My “Smiling moment of the Year 2025”

It all began when I got a two-week break between two projects. My first ever “bench experience” in my career. With one week for the first DPPL event, there came an announcement inviting everyone to showcase their talents.

Humour has always been a natural part of me as an ambivert person, something I use instinctively to lighten the mood and keep the environment positive. Ever since covid, doing a stand-up comedy has always been on my bucket list.

Being on stage is not everyone’s cup of tea. I had my fears after seeing even confident speakers on the ground can find it challenging once they stepped on stage with mic.  

I had originally given my name for storytelling for the first DPPL event with stand-up comedy in mind… to avoid the team spotlight.

And initially thought stand-up comedy was easy. Just fun dialogues and a few punchlines. The ways we joke with our friends/colleagues…But once I got into it, I realized it’s a complete art form! It takes perfect timing, natural tone, cohesive script, expressive body language, confident presence, meaningful pauses, and sharp presence of mind to make people truly laugh and connect.

Being a big fan of Rahul Subramanian and Max Amini, I understood every ones style is different…either it can be talking abt common social observations, personal experiences or picking up a person from the crowd. In order to avoid becoming viral  “I decided to roast myself” using my own personal experiences starting from my name to Pondicherry and recent agile certification preparation at home.

Last two days were intense….while others were practising dance/skits in the training rooms, I took the ground floor rooms near the lift to practice… I still remember those times when I cross by those rooms… There were moments I felt like giving up. The script wasn’t landing right, not sticking together, the tone felt off, timing is off, forgetting the lines. But I kept pushing myself. I practiced during early mornings and after office hours. I gave my full for it with countless script rewrites and rehearsals with ad-hoc tasks in between.

My best (and toughest) critic? My son who not only corrected me but got so excited that he started rehearsing with me, throwing in his own roasting ideas! (Looks like I might have a future co-performer at home).

There were many instances I questioned why am I doing this, for whom… however I pushed myself hard….patting on my back every time I didn’t give-up. And yes, I even added a moral of the story to the stand-up comedy.

When the moment finally came, I grabbed the mic, walked the stage with confidence. At the end of 10 mins, it wasn’t perfect. I certainly wouldn’t call it perfect. But for a first-time attempt, seeing the team smiling and laughing made it all worth it.  

That feeling of fulfilment of finally checking off a long-time bucket-list goal and reminded me that courage often hides behind one’s emotions.

My Takeaways

• Things often look easy from the audience until you step into the spotlight yourself.
• Growth rarely happens in comfortable situations. Sometimes it begins with saying “yes” to something that scares you.
• Perfection is overrated. Finishing what you started is often the bigger achievement.
• Practice may not eliminate fear, but it can give you the confidence to move forward despite it.
• The best support can come from unexpected places. In my case, it came from my son, who became my toughest critic and biggest cheerleader.
• Every skill we admire in others has countless hours of effort hidden behind it.
• Some bucket-list items are not about the activity itself, but about proving to yourself that you can do it.
• Looking back, the biggest win wasn’t making people laugh. It was not giving up on myself.

 A Few Things I Learned

• Never underestimate the effort behind a craft.
• Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s showing up despite it.
• Progress matters more than perfection.
• Sometimes the only person you need to impress is your future self.
• The memories we cherish often come from the moments that once made us nervous.
• The loudest applause usually comes after success. The real test is whether you can keep going when nobody is clapping.
• The perfect moment rarely arrives. Sometimes you just have to sign up and figure it out along the way.