Throughout my school career, I used to be a shy and quiet boy. It was till class 9, I never spoke through a microphone. I can still remember that it was a declamation contest at school for which I had no interest but my class teacher and my mother were too much eager.
She wrote the speech and Sir Saleem (my class teacher) did everything to buck me up. AT last the day came when I participated in the declamation contest. The results were astonishing, as I had won the first prize.
Break time came on that day but it was altogether a different experience that day. I was feeling like a celebrity, as almost all the boys seemed to be pointing towards me and talking about my victory that morning.
After few days, I was called by the principal to inform me that I was chosen to represent the school in an inter-school declamation contest and then the very next month I was traveling to the capital city to represent my province in National Declamation Contest.
It was my first love with microphone. Then I used to perform as anchor person in almost all the programs at College and University level. In my practical life , once again this microphone was after me and I hosted all types of ceremonies, from graduation evenings to annual nights, from sports contests to prize distributions and from conferences to seminars and poetry recitation programs.
Radio was another experience. Earlier with traditional AM and later as a DJ in FM radio gave me another taste of microphone.
I have no idea, when will my last program be, but one thing is for sure that the 25 years old love with microphone is still fresh as it was on the first day. I still feel the same fear in the first few seconds of start of any program.
