The introvert, the teacher, the speaker : The joy of the daily battle.
You do not expect someone who has been giving talks at international conferences and has been professionally mentoring thousands of students for years to be an introvert and have social anxiety. But hello there!
Get up. Brush. Bathe. Buckle up. Drive. Park. Enter Class. A regular day starts for me. I walk into a class, 40 odd students sitting with their laptops open, 80 eyes look at me.
It is not a school, so no awkward Good Morning-s or anything.
I am staring at the floor. I walk up to the dais. I put my bag down. Stare into the bag for a good 5 seconds before pulling out my laptop. I fiddle with the projector wire, the charger.
I can’t see the 40 students in front of me.
Yet.
I can only see the screen of my laptop. It hides me well. I set up the Wi-Fi access point. I open today’s lecture folder.
A part of me makes me do all this at 0.2x usual speed.
I can take many a people to the cleaners on a typing speed test 1-on-1. But I type the project name 1 letter at a time. Holding on to the precious seconds.
But I cannot do this forever.
I take a deep breath. My hands clench the edges of my shirt. I pat my pockets. Put my hands into my pockets. Nah, that looks stupid. I take them out. I scratch my hair.
“So… ahem.. ugh. Hi everyone.”, it all starts going away. My own voice reassures me, it will all be fine “ Umm … so today… next topic OK. We took a look at SQL queries yesterday, today we will check out ORMs”
This isn’t my first day speaking to a classroom full of students. This is my daily routine. Professionally for the last 2 years, and for 2 more years before that — at an Open Source Special Interest Group I used to run at college.
There are other mentors at Coding Blocks who enter into the class looking towards the students. Starting to make small talk with the guys in the front bench. Asking everyone how did the assignment go, while setting up their laptop. I don’t. I can’t.
Pledge, Speech, Debate. Attention! Stand at Ease!
If you are from an Asian country, you know what an outdoor school assembly is like. Thousands of students (3400 — that’s how many were in my school at my time) standing in neatly aligned columns. Saying the morning prayer, followed by the pledge of allegiance to the country. The Principal of the School addressing the students — a few words of encouragement, a few admonishments. There’s an elevated stage from where the assembly is conducted.
Only the few privileged get to be on the stage. Either you are the person conducting the pledge. Or you’re in the prayer choir or instrument band.
I am in 4th grade. My class teacher has the responsibility of selecting next week’s pledge conductor. She asks me to recite the pledge. She asks a few other kids too. My pronunciation and delivery are what she likes most. “Arnav, you’ll conduct the pledge from Monday to Friday”
It is Monday.
I go up the stairs of the stage.
In front of me are swathes of whites and blues. A sea of faces. 3000 odd faces, looking at me. Dead straight stares.
I walk up to the microphone.
I try to remember the first like of the pledge — “India is my country and all Indians. . . .”
It fades away. All I can hear is my own heart beat. Thump Thump Thump.
I try to speak, my mouth opens, no sound comes out. My throat is dryer than it has ever been.
THUD THUD THUD. I can’t hear anything over my own heartbeat.
I look at the microphone.
I concentrate on the pattern of crisscrossing mesh on the microphone.
I wonder why is it designed like that. Why do some other mics have soft foam cover.
I am staring at each criss and each cross. The minuscule gaps in between.
The words start coming back, “ . . . all Indians are my brothers and sisters”.
The sea of students in front of me is a blur.
Some cheeky bastard from my class is probably smiling at me. Or even laughing. Or making monkey faces.
I don’t notice.
I speak each line of the pledge into the mic, all the time staring at the mic At those minuscule gaps in between criss crossed wires. I hear a chorus of 3000 voices speak it back. I go to the next line. And the next. . .
Monday done, 4 more to go.
Did I hate being assigned this duty? No.
I had heard of the term ‘stage fright’. I always thought no such thing existed. I was in 4th grade - introversion, social anxiety, perturbation — there weren’t words I had encountered in my life.
What is stage fright I used to think. Just take the mic and blurt out the pledge into it ?
That day the question ‘what is stage fright’ was answered. The week ended, and I figured if this is stage fright, then I’ll do this not for a week, but for a month, and no such thing as stage fright will remain.
