Stop the over-emphasis on social skills

Even while preparing for my trip to Bangalore for the five-day finals of the Whiz Kids contest for school-going students from across India and other South Asian countries, I’d constantly felt like a fake. Do I belong in this group? Should I just forget about it? But I decided to give it a try. It could be fun, I’d lied to my 15-year old self.

But it was not fun at all for me. And that is why I write about it today. And that is why I couldn’t write about it until today, 10 years later.

I hadn’t been able to relate to any other ‘Whiz Kids’ in the camp. For one, a lot of them spoke to each other in Hindi, a language I was not comfortable with. I remember feeling alienated and miserable for an entire two-hour drive when they played antakshari and I waited for an A.R. Rahman song to come up so I could sing along in Tamil.

Secondly, they had all entered in the Whiz Kid category while I’d just won the quiz, gotten a chance to contest for special entry into the finals, and unexpectedly made it. (I had said some inspirational stuff and sang an inspirational song and it had been good enough to impress an elderly judge who highly appreciated the inspiration overdose.)

But most importantly, the others were all so sure of themselves and comfortable in their skin to a point that made me question my authenticity.

I spoke to very few, and even in that, some conversations were uncomfortable.

“Why do you wear that necklace when you’re wearing jeans?” one of the girls had hesitantly asked, making me realise for the first time that the combination happened to be strange outside of my town in Tamil Nadu.

“My parents won’t let me not wear jewellery,” I mumbled.

“It’s a thing where I’m from,” I added, unconvinced that she’d understand.

A few others had asked me why my school uniform was so old-fashioned. But the one thing most people said to me: “Hey, aren’t you the kid that fell down the tire-wall during the activity? Are you okay; did you break something?” Physical activity wasn’t my forte either, and it was extremely embarrassing to be known as the kid that fell on her butt from several metres height.

Today, I was waiting for my turn at the speaking round, terribly under-prepared — not because I was a lazy person, but because this stuff went above my small-town head. Seated squarely in the middle — in an attempt to be as unnoticeable as possible — I watched one smart city kid after another perfectly use their given 5 minutes to say something incredibly intelligent, profound or emotional that awed or moved the audience and the judges. I was too dejected to even beat myself up over not preparing for it the right way.

As I stiffly waited for this ordeal to get over, I wondered, for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few days: How is everyone here so talented, confident and great at socialising? And here I thought I was a confident person! I guess this is what it means to be from a small town. This camp had shattered all beliefs I had about myself. A lot of self esteem had gone down as collateral damage.

The prompt for the speaking round was: Your biggest lie. If asked to speak on this today, I’d have to be shooed off stage for going overtime. But back then, I lacked any self-awareness, social skills or emotional intelligence. It was never brought up or required at school, and my parents were busy making ends meet that they didn’t pay attention to the slight weirdness of their second kid. So, I was just a socially inept, honest-to-goodness kid that did well in class and in extracurricular activities. In fact, I was too upright to make any real good friends.

So in a few minutes, when my name was called, I dragged my ill-prepared self on stage, narrated a story which did not happen, and wrapped up saying that was my biggest lie.

Yes, I cringe every time I think about it (which I do a lot). I’d known fully well that mine was a bad speech, so I did not expect any recognition for it. Nor did I expect what came next.

At the end, when the judge and organiser of the entire event got on stage, he made a special mention of me and a few others. As he knit his brows and pursed his lips, I realised he was seething with anger.

It’s normal to forget what one hears a decade ago from a near-stranger. But I very clearly remember what he said in an angry and disgusted tone.

“How dare you guys come here and lie to all of us that you have never lied in your life? Is this a joke to you? Can’t you be truthful for one moment of your lives?” A barrage of other accusations followed, for ten full minutes, as we sat painfully aware of how all the nearly 100 kids there knew who it was directed towards.

He believed that the speech given by me, and two or three others who pulled a similar (what we believed to be a funny) trick, was a disrespect to everyone else who opened up about themselves. In hindsight, I see his point. But, I simply cannot comprehend the anger and authority with which he reprimanded us like that in front of everyone.

I believe that his words that day would have deeply affected everyone at whom his attack was directed at. But it broke me.

It broke me so bad that I spent the rest of the camp second-guessing everything I did. Let me rephrase that: I spent the next few years of my life second-guessing everything I thought and felt. It broke me deep enough for the layers of self-confidence, self-esteem, and independence to take a blow, and for new creepers self-doubt and self-hate to take root. By questioning the one thing I held dearly to me — honesty — his accusation made me question everything about my identity.

Today, after years of practice in reflection and exercises in self-awareness, and an ability to express myself honestly — at least in the written word — I look back at that day. After learning from psychotherapy and the literature I’ve read, I’ve come to terms with the trauma I had experienced. I realise how that man and his team were so under-qualified to handle and “judge” over a hundred emotionally-vulnerable children and adolescents.

That day, when the organiser got angry at us, he forgot that while he conducted the event, he did not own our thoughts and ideas. Each of us who made up a story that day made a choice to do so. And they had the right to that agency, even if it was to make a fool of themselves. A good host and judge would have laughed it off as lame, not picked a one-way fight where the opponents are powerless children who were at his mercy for the next few days.

I’m now a researcher, with a personal interest in behavioral science and mental health. And I wish I could keep children away from big, highly competitive contests. But, I do one wish: a wish to organise a camp where children are told not to judge; to play and not compete; learn from each other; perform and not be judged. And in this one, the slow, introverted and socially awkward ones will be given special spaces where they feel comfortable, and coached for the activities.