My Toastmaster's speech 7 - "Superstitions in the West"

Its called "Research Your Topic" and focus is on supporting your points with specific facts, examples and illustrations. Also, lessons from previous projects should be kept in mind.

It took me a long time to do this, but finally I am here for my seventh speech; I went back to my own blog to dig out some topic of my long forgotten interest and came across the one had written 2 years ago, called Rationality, Religion and India where I had argued that people in the West are as superstitious as people are in our country and therefore it’s not true that somehow we are less rational than them. But it was just my opinion and analysis not supported by any facts or stats. This project has now given me the chance to delve into this topic further and present before you some superstitions not only believed but put in practice in the “developed” world and to prove that superstition is a global phenomenon.

Triskaidekaphobia – fear of the number 13

Many people in North America and in some European countries believe that 13 is an unlucky number. There is a custom not to have a 13th floor in a building. Now a sane person would obviously ask, “How is it possible?” Well, there are many answers. For one, completely omit calling the 13th floor a 13th floor in a building. You have 12th and then you go to 14th – resolved! No 13th at all. A widely known example is the “One Canada Square”, a skyscraper in London, containing 50 stories, and my dear friends; this was built quite recently, in 1991 and has had the privilege of being the tallest building in the UK till last month. People have seen its fire escape stairs that go straight from the 12th floor to the one called the 14th floor.

One Canada Square

Another way is to call it 12A instead, like Santa Anita Park's horse stalls. Believe me, it really exists, it’s a racetrack in Arcadia, California. Yes, in the United States.

Santa Anita Park

Other buildings often use names for certain floors to avoid the number 13 designation. Like the Radisson in Manitoba, Canada calls it the “Pool Floor”. The Sheraton in Niagara has a restaurant on the entire 13th floor. The Monroe Park Towers in Richmond, Virginia uses it for mechanical equipment only and the floor is accessible only from the freight elevators or stairs.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia - fear of Friday the 13th

According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, about 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by this dread, so much that some avoid their normal routines, like driving or scheduling travel that day, or even getting out of bed! Kind of reminds me of the fear of total eclipse in our country. It has been estimated by statistical analysis that $800 to 900 million is lost in business on any Friday the 13th. True story. But at least this is a good example of a self-confuting theory. According to a study there are lower than average accidents on any given Friday the 13th as fewer people drive owing to their fear of meeting an accident this day.

Superstitions in Sports

There are many such superstitions in the field of sports as well in western countries. For example, the Terrible Curse refers to a sports superstition that holds that desecration of the Terrible Towel, a fan symbol associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers (an American football team) causes misfortune to befall the offending team.

Terrible Towel

Curse of the Bambino - cited as a reason for the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. The curse is said to have started when the Red Sox team sold their player Babe Ruth, the Bambino to New York Yankees in 1919. Before this, the Red Sox was one of the most successful baseball teams, having won 5 World Series titles, but they were able to reclaim their title only in 2004, after decades of hiatus. This curse was so much a part of the Boston culture that when someone spray-painted a road sign saying “Reverse Curve” to “Reverse the Curse” the officials left it as is till 2004, when the supposed curse was actually reversed. Not only this, some fans hired professional exorcists to purify the stadium. Some placed a team Boston cap on top of Mt Everest and burned a Yankees cap at its base camp. Yes, true story.

Babe Ruth, the Bambino in 1918

My point in enumerating all these examples is not to say that western people are more irrational or superstitious; rather, that masses everywhere are the same. So its not about east or west or their religion or our religion or their beliefs or our beliefs. Superstition in itself is irrational, not that ‘we’ or ‘they’ are ‘more’ or ‘less’ irrational. It has to be got rid of. Everywhere.

Note: All references are from Wikipedia.

This speech took 7:10 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for the choice of topic and confidence level, the research could have been more thorough.

Someone spilled the coffee beans again…

Some coffee beans in a farm grew together and ended up in the same bag. They were very happy in the confines of the bag and it was the world to them, nothing existed beyond it. In their innocence, they did not know what sunshine or rain or wind meant, they did not care where they came from or where they would finally go, and their area of concern started and ended at the bag they were in - until that fateful day.

That day someone opened the bag, took some of the beans out and spilled them around. Some beans ended up in a small household and became a beverage for a day, a few travelled all round the world and were served as coffee in a beautiful cup at a renowned restaurant, some landed in a perfume shop to help people sniff different aromas, and others were taken at a farm and became the seeds to grow more beans like them.

More such beans grew from them; more snuggled up in their cozy bag-cocoons, more bondings were made amongst the beans - unaware, carefree, rosy bindings – only to be broken again, only to be spilled again.

