From Something To Everything (Bounprem)

45. At the audition venue

Prem exhaled deeply looking at the long queue of people in front of him. He was super nervous seeing the crowd waiting outside the room.

The day wasn’t going well for him. His car broke down halfway. He had to call for a mechanic to toll away the car before coming to the audition venue. When he reached the venue, the building was so big that he got lost. He ended up calling Bosston, asking directions to get to the audition hall from where he was. Bosston came over to show him the place but left in a hurry to finish his pending work. 

Prem looked at his wristwatch. There is still almost an hour to go till the audition starts. If not for Sammy panicking that they might get into a traffic jam and get late for registration for the audition, he wouldn’t have come so early to the venue. He was the first person to register but he got the number zero-two-one as his chest number.

Prem didn’t know if it was arranged or just a coincidence, twenty-one had always been his lucky number. Looking at the bold number on the chart paper chest card, his confidence which had decreased with the increasing number of candidates, raised a little. 

When he had agreed to take the audition, he was under the impression that there will only be a few contestants taking part in it. At least that is what he had interpreted from the way Bosston talked to him. Now, seeing the number of contestants who are waiting beside him, Prem regretted saying yes to the whole thing.

He shouldn’t have expected less. Because anyone who wins the role gets the opportunity to be directly signed under SZ Entertainment, which was the dream agency for any artist in the entertainment industry.

There were also rumours that Ohm, one of the best actors under SZ and its Co-founder, would be judging the audition personally. If any contestant manages to impress Ohm in the audition even if they did not manage to get the role, had a high chance of being recruited into SZ.

Prem looked to the right and saw a guy trying to memorise the lines of the script. On the other side, a few of them were rehearsing the scene. Few candidates were fixing their make-up as if they were going to impress the judges with their looks.

There were even people who were practising some songs, doing some dance routines, beatboxing and many other things that seemed to be not necessary for the said audition.

Prem felt that he didn’t belong in the place. He felt that he was the odd one out among all the glamorous people.
He regretted not asking Sammy to stay with him when she dropped him off in the morning. At least with her around he could divert attention from all the weirdos around him.

He wanted to run a few laps or at least do a few sit-ups or push-ups to calm himself. But he couldn’t find an empty spot.

Sammy’s words earlier that day were also making him nervous. She told him that if he gets selected for the audition, she would quit her current job and join him as his manager. Even though he felt that that wasn’t a very good idea, it did manage to put a lot of performance pressure on him. That meant that both their careers depended on his performance today. He just hoped that he could perform normally and not make a fool out of himself.

If not for the urgent need for money he was facing, Prem wouldn’t have agreed to this stunt. Bosston had promised him that if he does well in the audition, even without being selected, the former would help him find some gigs that would pay him well. Getting something was way better than having nothing at all. So, Prem gathered courage and went ahead.
Prem tapped his leg wishing the interview could start sooner. He wanted to leave the place as soon as possible.

He had handed over the training duties to Chris for a day so that he could participate in the audition. He wanted to go back to the coaching centre to make sure that the junior team was doing their training properly. Not that he didn’t trust Chris’s ability, he just wanted to make sure that everything is in place by himself.

The junior team would be facing the selection process for the national team in three days. If Prem said that he was more tense about the selection games than his own audition today, that would be true. The problem was that he found great potential in all the team members and wanted all of them to join the national team which was impossible.

He pulled out his phone and made a call to Chris. Chris ensured him that the training was going well and all the junior team members were actively training for the test.

Prem heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t know why but Chris had been acting really close lately just like Pat, especially after they had a talk on the day Jet turned in the resignation letter. It was giving an odd feeling to Prem to see one of his close friends acting all chummy and sweet with him, taking care of him as if he is a glass doll.

He had asked Chris if something was up but the latter denied it and said that he wanted Prem to miss his days in the training centre so that he would try hard to come back. But Prem didn’t buy his explanation.

Prem shook his head to get rid of all the unnecessary thoughts at the moment.

“Focus, Prem, Focus.” He mumbled to himself.

Not far from where he was sitting, he could see Bosston talking to the staff in charge of the registration process. Just the way in which the staff talked to Bosston, Prem could make out that he held a high position within the agency. Every staff who was passing by was politely greeting Bosston.

Prem felt proud of Sammy to have managed to fish out such a high-quality male species. As a guy himself, he could say that Bosston would make a really good partner to his loud and clumsy friend.

He started wondering what kind of artist would Bosston be managing so that he had such high esteem among all the staff members.

A few newly arrived contestants blocked his line of sight. They were doing live telecasts on social media, interviewing fellow candidates and making the atmosphere more tense. Prem felt as if he was watching a bunch of clowns as he saw those people doing exaggerated reactions to each word the interviewees were saying. The staff didn’t seem to mind these people. Maybe they were planning to use this as a promotion for the series.

Prem couldn’t take it anymore. The people around him were driving him crazy. He decided to take a walk.