The first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning: Sri Sai Krupa Old Age Home and Orphanage, here we come.

I ate breakfast, wrote on the blog about the previous evening’s show and then got ready for the next show immediately afterwards. Why so soon? Well, because we were to leave for the Home by 1:30 pm, finish the show by 3 pm, and then be back home by 5 pm. This show wasn’t in the evening like the others; it was in the afternoon – which I was happy about. The reason? As much as I’d hate to say it – we had reached the ultimate saturation point. We were tired.

As I had discussed with Megha – had we only performed two shows, we would have ceased the production process feeling incomplete and unsure. Had we worked hard enough? Had we the capability of doing another show after all that continuous practice? After two shows, we did have a bit of energy left in us. Knowing that and not doing something more for the production would have left us feeling guilty of ‘taking it too easy.’

In hindsight, doing three shows was a good decision. It completed the process up completely, because it drained out all of our energy.  Performing the play for the third time got repetitive, it got draggy. We had reached the ultimate. And so of course, we came home feeling tired but accomplished. Because we knew we had gave it our all. Our all.

We left in time, all piled on top of each other (due to slight lack of space) in my car. My mother and Meera Aunty came along with the nine of us. We reached the orphanage in an hour, and began the play quickly. The children and senior citizens sat in front of us and listened attentively. When it was over, they clapped and cheered loudly for us. As we mingled with them, several children invited us to come again. The directors of the Home told us that despite the language barrier, the children and senior citizens had appreciated the play a lot – mostly the colours, songs and dances. We bid them farewell as they waved goodbye to us and then we journeyed back home.

The trip added another feather to our cap – three shows. Three entire shows. It was a lot that was accomplished. We met so many different people on this journey. It was truly an experience. In the future I hope to use the knowledge I have gained on this journey to become successful in whatever I choose to do. We met show many kinds of people and had to deal with all sorts of personalities. But the entity that outshines all this is the support given to us by each parent of the crew. They were encouraging and were open to all our requests and ideas. They gave us all we asked for (which wasn’t much materialistically but was more of abstract entities such as time, attendance and support to their children).

I sent over 160 emails (I counted) in total to the cast and crew of You Don’t Always Need Magic which included schedules, voice recordings of songs, videos of dance choreography, emails addressing important details, lyrics, dialogues, volunteering, and most importantly – thank yous. The messages of the parents showering Isha and I with kind words and blessings make my day. I am blessed to be a part of such a community where hard work never goes unnoticed. I believe that every hour that we spent making the play better and better and making sure that there was no communication gap between parents and us- writing emails, visiting their homes, calling them on the phone – was worth it. I dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Through the play I have learnt to love deadlines instead of fearing them, I have learnt to manage stress and pressure and direct them towards productivity instead of crumpling under them. I have learnt to make learning fun, make teaching fun, make something deary and repetitive bearable not just for me, but for others. I have learnt to importance of every minute, every day. And the success Isha and I achieved is clear in the fact that the children loved the practices. The footage that I have on my camera of all of us having a blast in practice proves it. When I had to cancel practices at the last minute to visit orphanages or costume shops, they conveyed to us disappointment. We felt terrible cancelling practices too – children like Ganeev would cancel classes, outings, parties and lunch/dinner plans  to be present at practice. We will always be grateful for that.

An important thing that I have learned is that there are so many types of people in the world – with different lives, different stories to tell- and so, different personalities to show and attitudes to hold. And not everybody will appreciate hard work. It takes time to win someone’s trust, respect and confidence. It takes time to win someone’s support. It takes time to get someone to take you seriously. And it always will take time. The key to success is consistency. One can’t change one’s attitude, style of work or degree of effort based on the type of situation or attitude of someone towards him/her. Consistency is so important. If you work the same way with the same effort without favor or fear, you will always come out on the other end, successful.

Thank you to everybody for teaching my life lessons I am sure never to forget. Thank you for exposing to sides of life I probably wasn’t going to be exposed to for a long time. Thank you for helping me mature as a person. Thank you for teaching me how to control my feelings and keep my ideas and feelings balanced and unbiased. Thank you for teaching me how to keep my imagination free and uninfluenced by obstructive words like ‘impossible’, ‘impractical’ and ‘unfeasible’.

You Don’t Always Need Magic, thank you.