My Toastmaster's speech 6 - "Lessons in pronunciation from the past"

Its called "Vocal Variety" and focus is on voice including volume, pitch, rate, quality, pauses and expressiveness. Also, lessons from previous projects should be kept in mind.

This post would not give exactly the same idea on reading as the speech delivery did. But still, read on if you please......

Nobody is born with impeccable pronunciation - that is a fact, and that no one can achieve absolutely immaculate pronunciation in a lifetime is a debatable issue - if you include it to say..all languages, or even the myriad accents of any one language, it becomes impossible - like counting all stars or asking kids to keep quiet or thoroughly testing your code. You see, pronunciation is a science and an art which is in a continuous vicious circle of evolution, and has to be acquired like taste and developed over the years, and even after doing that, you can never be sure about everything.

Good Afternoon friends. As my glaringly blatant introduction suggested, today for my sixth project, I’ll be talking about - pronunciation. But given my oft discussed undying love for stories and anecdotes, its not just that, but lessons in pronunciation from my past, some such instances which not only changed my perspective towards this whole thing, but generated this totally new curiosity and thirst for learning the English language and endeavoring….no...striving to speak it correctly till date.

It all began in 3rd standard when I had joined my new school. Our social studies teacher was checking our homework copies in the class in front of everyone so that all of us could benefit from each others mistakes, in short, enjoying our collective yet individual humiliation in her own ingenious way. And, as it had to happen, my turn came, and I meekly went to her, chanting under my breath ‘o god please save me o god please save me’, when she suddenly roared “Are you maharashtrian?” I managed to croak, yes ma’am. “That’s what I thought. Tell me, what comes after September?” “Octomber”. Suddenly she softened up and said, my dear, its October, not Octomber. And to this date, I don’t call October Octomber, not even in my dreams.

The other day my little nephew was reciting his alphabets in his sing song voice…j for jacket, k for kite, l for loin…and my entire world just froze and while I screamed wait!! The whole lion episode flashbacked as if right in front of my eyes. This took place during primary school, when our headmistress used to teach us English. Someone was reading a passage from the book and he read the word l-i-o-n as loin. Sundaram maam asked this person to stop immediately and ordered us in her aristocratic voice - everyone open their pocket dictionaries right now and look up this word in it. Well, what choice did we have, we did that and started giggling after reading its meaning. Then she told us - now remember, that is what you mean when you say loin, and that is also why you should pronounce l-i-o-n as lion. And to this date, I don’t call lion as loin, not even in my dreams.

Fast forward to 11th standard. I and a group of friends were practicing a song in chorus which we were going to sing in the farewell party we had organized for our seniors. The song was Larger than Life from Backstreet Boys. It had a line which goes - “wishing I could thank you in a different way, all right” and all of us were saying “thank” (with emphasis on ‘th’) instead if the correct thank, and to our perfectionist lead singer and conductor, who was of course one of us and doing this for the first and maybe the last time, it was sounding as if someone was thumping a hammer on his head with this thank you instead of expressing any gratitude. So he made us listen to this song back to back for some 10-15 times, and we rehearsed it for I don’t even remember how many times, till each and every one of us had his thank you corrected. And to this date, I don’t say thanks as ‘th’anks, not even in my dreams.

So these were some episodes from my life which taught me to take articulation seriously and jolted me from time to time to keep sharpening and straightening these skills. And like life, this too is a continuous journey, and I keep going back to word web to listen to correct pronunciations whenever my friends give me the special disgusted look, like when I say conscience as con-science, twilight in place of twIlight, or …the list is endless and is still counting.

This speech took 6:30 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for vocal variety and body language, the rate of speech could have been a bit lower.

5 years of the other side

Today it’s been 5 years that I joined the corporate world. 5 years since I crossed the threshold to become monetarily independent, got the final freedom from the days of pocket money; liberty from the money doesn’t grow on trees speeches. I remember I had a huge list of things to buy which were kind of banned before (well, the never ending list still continues to grow and by its magnitude it doesn’t seem likely that it will ever exhaust, only that no stuff is banned now, just a bit unreachable by priority and capability to buy standards). 5 years since I thought I had bidden a final farewell to terms like syllabus, tests, scores and grades, exams, viva voices, and of course, study books. (I had even gone to a temple to offer a nariyal and give my personal thanks to God for making it all end. I would like to remind the readers - if there are any - that I am not really what you would call a believer, and in retrospect I think I should rather have offered that nariyal to Time). 5 years since the mystery of after-all-what-exactly-people-do-in-an-office is solved. 5 years since I stopped going from home to school/college to school/college to home, and started going from home to office to office to home. And that pretty much sums up the “before” and “after” of my job life.

