Toastmaster's Advanced Speech 2 - "Love And Its Syndromes"

This is speech #2 from  "The Entertaining Speaker" manual, called "Resources for Entertainment". The objective is to draw entertaining material from sources other than your own personal experience and adapt your material to suit your topic, your personality, and the audience. Time allotted is 5 to 7 minutes.

“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough”, said the great G. B. Shaw. Another great writer, Mark Twain, said, “The trouble with life is that there is no background music!” 

Good Afternoon fellow Toastmasters. These days I tend to agree with Mr. Shaw quite a lot and disagree with Mr. Twain just a little bit. I am guessing most of you present here would have watched the movie Main Hoo Na? Have you? Then you must know the Main hoo na syndrome; remember the scene – scenes: actually there were two – where Shahrukh Khan sees Sushmita Sen and his arms go up in the air on their own accord and violins start playing in the background? Well, that’s a blatant exaggeration. But then, for the major part of the movie the theme song keeps playing softly as if inside your head in a continuous loop – that, if you are a music lover is still believable. 

You see so many movies, read so many books, watch television, listen to countless songs, watch your friends fall in love and do things they otherwise wouldn’t; and you being your practical pragmatic self laugh at the senseless absurdity. Let me illustrate with a real life story. A couple of my friends, who are now married to each other but at a time were coping with the strain of a long distance relationship – and I swear this really happened – both used to look at the moon at the same instant! Like they show in gooey romantic movies! Yes, in the 21st century when you already have web cams, skype and video calling. Can anyone beat this Na Tum Jaano Na Hum syndrome? 

Then there is the who-will-put-the-phone-down-first complex, from the movie ‘Mere Yaar ki Shaadi Hai’: a couple is talking on the phone, both say bye, both don’t really cut the line, and the conversation goes like this: “You didn’t put the phone down”, “You too didn’t put the phone down”, “Ok, lets do it together, 1, 2, 3, cut.” And then once again, “You didn’t cut it this time either”. And we, the bewildered audience feel - someone cut the wire please and put the poor phone out of its misery. 

And there are so many others, Subodh from Dil Chahta Hai, giving a balloon everyday complex, Raj from I Hate Love Storys giving a flower everyday syndrome, I will bring the moon for you if you just say it; your feet are so beautiful, don’t put them down on the floor; the list is endless, and it makes you silently shriek..ughhh…stop it!! Stop it! 

But then one day, out of the blue comes a tall, not so dark, handsome guy, not on a white horse, but in his mini-SUV and sweeps you off your feet; all the romantic comedies you so categorically laughed at suddenly start dancing in front of you in mockery; all symptoms I just described begin to terrify you and you fervently pray not to end up as one of the examples. But thankfully, something similar to the Saathiya syndrome happens. The scene is - Suhani and Aditya are travelling in a Mumbai local and are having this conversation: 

Suhani: “So, you really love me, huh?” 

Aditya: “Absolutely. How can I prove it to you?” 

Suhani: “Jump off the train” 

Aditya: “I will. As soon as it stops.” 

Then your heart says, that’s my man. Then you start believing completely in Shaw’s Everything happens to everybody and totally discard Twain’s there’s no background music in life. Because, if you are really listening, there is.

This speech took 5:45 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for content and the ability to captivate audience. Body language could be improved.