In the years to come, I became one of the most frequent students to be on stage. The Headmistress, the Principal, everyone appreciated my speeches. Chief Guest has come? School inspection underway? A special occasion to commemorate Dr. S. Radhakrishnan ? — go for Arnav.
I was the go to guy for any kind of speech to be delivered from the stage.
Some years later, I was made prefect, then School Captain, and then Head Boy. Those are little more than fancy titles, but they entitle you to the responsibility of assembly conductor. You are in charge of the entire assembly.
ATTENTION
STAND AT EASE
ATTENTION
I shout into the microphone. 3000 legs rise, move to left and fall back to the ground. THHHUUDDDD. Dust bellows out from under everyone’s feet.
Each and every day I go up to the stage. I take the microphone. The heartbeats grow faster, and louder. In Delhi’s 3℃ winter, my palms get sweaty. It is my daily battle. And I win it everyday. You might think why do it? Don’t I hate this? But I absolutely fucking love doing this.
By the time I graduated out of Kendriya Vidyalaya Janakpuri, I was a legend in my school. Topped my class every year except the last one, had awards in academics, cultural activites and sports every year. I was being congratulated at least once every month for something or the other by the Principal on stage. Swimming, Quiz, Essay Writing, Photography Competition, KVPY, Board results — there was everything. And boy did I like being famous.
It probably isn’t any different from Donald Trump or Elon Musk — getting off on my name being announced, the people looking at me with admiration (or was it jealousy? or disdain ? Did I care ?)
Being so narcissistic is p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ definitely not a great idea. No one (not even Elon Musk :P ) should get off on being famous. But it was what helped me tide over social anxiety. Made me forget for moments that I was an introvert.
Are you the volunteer helping setup the slides ?
I had barely completed my 1st year of college. But I had developed an unique experience not many had at that time — modifying the source of the Android Operating System, rebuilding it, and flashing it on a phone. It was the early days of the golden period of Android ROMs. CyanogenMod was bursting on the scene. Downloading 25+ GB of source code in 2012’s internet wasn’t a mean task. Compiling it on a 2nd gen i5 machine no small feat either. Fixing a single typo and rebuilding took 10 minutes. Fresh builds over an hour.
Developing Android Apps itself was a niche skill in 2012, let alone tinker with the OS. But I had ventured there. That landed me with my first internship at Cube26 — they were making computer vision products for mobiles. The catch ? They didn’t know how to bake the features into the OS itself. There were only maybe less than a dozen people in India who had experience working on AOSP back then. I was one. I worked on creating a custom lock screen, a modified camera app integrated their custom ‘look away to pause videos’ solution into Micromax and Karbon’s smartphones.
I came across the website of DroidCon and MODS — two well known developer conferences in India. I proposed a talk — Hacking through the Android OS Framework. The honest amount of chance I thought of my proposal even being read was 0%.
Surprise! I got invited.
I reach IISc Bangalore. The event venue.
I go inside.
All the attendees are professional software developers. Most in late twenties, many early thirties too.
Everyone seems to have been working at Intel or Cisco or IBM or Vodafone or something like that for 4 or 5 years.
I see the schedule. My talk is up at 2 PM
I reach the room at 1:45. The speaker before me is clearing up the dais.
I go up there, start taking things out of my bag.
One of the organisers comes up to me, “Are you one of the volunteers helping set up the slides?”
Before I can speak another organiser shouts from the back — “Next speaker, Arnav. Anyone saw him ?”
I raise my hand and say “Yeah me”
They stare at me for a good 10 seconds, untill one of them asks “Where do you work?”
“I just ended by 2nd semester in college” I reply sheepishly.
I am informed I am the youngest ever speaker there.
I am pretty stoked to learn that.
10 min break gets over. People start pouring into the room back.
Everyone seems early thirties for my talk. Damn.
I am thinking about the worst. These are CTO’s, architects at large software firms. I am sure they didn’t come here to hear some undergraduate freshman blabber about AOSP.
What if I say something wrong ?
What kind of questions will the ask ?
Do they know I am just a student? Oh, the speaker profile in their event plan says so I guess?
Damn it.
Are they going to judge me?
You bet.