You see, 5 years is a long time. 1825..no…1826 days (counting the lone leap year - an engineer, even if only in name, is supposed to do the math right), about 261 weeks and 43824 hours. Lets not go into the minutes and seconds, because in a 5 year span, an hour seems to be an optimal least count..but wait! How else am I going to count my crossword solving time?? (yes, the rest of the post is going to be that boring, me counting all minutes of the past 5 years). So let’s deal in minutes, 2629440 in total, of which 783000 were spent in the office, 97875 in commuting and much of the rest is unaccounted for - you can calculate just that much okay, what kind of scheming shrewd calculative person counts minutes of her personal time anyway?

Coming to official minutes, on an average 26100 were spent playing table tennis, 13050 in daily crosswords, 52200 having lunch, 39150 for snacks, and the remaining, well that’s what we come to office for, work - which involves meetings, strategic discussions (read chatting), email reading/writing/forwarding, attending/providing training and the list goes on. After writing this I wish I could say I love my office, but that would clearly be against the unwritten protocol and ethical code of conduct of the working class.

The maximum I can say is that I don’t miss school. I don’t miss college. Just feel a bit nostalgic about them once in a while, like when there’s that ad on TV where some friends fight for who will pay the bill, or when I pass in front of my college campus and can still see my good old scooty standing there amidst a bunch of carefree idiots, whenever I am sitting in any CCD or whenever I see my school bus.

The point is, every phase of life has its bitter-sweet-stupid-interesting-dull-hillarious-embarrasing-amazing-inspring-ooh-aah-ouch-wow-psst moments. A series of snapshots, if you will. And they keep clicking and printing themselves, whether you like it or not, so why not like it? Like it to the degree of falling in love with it? Love it to limit of being proud of it?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

It’s a satirical novel about a group of people in constant fear of the "combine" (outside world) who are unaware of their own strengths, who don’t have courage enough to question rules and tradition; about people tagged as "different" with respect to the so called proper societal behavior traits. Amongst a bunch of such guys who refer to themselves as rabbits, comes a lion - who dares to be himself, who does not accept things as they are, who teaches them to live - not merely exist. And changes the world around them: by opposing the tyranny of the nurse who treats all these patients of the mental institution as her puppets...but alas…he himself gets lost in it.

The language is simple, narrated from the point of view of a (supposedly) deaf and mute patient of the mental asylum where the novel is set and he is in fact the one which ‘flies over the cuckoo’s nest’. All the characters are very well defined and the reader cannot help liking the protagonist, the one who makes the flying, or rather, ‘fleeing’ possible, in spite of the many shortcomings he has.

The book has long been established as a classic and made into a major Hollywood motion picture which bagged five Academy Awards in the year 1975.

My Toastmaster's speech 5 - "Where was Mahatma Gandhi on 15-Aug-1947"

Its called "Your Body Speaks" and major focus is on body language including stance, gestures, facial expressions and eye contact. "At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom".

In New Delhi, The Indian Constituent Assembly sat in rapt silence as the first prime minister, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru of the newly independent India uttered these famous words. Millions of people were glued to their radio sets to listen to this speech, which we now know as Tryst with Destiny, and with these words, in their hearts they ascertained, confirmed and sealed the fact that their country was free. There were celebrations all over, exchanging sweets and delicacies, fireworks, trumpets and fanfare, gala parties, feasts and what not. Everybody was showcasing his happiness on being rid of the British Raj in whatever capacity he could. But amidst all this excitement and fervor, where was the chief architect of this movement? The one visionary who had made it possible? Probably enjoying the fruits of the victory that he had dedicated his mind and heart and body and soul to? Perhaps not.

Good Afternoon Friends. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi needs no introduction for the people in this room. A 5’3” tall man weighing a mere 100 pounds - hardly anyone you would call formidable at a first glance, but this man could make even the toughest of tough British aristocrats and officers cower and sweat. Thousands of countrymen were affected and moved, not only by his principles and ideals, but even by the rise and fall of his blood pressure - such was his power. Bapu. Mahatma. Father of our Nation - these are not just words representing him. These are the titles he earned over years of committed devotion towards one goal - Poorna Swarajya. From Champaran Satyagrah to Quit India Movement, his sole mission which he not only preached but breathed, drank, ate, assimilated within himself and gave up his sweat, his blood, his personal life and at many times, even his food for days together was to convert his country in the utopia of his dreams - a place free of foreign rule, governed by its own people for their common good. An honest place devoid of violence where people coexisted in social, political and religious harmony.

