind, I calmed myslef and trusted my heart and kept quite and let the evening to unfold itself.

How will you feel to meet a person who has been nominated 3 times for a Nobel Prize? i as ecstatic. I guess thats what motivated. Not his nominee, but his attitude. So down-to-earth personality, so simple thinking, so simple a man. He has had an enormous impact on thousands and probably millions of people.

There were 6 speeches. Each equally good. I never focussed on the speaker. I had a much bigger thing to observe. People. They were the essence of the gathering. The entire gathering was for them and they were the salt of the gathering. I prefer not to write the names of the speakers, and not even the content of their speech. Ask me and I will tell you in person.

I saw immense emotional fulfillment, emotional motivation. i was not disturbed by any speaker, for they spoke their versions of a common theme for the day and all had gone through similar situations. may be water is called by different names in different languages, but at the end of day, it still is water. So was the speech. What I noticed however was much beyond what anyone else would have noticed there.

People reacted in amixed emotional way. Thy got excited when their favourite speaker spoke. Come on,we all are humans afterall., How many times have we screamed with happiness when we saw our favourite singer / celebrity / artiste band perform on stage? we did go nuts. Because we like them. Love for what they are. But in this gathereing, it was different. The speakers who spoke, were those who had impacted thousands of lives. So it was pretty obvious for the people to get excited. However, it was the goozebums I was going through everytime the 20000 people shouted in joy and in union.

There were people from al regions of India. Mostly South Indians though. That dint deter the enthusiasm in the event.

I realised, I understood. I felt, I adapted. Though I was still not aware of the entire concept, the bonding I saw in people made me feel that may be, may be this is where I probably belong. I was still not sure. But, definitely it had made some chain reaction kind of chage in me, which just began growing and never ceased to grow.

We got back to our room, refreshed, had dinner, set our journey back to Bangalore. As always, i dint sleep, but got up before all got up.

Memories that I have, moments that I lived, just told me one thing. I lived the gap of 8.5 years in 36 hours. Could I ask for more?