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.