Stage fright=Return to India

The feeling is not very different from the one I remember from my time as a stage actor many eons ago. Now as a filmmaker, this is how I imagine it:

Pulled by an invisible string I walk down a dimly lit corridor. The bright green room with its warm comforting smells of fabric and make-up is now behind me. The cement floor I walk on is cold and the walls around me reflective, throwing a thousand different versions of me back at me. I walk with a my heart pounding, my palms sweaty with a feeling that is an unequal and ever-changing cocktail of fear, excitement and anticipation. I know what lies ahead, beyond. I have been there before and yet there is this strong urge to stop, to rest a bit, to lay my face against the cool cement wall, to stall. I can hear voices from outside, muffled, excited, questioning. Soon, very soon, I will be in the wings, waiting for my turn, trying to get a glimpse of them, trying to make out familiar comforting faces in the dark. I will wait. counting. Thousand and One. Thousand and two. Thousand and three. Enter.