But that, as we all know and can see today, was not to be. When the day which was supposedly a culmination of years of his toil and sacrifice came, he was way too far from celebrating. He was devastated; and mourning the crumble of his ideals, the falling apart of the dreams of a lifetime. He actually spent the day fasting and in prayer for the hundreds of people who were dying in the riots followed by the partition. That is, on that day too, he wasn’t without a mission.

The riots had broken out on both the western and eastern ends of our brutally segmented nation. It was literally madness, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother - there was seemingly no end to the bloodshed. An eye for an eye was threatening to leave the whole country blind. It was the biggest mass slaughter in the history of India and to control the situation, we did not have enough resources. But what we did have was this iconic saintly father figure who knew the “nabz” of his people. So while the best of our entire army and police force was deployed on the western end to curb the hysterical frenzy, in Calcutta, Gandhiji was the one-man boundary force doing the same. He urged people to give up the hatred - he prayed, fasted, gave orations quoting the Koran and the Gita, visited mosques and temples and did whatever it took to make people understand the rational side. And miraculously, the savagery which once appeared dangerously unstoppable and close to a civil war, was put to an end, all because of his daunting spirit which equated hundreds of trained military men put together. In Gandhiji’s own words, his life was his message.

Today, at times many of us question the greatness of this man. Some question his principles and methods. Some even go so far as to calling him responsible for weakening India. For all those times, when in some dark corner of our hearts, we doubt this man; I think we should all remember, where was Mahatma Gandhi on 15th August 1947.

This speech took 7 minutues and was appreciated for its clarity of purpose and audience connect, voice modulation could have been better.

My Toastmaster's speech 4 - "The Philosophy of my Life"

Its called "How to say it" and major focus is on use of rhetorical devices in the speech.

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Good Afternoon friends. No, that wasn’t my new years’ resolution. The oath that I just quoted is the philosophy of life of one of my best loved fictional characters, John Galt from one of my favorite books, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. And like John Galt, I too have a philosophy or a moral code of conduct for life. And that is the topic of my speech today - my philosophy of life. Don’t worry; I am not going to start preaching some shri shri shri 1008 baba xyzee’s mantra of life. You might also doubt that being a twenty something, isn’t it too early to try and find out and talk about philosophy of life?? Well, to that my answer is - maybe. Maybe after 20 years if I come across this speech I would find it stupid or childish - or maybe not. Because every person having a thought process of his own has to have some basic principles to abide by, which may have taken shape in his childhood and which he may not be aware of.

In my case, as a child, I loved to listen to bed time stories from my parents or grandparents. And I have to tell you, my grandma is a tremendous story teller - almost as good as a script narrator. There was this one story she used to tell which I liked a lot and now it has somehow become my strongest belief or the basis of my belief system. The story goes like this -

Once upon a time long long ago there was a big village - the usual Indian village with lots of greenery, wells with pulleys, bullock carts, people in colorful clothes, a pond, a temple of lord Shiva at the center and a severely strict stinking rich dictator kind of a king. One day, the king decided to offer his prayers in the Shiva temple by pouring milk on the idol, that is, doing an “abhishek” of milk. It is so believed that if the lord is sated with the offerings, then the milk starts overflowing and it means that your prayers have been accepted and you will be rewarded accordingly. Now lord Shiva being the sternest of Gods according to Hindu mythology, to please him is not a piece of cake, rather a carton of milk in this case. So the king thought they would need all the milk in the village and he ordered everyone having a cow to deposit its milk with the king’s men early in the morning. To each villager, the king’s order was paramount so they followed meekly and sacrificed their tea and their children’s quota of milk. But an old lady was adamant and did not heed to any of the soldier’s threats and did not give up her share. The soldiers thought what difference a liter or two of milk would make and left her with mere warnings. And then the “abhishek” of lord Shiva began. Whole of the village was gathered at the temple except of course our heroine, the old lady. The soldiers kept on bringing gallons and gallons of milk and the pundits kept on pouring it, but the lord was not sated. Eventually all the milk was exhausted so the king arranged for more milk from the neighboring villages and himself poured it - but still it didn’t overflow. Everyone stared thinking there must be some ghastly mistake that the king has committed and now will have to pay for it. Meanwhile, the old lady did all her housework, fed her children and then came to the temple with a small cup of leftover milk. All the villagers saw her with that small cup and laughed at her innocence. The king let her pass because he was desolate and clueless as to what would he do now that his plan had backfired. So our lady went in unhindered and poured her cup of milk on the idol - and lo and behold! It overflowed! The lord was sated! The prayers would now be answered! All because of the one lady who realized that it is important to be a human being and fulfill your responsibilities first - that’s what is moral and that’s what is honored - even by the Gods, that’s if they exist.

