Wie in einem Spinnennetz...

"WTF am I doing here???" A simple question which everyone asked himself / herself when'er one felt stuck in situations... But sometimes people like me invite such situations for themselves :)

In past one month or so, I probably asked this to myself the most I've ever done in my life... A decision to act in a German play... For me german starts at Danke, Bitte, Tschuss and ends there only :) But then a voluntary decision to step into something like this seemed crazy many times in past one month... Sometimes I felt it was crazy n sometimes people around, made me feel its crazy... But the itch to do something different probably paved the path for this...

First day of practice, I entered the audimax and met the fellow actors (some native germans & a few others who were equally fluent). I saw various reactions in everyone's eyes, a couple of friendly faces, a few questioning (WTF is this stupid guy doing here who doesn't even speaks German) and few faces who just accepted the fact that they dun have any other alternative...

Well sometimes lack of choices for someone might do the trick for someone else... And their lack of choice did it for me.. Initially, a few times I felt like quitting. Sometimes I was unreasonably frustrated on myself and sometimes when I used to feel others' helplessness of the situation...

And then came a helping hand from somewhere. I was standing on stage (rehearsing) where everyone else was acting and I was reading out my dialogs from my script. Suddenly I noticed a lady who seemed in 40's, was curiously monitoring what ever was going on stage (at first glimpse I thought she's director or something).

And then she asked if I want to practice my pronunciation with her and she could also help me with dialog learning. When she asked me if I'm interested n I was thinking to myself "Beggars can't be choosers M'am, please do something for me, I'm ok with any kind of help".

And then after rigorous sessions of rehearsals and pronunciation sessions with my helping hand "Ingrid". I somehow managed to learn all my dialogs which I initially counted to be something around 110. I dun know how I acted my role but I think acting it well was never at a high priority for me. The highest priority for me personally was not to forget my dialogs and speak in a way that every one understands what am saying. Or atleast no one on the other side of stage comes to know that this guy doesn't knows German at all...

Well.. Well.. Well.. I've already done 3/5 final performances and all I am actually feeling proud of myself at the moment. I actually achieved something which a month ago seemed like climbing Mt. Everest to me. I dun know how much they liked my role or my acting but am happy no one complained that we couldn't understand what this stupid guy was saying.

Apart from what good I did for myself by not quitting and what my helping hand "Ingrid" did for me, there were all the other fellow actors in this play who eventually started showing faith in me and treated me much more than the last choice available. They happily helped me when I felt as 'wie in einem spinnennetz' and were most importantly immensely tolerant to a non german speaker like me. Am actually feeling grateful to Tariq, Michaela, Kristie, Parya, Tobi , Malte, Sebastian and Tristian who helped me in one of the most challenging and exciting chapters of my life (which I guess will stay with me for a long time to come).

"Sometimes it feels good to be lost in translation"