It was October of 2014.

I was in my first year in the university. Me and my friends were carrying this really heavy robot that we had created for competing in a competition called Robowars.

We were spent - both mentally and physically. It was not the transportation of that chunk of metal that had exhausted us; we had just been through the first round of the competition. And I couldn't believe that we'd won. I couldn't will my legs to stop shaking.

We stopped in the middle of road that led to the hostels to catch our breath. I was barely functional. This was the most exhilarating experience I had ever had in my life. I was trying to calm myself down. It felt like my heart would explode. I was overcome by a plethora of emotions. We had just started this for fun. My friend, who was to control the bot, only had a couple of hours of practice.

I was a kid who came from a town with a population of 50,000. In India, that makes for a very small town. My high school class had a strength of 40. I made it to state level in sports and ten people knew about it. My facebook profile picture had 9 likes on it, and that was back when facebook was the cool thing.

And Bam! a couple months later, the same kid whom nobody had given a shit about his whole life was standing in a jam packed arena surrounded by a thousand people, all chanting the name of his team. Why wouldn't it be the most exhilarating experience of his life?

We were setting up the bot, doing a precursory check. Our opponents were final year students. They were calm. It looked like they meant business. It was then I noticed that my friend hadn't anticipated this crowd too. He was shaking more than me. I offered to control the bot. He hesitantly handed me the controller. I used the same trick to calm myself down that I use everytime. "None of this will matter in a few years", I told to myself. "Nobody will remember how bad you sucked."

But its hard to convince yourself that when there are hundreds of people chanting the name of your team and your college. Home crowd 'advantage'. I mess up even my favorite songs if I have to play them for people to this date. So no doubt, I sucked pretty bad. Regardless, we had won. And since we wouldn't stop shouting after the match, they kicked us out of there. So there we were - in the middle of the road, our bodies shaking, and our heads still trying to process what had happened.

A guy approached us, asking for a picture. I looked at my friend. We thought he was from another college. We somehow managed to pose for a decent photograph. We talked for a while and then while leaving, we exchanged names. His sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn't care.

A friend of mine who had seen us later told me that the guy was an alumnus, and he was the founder of a really cool robotics startup. But we had been through such an exhilarating experience that neither of us had the tact to make a connection.

Years have passed since the day, but I remember it like it was yesterday. At some point between now and then, I abandoned the aforementioned technique to calm myself down. Because the truth is, while nobody did remember how bad I sucked (except my friends), it has been a few years and it still matters.

It mattered to me then, and it matters to me now. And it matters not because I spent months working on that robot, or because it was the first time I had experienced something like it, though these are perfectly valid reasons. It matters because even though now I live in a city with a population of 12 million, the corporation I work for employs 50,000 people, and I have more than 9 likes on my facebook profile picture, I'm still that kid.

"This is a moment that you'll remember for a long, long time. Let's make the best out of it." is what I say to myself nowadays.


Prodigy