So this is the philosophy and guiding principle of my life. Part of this philosophy also comes from Ayn Rand - the author I quoted in the beginning and her theory of objectivism, which says rational self interest is the highest virtue.

To sum it all up, my code is to live, not merely exist, to defy rules that you cannot justify even if the king is issuing orders, to take care of yourself and your loved ones first, to think, to rationally evaluate any situation before jumping to conclusions, to listen to your conscience, to appreciate a thing of beauty, to follow your heart’s desires, to love and be loved, to make great friends who don’t mind being your punching bags at times, to be honest to yourself no matter what; and finally, to be able to look in the mirror eye to eye and say with full confidence - yes, that’s me and I am proud to be myself.

This speech took 7 minutues and was generally appreciated.

Emcee-ing @Office

An article i wrote for my company's internal magazine, probably no one read it there - so trying it out here

:-) anyways, this seems like a good place for keepsakes.

About 200 pairs of eyes staring. Almost all of them way too eager for the show to start - actually roaring at the two emcees present on the stage. This is the point at which I had to enter. As the co-host. For the first time ever in my life, I was compering a live event. Whew.

Scary, right?? No way…scary doesn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling at that moment. I was horrified. Mortified. Dumbfounded. It took every ounce of self control I had to not tremble or collapse there, and every iota of confidence (which my friends wrongly believe I have in plenty) I could muster to deliver the two lines I had been practicing since the past two days. I took a deep breath, looked at my co-anchors, felt the weight of the faith that Team Samskruthi had shown in me, braced myself (I could also have taken lord’s name, but I am not much of a believer, or did I? can’t remember) and lunged forward. All in the span of a second or two. Funny what an adrenalin rush can do to you - moving things in slow motion is just a side effect. After that, it wasn’t exactly piece of cake, but I still managed to control the butterflies in my stomach reasonably well, if not completely :)

I am talking about Fashion Fiesta - the launch of Samskruthi’09 on 28th August in Indore. The rumor that a fashion show is going to be held (for the first time in my office in Indore) was in the air for quite a while and became news when nominations were invited about a fortnight before the event. Like everybody else, I was also thrilled at the idea of watching friends and co-workers walk the ramp from some sheltered corner amongst the audience. But that was not to be. After a week or so, I was asked, or rather, informed that I would be the emcee for the show. And the preparations began. Thinking of a good introduction was a major challenge. Not that the rest was easy….it took a hell of a creative brainstorming for the three of us anchors to come up with each and every concept (which was of course already tried and tested in various national events) - the na-real awards, questions for the contestants, brain teasers for the audience, and what not. That was fun, real fun…thanks guys…I owe you one!!

The show was a great success, thanks to Team Samskuthi @Indore, amazing music arrangement, hilarious skits by the Musketeers group and most importantly, the wonderful participants and senior managers for their special "tapori" walk. Not to forget the enthusiastic audience who kept the momentum on from the word go. I can’t help but feel a bit proud that I too in some way was a tiny part of this magnificent evening. Thanks everyone for letting me be!!!

My Toastmaster's speech 3 - "World War I"

Its called "Get to the Point"

16 million dead. 21 million wounded. Out of total casualties 9.7 million were military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Allies (UK, France, Russian Empire alongwith may other countries) lost 5.7 million soldiers and the Central Powers (German Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria.) about 4 million. Yes, I am talking about World War I - which lies at the 6th position vis-à-vis death toll in the history of humanity, or should I say barbarism?

Good Afternoon friends. The general purpose of my speech today is to present a picture of the aftermath of the Great War and specific purpose is to justify the fact that wars lead to nothing else but disaster.

As we all know, the seeds of the war were sown as early as the late years of the 19th century by the complex network of political and military alliances throughout the European continent. The military conflict which began in central Europe in August, 1914, included many intertwined factors, including the conflicts and antagonisms of the four decades leading up to the war. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict. It all got ignited by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, which was carried out by assassins sent from Belgrade, and the rest, as they say, is history -a crimson colored, widowed, orphaned and wounded history.

No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically—four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian. Four defunct dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs and the Ottomans together with all their ancillary aristocracies, all fell after the war. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France with 1.4 million soldiers dead, not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected.

Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilized from 1914 – 1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost about 15% of its active male population, Austria–Hungary lost 17%, and France lost 10%. About 750,000 German civilians died from starvation caused by the British blockade during the war. By the end of the war, famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon. The war had profound economic consequences. In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the Spanish flu killed at least 50 million people. In 1914 alone, epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia. There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922.

