Panic -> Laid Bare

I'll be honest. I've never been inside a tube made of tons of steel, that is supposed to do something it wasn't meant to do in its natural state. Fly.

I'm scared. I'm shit-scared. I'm crapping-in-my-pants-with-every-step-that-I-take scared.

I know what you're thinking. 28 years old, working in IT, never flown, how come.. Yeah I get that reaction. It's not like I cannot afford it either. It's just that there never was a need. Every trip that I took, the journey has always been more fascinating than the destination. Which is why trains, buses and bikes have always been a more preferred "modus transporandi"! Be it a vacation, or simply dropping home someone you really really like! Which is why sometimes I insist on doing the latter (hint hint)!!

It's not like I'm headed to war-ravaged Bosnia. It's not like I'm going to any place where they are going to use me for target practice. It's an onsite assignment for a client I worked for 4 years ago. And I have friends and acquaintances there as well.

It isn't like I have not faced the unknown before. There was a time when I did not dance. My first dance in school was just for 30 seconds, to the Mumbhai track, where I had to come in as a chai-waala, do some steps and run back out! From there I got better.

The first time I choreographed was when I came to college. And that was a small step too, which grew over the years. My first full-scale choreography was just last year Parichay2010! And since then I have choreographed other dances where I wasn't even dancing. And (I think) I got pretty good at it!

Same was the case with writing. I'm not saying I'm the Pulitzer of writers, but (again I think) I'm pretty good! Read extensively, started writing poems in college, progressed to blog posts and eventually reached here.

Dance, writing, everything has had its modest beginnings. And that's the keyword - modest! "Modest" does not entail doing something for the first time and doing it on a scale that turns everything below my knees into pillars of jelly.

And if it wasn't bad enough already, the three other people from other DCs, who were supposed to fly to the same location this weekend, aren't flying. So 25th April 2011 is going to be me, facing a new place, a new client, new tasks, without so much as an abdomen guard..

Flying! Onsite! Tranquilizers please!!