The 'Chief guest' feeling

“All of our family is invited to a program where I’ll be honoured,” my dad announced on an uneventful evening.

“Who is honouring you?” “What is the reason for such an honour?” “Where do we have to go?” our Pandora box of questions opened.

When he answered the queries, we realized that it was for an initiative that he had kind of supported during his headship days at school. (I would like to disclose here that we belong to that category of people who like to remain in the background, not desiring much limelight.) Add to it the fact that it was scheduled on a Sunday evening – the supposed lazy day. So, we were reluctant to accompany him to the event.

He tried to persuade another of my married sibling who eventually backed out of the plan due to her prior commitments and our would-be absence. Poor dad! He had to be there for the sake of honour that was to be bestowed upon him but he was left all alone. So when hours before the last moment, he asked me if I would like to go with him since the organizer had called him once again to ensure 'our' presence, I agreed to join him.

I jokingly remarked, “I would go with you only if you would click my pictures there and they shouldn’t be blurry.” I don’t know if he pretended sleeping or he actually slept, but he didn’t react or reply.

The time to leave for the event came and due to some ‘avoidable’ reasons on my part, we reached there almost half an hour late. It was not at all ‘Daddy-like’ thing, for he has been a punctual guest always. I was feeling guilty when he told me that the honours were going to be done in the first segment, with the rest of the event unfurling later on.

Hastily we reached the place. Two people were waiting at the entrance; on seeing us they started saying, ‘Sir has arrived’. I felt like a painful chief guest who keeps the audience waiting by arriving late for the inauguration.

Anyway, we were received very well and were seated on the central and front-most sofa of the open-air theatre. It was a complete VIP feeling with flashlights moving all across (and reaching late factor only added to that feel, though apologetically).

After the initial excitement, I realized that it really is not a good thing to be sitting in the first row. You have to turn your head back to notice the crowd – their strength in number, what all of them are wearing, who is shouting and hooting.

Moreover, I’m just another ordinary girl who can be seen sitting cross-legged at most of the places but in that prime spot, I couldn't have afforded sitting in any compromised position. So I somehow managed to sit decently. I missed ‘not-being-a-guest’ and just being an audience.

But the one thing that I found good was that although we were way behind the scheduled time, we didn’t miss out on anything. We were not the only guests, but one among the guests. So the organisers were not waiting for only us, but also the rest of the guests. Huff! The guilt got cleared off.

Anticipating the roll of honour, I told my dad in advance that I accompanied him to this place and that’s all. I’m not going to accompany him up to the stage. He’ll have to do that all by himself. It was to be realised only a few moments later that since my dad was not the only guest to be honoured that evening, organisers had little time to convince a nobody like me to proceed to stage. In other words, they were more focused on people who had actually supported them in their journey.

In nutshell, I enjoyed the event which I initially was hesitant to attend by being seated on a guest sofa but thankfully I got to enjoy the event as an ordinary audience member.

Writer's Note: The bullet points for this post were written amidst the live event itself. Don't think of me as a boring person who types on her phone sitting in the front row instead of enjoying the ambience.