Approximately 200,000 Germans and about 600,000 Jews were deported by the Russian authorities. In 1916, an order was issued to deport around 650,000 Volga Germans to the east as well, but the Russian Revolution prevented this from being carried out. Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire. The best estimates of the death toll from the Russian famine of 1921 run from 5 million to 10 million people. By 1922 there were at least 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I.

That is not all. The end of World War I set the stage for other world conflicts, some of which are continuing well into the 21st century. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution. Out of German discontent with the still controversial Treaty of Versailles, Adolf Hitler was able to gain popularity and power. World War II was in part a continuation of the power struggle that was never fully resolved by the First World War; in fact, it was common for Germans in the 1930s and 1940s to justify acts of international aggression because of perceived injustices imposed by the victors of the First World War.

The establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East which were born at the end of World War I. Previous to the end of fighting in the war, the Ottoman Empire had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout the Middle East. With the end of the war and the fall of Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge. Sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population, the political boundaries drawn by the victors of the First World War were quickly imposed, and in many cases are still problematic in the 21st century struggles for national identity. While the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I was a pivotal milestone in the creation of the modern political situation of the Middle East, including especially the Arab-Israeli conflict, the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser known disputes over water and other natural resources.

The experiences of the war led to a collective trauma for all participating countries. The optimism of the beautiful era was destroyed and those who fought in the war became known as the Lost Generation. For the next few years, much of Europe mourned. Memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns. The soldiers returning home from World War I suffered greatly from the horrors they had witnessed. Many returning veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, called shell shock at the time.

The social trauma caused by years of fighting manifested itself in different ways. Some people were revolted by nationalism and its results, and so they began to work toward a more internationalist world, supporting organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only strength and military might could be relied upon in a chaotic and inhumane world. Anti-modernist views were an outgrowth of the many changes taking place in society. The rise of Nazism and fascism included a revival of the nationalist spirit and a rejection of many post-war changes. The conspiracy theory of betrayal became common and the German public came to see themselves as victims and played a significant role in the rise of Nazism. A sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced, with nihilism growing in popularity. Many believed the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory and enjoyed a level of popularity they had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or harshly affected by the war.

In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort; many of which have lasted to this day and we are still paying the price. In Colman McCarthy's words, Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.

This speech took about 8 minutes to deliver (i should have managed time better by cutting a few details). Stresses and pauses were very effective, body posture and non verbal communication was appreciated.

Cinderella’s story

There was an eerie expectant silence at the railway station. About a hundred people had gathered and were waiting for the train to arrive. Granny was also among them, sitting on a bench, head resting on a cane, thinking about that night before little Cinderella had left for boarding school, when she had told her the story of her namesake. The words were still fresh in her mind and now echoed in her ears as if little Cinderella was saying it out loud…..“But I already have nice clothes and good shoes, how will I get the fairy godmother or the charming prince at the end of the story?? I too want a story of my own, and you will have to tell it to other children.” Granny smiled despite herself at the memory and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

Cinderella - her charming, chirpy, mischievous brat of a granddaughter was returning home today after ten years. She had called a few days ago to tell granny about her latest adventure. Like every Saturday night, she had sneaked out of her dorm with her friends Alice and Jessica, after their fourth roommate, Betty, who was the school prefect, had fallen asleep. The three were going towards their spot in the woods where they went every week, with no more purpose than the morbid excitement of defying the school rules, when they heard another set of footsteps and a dragging sound nearby. Cinderella and Alice, with their ever present curiosity, started walking towards the sound. Jessica told them not to, but they wouldn’t listen and kept on.

After some time, they saw a man putting a dead body in a freshly dug grave. Both the girls panicked and were bewildered at first and thought of running back to school. But Cinderella felt that the killer should not be spared and it would be too late till they reached the school or the police. Alice thought it was a really stupid idea for two girls to try and confront a man, who was so obviously dangerous, but relented when she saw Cinderella’s resolve; and went up with her to face the killer. He startled on seeing them and was immobilized for a moment, but soon recollected himself and pointed a gun at Cinderella. This was not entirely unexpected, but they hadn’t really thought about weapons till then. She didn’t bat an eyelid, (or that’s what she had told granny anyway) and kept on walking towards him - the man renewed his threats and waved the gun, but still she didn’t stop. Alice thought she had gone insane and just stood there rooted to the ground. At last, when Cinderella got threateningly close, the man could hold no longer and clicked the revolver.

Miraculously, the gun didn’t go off, and at that precise moment, Jessica came up from behind the man and hit him on his head with a log. He went down and the girls rushed back to school to report the incident. Before leaving, Cinderella took the revolver with her as her adventure souvenir and convinced the others to omit the gun details from their narration to the authorities.

