The Victory in the Defeat !!!

As the title suggests- Victory in Defeat. Two words contradicting each other in the same phrase. Something unusual, meaningless yet meaningful. There are times, when victory isn’t adorned by a trophy or a monetary prize but just the love and adulation of the audience. Make sure you read till the end to enjoy this one to the fullest. Here I go:
Since standard 9th, I had started my journey in the field of oration. With the endless encouragement and guidance from my literature teachers, I had become a “sure to be seen face” in Interschool Elocution, Debate and Extempore competitions representing Best High School. In a span of 4 years in oration, I had delivered quite a many speeches at different arenas, with a few victories and a few defeats. My this blogpost deals with my Last Speech of School Life at an Interschool Extempore Competition at CHANGA. I had already won the Ward and Zonal Level Extempores and had qualified to represent Best High School and Ahmedabad City at the District Level Competition to held at CHANGA..
It was the month of December, 2009, don’t remember the date. Chauhan Sir, as usual was incharge of handling the event. As kind as always, he drove me to CHANGA on bike, a 2 hour tiring journey. We reached CHANGA. And what I found at the registration desk was I belonged to the FREE category. Meaning- I won’t be competing with people of my age, but with the ones senior to me. All participants with me in Extempore were young school teachers from the age group of 23-30. I was just pissed off seeing those matured faces with professional outfits. I started messaging my friends at the same moment, “Guys, I am the youngest over here, and all these are going great in Elocution, how will I face them in Extempore?” Most of the replied I got said”Chinta mat kar yaar, this is not the first time, your facing such a challenge. Chak De”. “Stage is yours, audience is yours”, this is the gurumantra Anjum Teacher gave me for my stage appearances when I was in 9th
With this basic concept in mind, I made up my mind to face the oratory ordeal. The competition started. Each one I guess had to speak for 3 minutes, on the given topic on the spot- in Hindi or English. I suppose I was the 3rd or 4th participant to perform. The 3 who performed before me, were damn horrible. The 3 spoke in Hindi, and it was awful to ears. This boosted up my moral, ki I am gonna give a good show out there. Not boasting, not over-confident, but I was confident about my English. Hindi, was not a good option for me, as I had left Hindi in 10th, so it was better to be on the safer side by delivering the speech in English.
I walked holding,controlling and releasing small nervous gasps of breath towards the bowl of chits containing the topics. And my Topic was –”If there were no Temples”. No sooner did these words flash before my eyes, I rejoiced. With God’s mercy, good wishes of pals and everybody’s blessing, I gave an enthralling speech. There were so many instances when the audience instantly started clapping on the punch lines in my speech. There were numerous instances like this during my speech. I ended my speech exactly on the bell of 2 mins. As I stepped down the stage, I had the principal of B.S. Patel High School, CHANGA to receive me. He made me sit with him and he was like”I have never before seen a child of your age giving such a strong performance”. I saw Chauhan Sir’s eyes filled with pride, telling his other teacher colleagues”Ha maari school no chokro che aa(He is a student from My School)”. After that I had numerous people down the stage, coming to me, appreciating me for the performance and complimenting in different ways. After a span of 2 hours, It was results time.
The moment in the sun had arrived – my magnum opus would be revealed. I had just delivered a spontaneous speech that I hadn’t labored and I was about to learn how the panel judged my performance. The polite but sparse audience leaned forward in their folding chairs. A hush fell across the open air auditorium.
The contest organizer announced the third-place winner. Alas, the name was not mine. Then he read the second-place winner, and once again it was not me. At last, the moment of truth came. Either I was about to bask in the warmth of victory or rue the last several hours spent eagerly for a good return of my performance. While neither of these came to pass, my heart felt closer to the latter.
Losing is a part of life, and I have dealt with the emotional baggage that travels shotgun with it on more than one occasion. However, it was an indescribably underwhelming feeling to drive more than 100 kilometers round trip, get up obscenely early on a freezing winter morning, and yet not making a place in the Top 3 Winners inspite of the audience’s best judged performance. Whatever be the reason of my defeat, be it internal politics or setting there or whatever, I don’t want to make excuses for my defeat, but I and many of them there considered this defeat of mine a victory.
While I did not earn monetary awards or a Trophy as a result of this contest, I did gain a new perspective. Through this memoir, I discovered that I can fail successfully. Failing successfully because, gaining so much of adulation and applaud from a total alien atmosphere was no less than a big success for quite a mature orator like me. Now, whenever I’m faced with a setback, I remember what Abraham Lincoln said : “The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, ‘It’s a slip and not a fall. “