The Unrehearsed Life

For the past nine months, I have been performing on stage — in front of audiences, on my book tour. A new trait. A new field. Brand new exposure. Exhilarating, yes. Also nerve-wracking. More than I expected, honestly.

But then again — what else is new?

This is how I have lived time and again. I am still nervous walking into bridge halls at over 60 years of age, where the who’s who of competitive bridge play, even after a decade competing against them. Pushing through doors even when it felt highly uncomfortable. Always testing myself. How much I can become. Because I am fearful, thinking that when progress stops, something in me will die.

You cannot achieve mastery on stage in just nine months. But progress? Progress I have made. Or at least — I think I have.

Two years ago, before the book was even out, I trained with a public speaking coach. Danny Slomoff. His one line stayed with me: public speaking isn’t about what you say — it’s about how you make others feel. I did not understand that until Danny gave an example. When I spoke of leaving India in 1973, at 23, it reminded him of his sister, who went to the University of Maryland. Her mother accompanied her to stay. My parents trusted me to go to another country, but in the same era, her parents in Boston did not trust their daughter to do it, just a few hundred miles away.

Danny was also — in my Indian-English — a drama queen. He talked about improvisation. What happens when speakers forget their lines. A wardrobe malfunction. A set that collapses mid-performance. That is precisely what gives live performance a power no well-rehearsed film can replicate. Plays are powerful because they are unrepeatable. I am acting in one now, with one advantage a play cannot offer: I can read the room and adjust.

In book readings, when questions come, I must process not just what was asked, but also understand why someone might be asking it. Thinking and talking simultaneously. Nothing rehearsed about it.

New learning gives me joy. Deep, almost ecstatic joy — even when I only catch a glimpse of it. On stage, even though I know my own stories, articulating them in the moment is not always easy. I have to manage my internal compass — not vain, but not self-deprecating either, because a listener does not value thoughts you do not value yourself. Listen, think, speak. It requires constructive tension.

My talks are not speeches. Danny trained me to write and deliver speeches. What I do is different — Q&A, conversation, spontaneity. When the moderator leans in and pivots his line of questioning, that is when the room comes alive. No one wants a rehearsed dialogue. I also catch myself when I reach for words that sound impressive but don’t resonate within. I hate doing that.

There is another challenge: I tell the same stories again and again. I can barely imagine how a stage actor feels repeating the same lines night after night. How do I stay fresh — for my audience, and for myself? Authenticity and genuine internal enthusiasm, I am learning, are not things you manufacture. They are things you protect.

Preparation helps. I write answers to expected questions, unexpected questions, and questions I wish the moderator would ask. That process builds real confidence — not the confidence of having memorized something, but of having explored ideas tucked away in my own mind. Hoping they surface in unexpected ways. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.

A couple of times already, I lost the thread — too deep in my own thoughts — and after the preamble asked the moderator what the question was. Nobody seemed to notice. I did. Internally embarrassing.

I first learned this at the bridge table. Accepting your own potential inadequacy, rather than fighting it, takes the edge off. And when the edge is off, performance improves. So do results. That is what every beginner who means business must learn — and it does not matter whether you are twenty-two or sixty-two.

And then, after all of that, I give myself permission to fail.