Shit.
By next year, I have moved on to interning directly at Micromax. At that time it is India’s largest mobile manufacturer, with 30%+ of market share. We are about to launch a new line of products called YU.
We are at DroidCon, intending to use that as a platform to launch it.
With me is Rahul Sharma — the charismatic founder of YU and one of the Micromax co-founders. Literally, the Rahul Sharma.
He takes to stage like a fish to water. He is the richest person I have sat together and had lunch and dinner with till that time. The most famous person I have met, and who actually knows me, has 2-way conversations with me. (Sitting beside famous actors on flights doesn’t count).
Here I am wearing a YU T-Shirt over my button-up shrirt #BecauseBrandingMatters, and without any clue what to say.
Ever since then, I have been a regular speaker at tech conferences, speaking in at least 2–3 international tech conferences every year.
For the initial few years, the usual social anxiety was coupled with imposter syndrome, and very definite (and understandable) fear of expectation mismatch for the audience. There sit 300 people with years of experience as software developers, raring to learn something new, and here I am still a clueless undergraduate student, presenting a talk on a hot new platform I just tinkered with for last 3 weeks. And yet somehow, I have survived all of them, with the help of graciously interspersed “uhhh”, “uhmmm”, “like”, “you know” in my talks.
And while at every damn conference I am quite a piece of wreck just before the talk begins. Even in the most recent ones, even now, when I am comfortable enough to throw memes and jokes in to my talks.
But do I hate these ? Would I prefer not speaking at a conference and crouching in some corner rather?
Hell no! I apply for every conference I can, if I can come up with a topic I can present. My stage fright, my social anxiety are as much a part of me, as much as my love for presenting at conferences.
Trrring Trrrrring
Everytime my phone rings, it makes my uncomfortable. For people who have not experienced it, it is something hard to explain.
Looking at the incoming call screen. The red and greed call receive and end buttons. The caller’s photo. The phone number in huge texts. I am sort of squirming right now even to imagine it.
**Raman is calling**
Uhh why ?
What does he want ?
Does he want me to help him out with any problem ? Uh. No Please.
Does he want to discuss any plans of going to movies? Uh. Can’t he text?
Did I ask him anything sometime back ?
Were we supposed to meet ?
All these questions start swirling in my head the moment someone calls. I can’t imagine what will I even talk with that person about. And why are they calling? Can’t they email? Text? Write a fucking letter?
If I have a call to make (really rare case — you can order food, book cabs, home deliver anything from Amazon — do pretty much everything without calls, but still sometimes there’s that sticky job™ that can be done only over a call) and if there is anyone around me. ANYone. Any damn one. Even if you are a deaf & dumb person. I WILL get you to make that call for me.
Head On
Some people are introverts, some aren’t. Some studies (just a Google search will show you) have even tried to place severity of introversion on the Asperger’s spectrum or the Autism spectrum. Disorders like Autism or Asperger's or other neurotypical behaviour are not as common as someone simply being introvert, or having social anxiety. The Google rabbit hole can turn you to believe you have some serious mental illness. (Which on a serious note, could be true, so please do visit a qualified psychiatrist to get a professional opinion, if you really really think so)
The reality is, we all can (and should) live with these dichotomies. You might be an introvert. You might have a chill run down your spine when thinking of phone calls, and yet you might become a great sales manager. A sales manager relies on making and receiving a great many calls and converting leads into sales.
You could get cold feet every time you see 40 students sitting in front you, and yet you could be a great teacher — loved and admired by your students.
I love mentoring students. When they build apps and websites that I helped them create, it is a feeling that cannot be described with words like ‘elated’ or ‘overjoyed’. It is something much beyond that. And yet, every day I fidget around with my charger and projector wire and while away 10 minutes of time before my lecture starts to prepare myself for it.
When I am helping out someone if they are stuck, over a phone call. Or helping someone prepare for an interview, I might speak for 2 hours at length on a phone call, and yet every time the phone rings, or I have to make a call to someone, I think of every possible scenario in which I can prevent the call from materializing.
Life is about taking these dichotomies head on.
I teach. I speak. I fight social anxiety.
Every day is a battle.
Every day I experience the joy of the battle.