Everyone at school praised the girls for their bravery; however the principal also reprimanded them for their escapade. They were awarded at the Sunday mass and even the Reverend preached a sermon on courage that day. Betty was a little upset with her roommates for keeping her out of their secret and taking away all the glory. So the girls decided to give her a live recap of the events of the night. On returning to their dorm, they arranged for the role play and Alice took on the role of the killer. To make it more real, Cinderella handed her the gun they had brought back. They even made a makeshift grave using pillows and covers, and started acting out the confrontation scene. Cinderella kept approaching Alice, who kept mock threatening her and finally pulled the trigger. As fate had it, this time, the gun did fire.

Everyone at the railway station, dressed in mourning black, stood solemnly as the train approached. As the coffin was taken out, granny thought, “Welcome home, my darling, now you have a story too, and I will have to tell it to everyone. Only that, not every Cinderella story has a happy end.”

My Toastmaster's speech 2 - "Writing Effective Reviews"

Its called "Organize Your Speech"

Good Afternoon friends. I am here to present my second prepared speech and the topic is "Writing Effective Reviews"

What is a review? By definition, it means a critical examination of something - now that something could be a book, a movie, a music album, a consumer product - just about anything. And by this definition, all of us are inherent reviewers. There are so many times when we give our feedback on many things for the benefit of friends and family. But there are some reviews that stay in mind and help us while deciding whether to buy or use a particular product or not - and why does this happen - due to the effectiveness of the review.

To illustrate, I would take the example of a book and try to explain how to go about writing its effective review. It’s a book that I read recently called The Audacity of Hope - the second book authored by Barack Obama, who now happens to be the President of the USA. If you noticed, I just made the introductory line of my review by mentioning the USP of the book, the name of its author. This means, your review should begin with the specialty of the book, could be its name, its storyline, plot or the fact that it has been adapted into a successful movie or that it was on the bestseller list for so many weeks.

Next comes the theme of the book along with its writing style, and how it is different from other books of the same genre. The Audacity of Hope is basically about politics - about the world in general and US in particular. It gives us a glimpse of the history of American politics, its current situation and dreams of the future. More importantly, it gives us an insight into the mindset of that person who is sitting on the hottest chair of the world as of now. The language is simple and easy to understand, and what makes it interesting is the author’s vivid description of his experiences while election campaigns, of being a senator of the opposition party, of being an African American amongst the predominantly white populace.

After outlining the theme and the writing style, we may write about the plot of the story and major characters if it is a fictional work. Otherwise, we can write something about the organization of the book. Like the Audacity of Hope is organized in 9 chapters ranging from republicans vs. democrats, the American constitution, their value system, religion, racism and the world beyond their borders. The final chapter is about Obama’s family, how they were his support throughout his career and how does he balance his personal and professional lives. Seems hard to believe, but even the President of USA has one.

Having so written about the book’s organization, we are now left with the conclusion of our review - and that is the tricky part. In the conclusion, you have to give your opinion about it without enforcing it on the reader. In this case I would write something like - all in all, The Audacity of hope is a good read for people who are interested in world politics and current affairs, even if they are not so much into non-fiction. But if you are looking for facts, figures or how Barack Obama reached the White House, you would be disappointed.

So, to summaries our book review process, we started off with an introduction mentioning some specialty of the book, then came the theme, writing style, plot, characters and organization. In the end we wrote the conclusion in such a way that it would help the reader decide whether the book is for him or not.

And now as the conclusion of this speech, I would like to inform you all that the Livewire team has decided to include a review section in the newsletter, wherein we request you all to write effective reviews and we are hoping to get a huge response - after all, I just dedicated my second speech to it, didn’t I? :-)

This speech took 7 minutes, body language was good, but rate of speech was again high and stresses and pauses were not effective. The topic was appreciated.

My Toastmaster's speech 1

Its called "Ice Breaker"

Here goes my speech -

Good Afternoon friends. I am here to present my first prepared speech “The Ice Breaker”, in which one is supposed to tell the group about oneself. But I am going to deviate a little from this standard practice. I am not going to tell you anything about myself. I am not going to tell you that I belong to this city of Indore and have never been really away from home except for my three months onsite. I am not going to tell you that I am a computer engineering graduate and am about to complete 4 years of work experience in Java/J2EE technologies in this company as well as in the IT industry. I won’t tell you have I have been tagged as “intelligent” all my life and how badly I hate that tag. I will also not tell you what degree of a dreamy person I am and how I like to be engrossed in fictional books whenever I find time. I will not disclose why I decided to put on braces on my teeth at this point in life and absolutely ruined my once impeccable pronunciation. And I am certainly not telling how I trembled when I was about to jump from a plane 11000 feet high up in the air while sky diving and finally, I wont tell you how nervous I am right at this moment.

