The Journey Begins

Written by Satish Kolluru

As a school kid, I have always been an active participant in all extra curricular activities. I can’t recollect when I actually first started though.... I still remember the stories which my parents told me about my childhood.

How, at the age of 3, when other kids of my age were still learning to speak, I would sing a complete hindi movie song, bang on pitch at the drop of a hat. How, a shopkeeper in one of the township market would lure me with a toffee in hand to get me to sing the song “Teri Pyaari Pyaari Soorat Ko” and would listen to me sing…. mesmerized! How, I would participate in solo singing competitions and would win prizes without even knowing why I was singing the way I was singing!

This continued, for many more years to come….

At this point, I have to acknowledge that my schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya has played a major role in shaping up my skills to what they are now. The amazingly encouraging environment in the school was the first major force that not only taught me how to dream, but also taught me what it feels like to see those dreams come true in front of my eyes.

I was all over the place when it came to music, drama and singing competitions in school, right from the very first standard. I was introduced to musical instruments at school by accident. One day, I started playing drums in my music class and our music teacher (Smt. I.Lakshmi) spotted me instantly. She then slowly made me an active part of the school music troupe. As the youngest musician in the troupe, I enjoyed a lot of popularity and also a little bit of bullying from senior class students in the group.

One thing led to the other and very soon, I was a well known student to all the teachers in the school!No music competition was complete without my participation. Other groups could only dream of winning the lower rung prizes as all the coveted positions were almost invariably won by the group I was leading! The mere presence of the name Satish, in a group meant that it was a sure shot winner! Younger students would wait through an entire season of competitions to be included in my group. They would do anything and everything to grab my attention (No, Casting Couch was not part of the deal :-)) with their musicianship skills to be a part of my group, as it meant they could go home with an assured prize in the next competition season.

My item ‘Instrumental Music’ was the most awaited thing during the school's Annual Celebrations. To be able to share the stage with me in this event was every student’s dream!

All through this, I was having a lot of fun! The attention I got, the goose bumps I got while hearing the deafening sound of an applause after my performance... kids, parents, teachers and the principal visiting me back stage to congratulate me and tell me how talented I am.I was ecstatic after every performance…

After a while, I got used to all the attention but the success and popularity motivated me to scale even greater heights with every year that had gone by. That was the reason, even after winning innumerable merit certificates and accolades, I still had this continuing urge to keep reinventing myself and giving my best every time I went on stage…

My schooling gave me a taste of success and fame (in their own right) very early in life.I had never known what failure meant!

While all this was happening, there was a problem that I had overlooked and was growing to a dangerous scale like a cancerous tumor…

The problem was…

I was very good in academics!