Friends said I was ‘brave’ to sing at open mic night

I mostly don’t regret anything I do, having very little of what I believe is called a conscience. Occasionally, however, I take decisions that are categorically unforgivable, and I did so very recently by agreeing to sing at a college event, Open Mic Night. It was organised by Charlie Peacock, a Trinity College student who’s on many committees. She’s an alumna of Dubai College, so I was feeling rather kindly towards the event.

It’s a chilled-out concert; anybody could grab the mic to demonstrate their musical prowess. It was held at the college bar, so sounded fairly relaxed and laid-back. Being students, neither the audience nor the singers were likely to be particularly attentive, I reckoned, so with a big dollop of luck I wouldn’t be the worst person there. It wouldn’t hurt to sign up to be on the singers’ list, right?

Dear oh dear. Cambridge is a great university, but it does have a knack of making you eat humble pie rather more often than I’m comfortable with. There are simply hordes of people here who are more accomplished than you at, well, everything in life.

Besides, I am a guitarist and have never taken so much as a single singing lesson. My efforts in the shower have only brought forth agonised suggestions of soundproofing doors rather than a loyal fan following marvelling at my natural giftedness. Rather tough, because I’d forgotten my guitar in Dubai.

The 200-strong throng was rather bigger than I’d envisaged. People were packed in like sardines, the crowd snaking all the way up the stairs with barely room to wiggle a toe. You’d think that they’d have been a raucous lot, but they were unfortunately polite enough to stay completely quiet during each ­performance.

First up was Anna Clark opening with the number Popular from the musical Wicked. She managed to be unbelievably amazing, express herself superbly, come across as enviably confident and utterly terrify the rest of the performers. The person who was to perform next got up on the spot and declared he was leaving. It was a sentiment I could sympathise with.

The less said about my performance the better, which was the immaturely chosen and badly rendered I See the Light from the animated movie Tangled. The audience was terribly supportive and encouraging, though – it’s very hard to dislike such nice people, even if they are better than you at everything.

Someone had even composed her own song. I’m a medical student, I told myself – we can leave the music to those studying it. This was vaguely comforting until Sam and Alex, fellow medics, took the mic to belt out Alex Clare’s Too Close. They were preposterously good at it, too. Slightly dishearteningly, but it’s impossible not to enjoy great music.

“It was very … brave to do that in front of so many people,” someone told me unsurely later. I suppose that was about the best thing that can be said about the whole charade.

Lavanya Malhotra is an 18-year-old student who grew up in Dubai