What I am really going to tell you is a story. A story of a boy - called Shantanu – and his family, an ordinary ensemble of people turned extraordinary by circumstances. So, who is this Shantanu? Let me tell you right away, he is not a fictional character - he is very much a real person who is currently doing his graduation in commerce. The story starts some 20 years back from now, when Shantanu was born. It was a normal birth and just like 50% of children born do, Shantanu took to jaundice right after his birth. Only that his jaundice went unnoticed for a week and the doctor was alarmed when Shantanu’s mother pointed out how yellow he looked. Apparently, the disease had reached such a severe stage that it could be cured only by phototherapy or light treatment and that too, only to save his life. There could be side effects leading to any kind of disability from blindness to cerebral palsy. That’s how Shantanu survived and was brought home by a set of extremely anxious parents. They did not yet know what was lying in wait for them.

As time passed, they kept on praying that everything be all right, but gradually discovered things. They confirmed that Shantanu could hear, see learn and understand things around him because he pointed out objects like fan, light, etc when asked to, but using his eyes only - he could not use his hands - both his hands. He could not use his torso and legs even, as he did not turn on his sides or crawl when the right age came. When they took him to a physiotherapist, he told him it was called cerebral palsy - which meant their son would have poor coordination in his limbs, irregular and abnormal movement patterns or spasticity, difficulty with balance, very tense muscles, he would not be able to sit or stand or move around in any way - and that it had no cure. They were shattered.

Their grief passed through all five stages - first there was denial - they refused to accept it as fact that something like this can happen to their child. They went to the best neurologists, surgeons, Acupressure experts and what not. They did Reiki, Magnet Therapy, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, and Sleep Therapy - but all to no avail. Then came the second stage - Anger. But that quickly passed. Third was bargaining - bargaining with God - they were ready to do anything only if God by some miracle could set things straight. Obviously it did not work. It depressed them - thoroughly - the fourth stage.

By this time Shantanu was six years old and was regularly doing physiotherapy to strengthen his muscles and speech therapy to improve his talking ability - because he was not able to speak legibly. It was then that Dr Kothari - his physiotherapist - took a session with his parents and made them cross over into the fifth stage of their grief - acceptance. He told them that this is how it was going to be, and would remain. Shantanu would never be physically independent. But there was a treasure hidden in that crippled body - his mind. Normally, with his kind of cerebral palsy, children are mentally retarded, but Shantanu had an above average IQ - a miracle of its kind.

So they accepted fate - particularly his mother - and she led Shantanu on his real journey - that is, education. She taught him on his own in the beginning, but later thought that he might be feeling left out when he saw his elder sibling going to school everyday, and tried to get him admitted to a school. But that was no easy job - the so called learned, highly educated people responsible for shaping the country’s future told her that such children had special schools and should be educated there. She tried to explain that Shantanu does not belong to that category - he was normal as far as mental abilities are concerned. But people did not listen to her. Some 4 or 5 tries later, a person running a small private school agreed to take Shantanu in - on some conditions of his own. In this way, Shantanu started attending a proper school in the proper way. He could not write so initially all his exams were either conducted orally or his mother or sibling did the writing for him - and people thought it was just a kind of act staged for Shantanu’s benefit and it wasn’t really him who was passing those examinations. However in the fifth board exams, he had to take the help of a writer, anyone who was in fourth standard or lower - that is, in a class below him. He obtained 82% in the exams - and people were amused - can this boy who cannot even sit in a chair on his own really do this or it has just happened by chance?

And the years went by. As Shantanu grew up, it became more and more difficult to handle him because of his growing spasticity and so a tutor was appointed to teach him at home only, while his name still being enrolled in the school. He passed the 8th board in first division and the neighborhood started talking about him. He cleared 10th standard and was featured in the local newspaper. When he got through his 12th, there was a ceremony arranged by the Maharashtrian society to felicitate him, several newspapers and magazines all over the country and a local channel covered the news. The news even found its way on the Internet. And this year, when he went to write his b.com second year’s exam, there was a newspaper reporter waiting for him there ready to take his interview. Shantanu has vouched that he would stop only when the President of India awards him a medal and who knows, he might set some greater target then?

And this Shantanu, my dear friends, happens to be my own darling kid brother - the only person on planet earth I love more than I love myself. So, on behalf of my entire family, I request you all from the bottom of my heart to include Shantanu in your prayers today so that God, if he is really there, gives him the strength to reach his goal. Thank you.

This speech took 6 min 45 sec to deliver, my rate was speech was too high and lacked proper intonation and expression. Structure of the speech was appreciated.