Toastmaster's Advanced Speech 6 - "Innocence aka Thapa"

This is speech #2 from  "Storytelling" manual, called "Let's Get Personal". The objective is to learn the elements of a good story and to create and tell an original story based on a personal experience. Time allotted is 6 to 8 minutes.

Have you met innocence before? I have. He is 24 years old and divides his time driving people around in Leh and hibernating in Zanskar. His name is Thapa.

Good Afternoon fellow toastmasters.

Even if it has been almost a year now that I have been to Ladakh, the name still brings up a flood of memories. It was in May last year that I went to this eastern valley in the State of Jammu and Kashmir with a group of friends. We spent about a week there, struggling to breathe in sub zero temperatures, where the lowest altitude was 11,000 feet above sea level - the height from which a normal sky dive occurs. The very first day we reached there, our tour organizer allocated different cars and drivers to various groups. It was then that we first saw this 5-feet tall, young Sherpa kind of guy with his rugged jeans, careless sweatshirt and tousled hair, squatting atop the bumper of his car, picking teeth with his nails. Our first thought was, “Seriously? This guy? Cant we get someone else?”

But that was not to be. The five of us were stuck with him for the next five days, and he with us, and thus started the process of discovering this gem. Along with being a driver, Thapa could also function as a tour guide, albeit a poor one, but guide nonetheless. A worshipper of Dalai Lama, he would always turn the car encircling a shrine on the shoulder of the road. Incredulously, we would ask, “Why Thapa, there is this 6 feet wide road in front of you and you are playing such stunts?” and his ready reply would be, “For good luck madam. This is mountain road, but no accident will happen, you will see.”

But of course, an accident does happen. Apparently, encircling a shrine does not guarantee any benefit against refraining from honking on blind turns. I think Thapa did not know that there existed a horn in his car, he never used it! After prodding a bit, he sheepishly accepted that he did not honk because the poor driver coming in from the other side of the turn will get scared with such a loud noise. All we could do at this point is to request him with folded hands to also worry about poor us.

What we did not know then is that Thapa need not be told to worry about us or his fellow drivers or anyone else; he did that on his own. If anyone felt sick due to long drives on the zigzag curvy roads, he would be the first to get down helping, consoling, offering water without saying a word. If you merely mentioned you were bored with the same songs playing again and again, he would get a new USB with the latest songs, God knows from where. If you were singing along and he had to stop the car and get down in between, he would still keep the engine running so that the music doesn’t stop. If you pleaded with him to let you drive for a bit, he would get teary eyed and say, “Please..I will lose my job”, but a while later move away from the group and let you drive when his boss was out of sight.

The younger of two brothers, Thapa lived with his family in a village near Zanskar during winters and came to Leh to work as a driver in summers. As per the military tradition in his village, his older brother was the star of the family with a job in the Army, the most respectable job a man can get, and our protagonist was the ugly duckling who failed to get entry due to his physique. Nonetheless, in his girlfriend’s and his own view, Thapa turned out pretty well earning “six thousand rupees per month” as a driver. His dream was to buy the car he was currently driving and continue the same profession. Ladies and gentlemen, he wanted to be the proud owner of a vehicle, not to employ someone else and reap the benefit.…but just own the car and keep driving tourists around!

After spending five days in the company of this Kurkure-loving, god-fearing, bashful, sensitive person with a twinkle in his eye, we could not help but become his fans. On the last day, on our very last drive, we tell him about the importance of savings, opening a bank account, and how he can take a loan and fulfill his dream of buying a car and marrying his girlfriend.

At the airport, we say our goodbyes and take a last look at this guy with his rugged jeans, careless sweatshirt and tousled hair, squatting atop the bumper of his car, with tears in his eyes, and think Thapa, you are innocence personified.

This speech took 7:20 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for characterization and dialogue  The presentation could have been more dramatic.