Tuesday 31 May 2016

Master Your Thoughts

Note: The last time I spoke in public, I managed to get the chief guest's name wrong. The rest of the speech was even worse. That was 20 years ago. Redemption at last, I managed to present this to an audience of experienced speakers and won the speaker of the day award. If I were to make a list of things that I wished I had worked more upon when I had the chance, public speaking would top it. It has come 20 years too late but it still feels good.


The script of my speech today runs into two pages. What I have in my hands as my reference are two copies of the first page, the second page is missing. Something has to go wrong in every speech.

"The last time I felt this anxious and this stupid, I was standing naked in front of 100 strangers."

Dear colleagues and guests,

My name is 36 character long, yes I know its big. But I have a small family – I am blessed with a 2-year- old boy and petrified with a wife. I come from a city called Trivandrum, in the southern most part of India, where even the "Gods" tend to rest. How can I be any different?

I ambled my way through college playing cricket, and it was my cousin who kicked my back and
forced me to prepare for the PG entrance exam. The following year I found myself at Cochin University. After CUSAT, I joined a leading company and they shuttled me across five Indian States over a period of 2 years, putting a halt to my 20 years of ambling.

It was at that time that a bug infected me, the NRI bug. I found myself at the Jeddah International
Airport on my way to join one of the worlds largest company in its area of business. The Immigration Officer made me realize that our names are extremely important – he wouldn't let me in without explaining why my name has a girlish feel to it.

 I told him that my father had passed away when I was 11 and that I cannot possibly go back and ask him why?

That incident inspired me to find a short and sweet name for my son, I named him "Eshaan followed by the 36 more letters". He will definitely remember his father each time he fills up his forms, just the way I remember mine.

Thinking about my speech here I couldn't help but think about my first day in my CUSAT hostel. Those were the days when ragging juniors was not considered as a crime. My very first punishment was to bathe in almost a Sunny Leone way….in the central courtyard of the hostel! Saying no was out of the question. So in briefs, I could say that I pulled it off stylishly...but at 5 am when everyone else was sleeping.

That night after dinner, the seniors summoned me and informed me that I had failed and that my punishment is now multiplied…!.

I had to perform the Sunny Leone act at 7.00 am for the next five days when everyone is awake or alternatively.. I could choose to count the total number of hairs in the chest of one of our seniors.

How was it that I failed? I tried to argue.The task was to bathe without underwear, I removed the outerwear as well. Shakeela was expected and I gave them Sunny Leone instead.

There was an interesting puzzle in the two options given. I was never going to win because everyone
was so hairy, like a Barber’s Nightmare. So I told them that I will better repeat the “Leone Act” for five days.

It all seems quite funny now but it wasn't quite so then. Imagining the inhibition, the shame, the anger of not enjoying doing something and that too in full public gaze. But once the five days were over I was transformed. Five days of agony led me to an eternity of mastery.  From that day, I felt I am the master of the hostel.

Standing in front of you I feel the same agony today, not enjoying standing in the stage and speaking in front of strangers; The difference is, this time, I know that the shame will be followed by fame.

Mastery didn't mean that I was a master of each and everyone in the hostel, "mastery meant that I had managed to master my own thoughts"  and that is the reason my friends that I am here today, "to master my thoughts when I speak".