Born Again!

…experience of a newbie toastmaster

24 years ago, when I was lying in a hospital cradle beside my mother’s bed, I must have cried a lot, and I guess, that was the beginning of something - my own way of communicating with the outer world. I cried for anything and everything that I wanted to express to others.


Days have gone by. I learnt how to tell my mom that I was hungry. I learnt how to tell my dad that I needed a new toy car. And I learnt how to say the answers to questions asked by my teachers. I was happy that I could speak, speak up and speak out my mind.


I was communicating. And I was communicating well; people around me could understand me properly. But poor me, I never knew there was a climax waiting. And as I grew I met with new people who were not so similar to me, in the sense that they didn’t use the language that I was accustomed to. Oh dear! I met the demon called English. I was frightened. I was down. I wanted to escape. But then to my utter dismay I realized I really can’t let loose. And that demon is not really a demon but the way I look at it – and that can be even a genie that can help me to reach out to people, beyond the boundary of my province, beyond the border of my country.


I met with a teacher when I was in standard IVth. And he started with a conversation which at that time I really couldn’t make out. But ever since I grew up as a high school kid, I could understand the meaning underlying his first piece of words to me. He said something like this: English is just like your own mother – a beautiful lady covering her face with a veil on it – but she is always calling you in – I will help you to reach there – but it’s you who only can unveil her face.


And I was on my way to unveil her, and he always guided me in that path. But I grew up to pass out from school, left the hometown to join college. I joined job, I changed places, and all throughout I missed him.


I missed him, and I rambled here and there, completely lost in my way. And then I stumbled over the door of Toastmasters. And the door, I discovered, is leading to a way, the one that my first English teacher showed to me years ago.


Being a commonplace Bengali guy, and having studied in Bengali medium till 18 years of age, I really found it hard to cope up with the need of English speaking in my personal as well as professional life. But I had the will to conquer that fear. Where there is a will, there is a way. And in this case, the toastmasters became that way for me.


When I came to deliver my first prepared speech (the project 1 of Competent Communicator manual), the first thing that I left behind was my fear of failure. When I spoke on the first table topic in the Salt Lake Orators club, I didn’t pay heed to time limits and I feel something instilled in me the courage to keep on babbling for 3 minutes and 23 seconds! When I am burning the midnight oil to jot down this entry for the club newsletter, something is inspiring me to keep on writing. Something’s snatching the sleep out of my eyes. Something’s benumbing my senses against the feeling of tiredness. Something’s doing all such magical things.


Once in one of our club meetings a veteran speaker of our club was given a table topic where he needed to speak about a stone that has got magical power in it. He spoke about the club itself. Compared it to the stone, enunciated how the club does the magic and turns us on to be more courageous, confident and cogent in our approach to speak in public. Now I am feeling the same magic. And I agree to each and everything I heard from him that evening. That was one of the absolute moments of truth.


After every speech in toastmasters, we are given helpful evaluations. When I was in school, I used to get a report card after each of my exams. But a few days ago, an evaluator for my speech that I gave in the previous week, called me up and told, he couldn’t tell this in front of all that I needed to improve on the subject matter of my speech! How often have you heard schools giving two report cards? - One with less number of red marks on it, and so that you can show it to your mom easily, but along with the other one which is more helpful to assess yourself in a better way. God! People here are so considerate.


In regular toastmasters’ meetings, when I see a fellow toastmaster looking at his mentor every time he speaks, and at the same time his mentor putting ‘Thumbs up’ to him to boost his confidence up, I feel where else could I see the same kind of bonding between two people who do not belong to the same family. I always thought I have only one elder brother. But recently, like that fellow toastmaster I have found out that I have one more, who is actually like a bade bhaiyaa (an elder brother) to me too – A mentor, but more like a lighthouse in my dilemma. ‘Toastmasters’ is indeed a second kind of family, where we are members not by birth but by our desire to learn, to share and to grow, individually as well as collectively.


I owe toastmasters the motivation that helps me stand tall after every time I stumble. I owe you the confidence that evokes the smile of my face even at the most nervous situation. I owe you the courage that I muster before every single word I speak.


Until I joined toastmasters, I never believed in the theory of rebirth. But now, being a part of it, I have started to believe in the same. If it was the first time that I learnt how to cry in that hospital cradle, the next is this one, in the Kolkata Toastmasters Club. It inspired me to begin a new life. A life enlightened by the company of toastmasters.

Anything under the sun! - My Project 2 Speech

(Dramatically,…) Oh! This perspiration! And still it’s better in this air conditioned room. But just step out in the afternoon and look above… the cruel and angry ball of fire is bubbling in ruthless ire. – Scorching heat, sunburns, and this sultry summer – Ohh! Life’s hell under the sun, --- Mr. toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and guests, if we are thinking in this way, we are, for sure, taking a lopsided view of the mighty Helios – the heroic sun god. Have you ever imagined what would have happened to us in the absence of sun?


(Pause)…Well to even answer the question which I have just asked, you must need to mull over it, and for that you need your brain, but for the brain to be working you must be alive, i.e. you must have life, but life thrives on earth only because there is something called the sun.


We human beings are so proud about ourselves, as we are the mightiest and the most brilliant of the species living on earth, but do you know? - even we‘ve have been developed over a long time, slowly and steadily, from just a single celled organism. And that cell was created as an effect of complex chemical reactions. And for those reactions to take place there was a need of energy. And who catered that? – the sun.


Life on earth – well that’s something which the sun has done. But what about the earth itself? Geo scientists say that even earth is a small part of sun that got detached from the solar star many many years ago and cooled down over time to take the present form. So had there been no sun, there won’t have been something called earth!


There are other neighbours – Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune – they are the bigger planets – many many times bigger than the mother earth, still life never thrived on them, because, sun has never been so kind to them.


But he was kind to earth – whenever she needed him. He was kind to her because he loved her! And it was he who always came forward to rescue her whenever she was in a peril. Like, there was a time which historians call the “Ice Age” – there was thick crust of hard frost all over her body – things got frozen on earth – and survival became a difficult thing. And then there was the amorous look of the sober sun that acted as the ‘Ice Breaker’ – broke the crust of earth – removed her pale-gloomy-white widow-like dress, and dressed her up again in a new attire – the lush green foliage.


Plants came first, and the animals followed, and then we came to rule rampant. And we flourished on earth; we did so as we got the food and drink timely. Plants made the food for us, but to make that food, what did they feed themselves? It’s the light – the warmth of the sun rays. But that’s not all, Sun did cast his rays on oceans too, and vapours rose up in the sky, rumbled in the form of cloud, and showered back on earth - And we quenched our thirst.


For household activities, industrial operations, or even for day to day conveyance, we use so much of fuels and substantially fossil fuels – we use the energy that are pent up in coal / petroleum / wood – and it’s the sun who along with his last longing lingering look of the evening casts the soothing sunbeams, that are raw form of energy, which in the process of energy transformation, are stored in what we call, the fuel that drives our civilisation.


But these days, the environmentalists and the green people are much more concerned about the puzzling problem of rapid energy depletion. And they worry about the amount of fossil fuel still left in the planet earth for human beings to live on. Well, that’s indeed a problem and we must try to tame other forms of nature’s power which is available in abundance… And we must promote the use of renewable and non-conventional energy resources. And when we talk about a non-conventional and plentiful source of energy what can be better than the solar power? So, just look up and get the idea. Eventually, only a few days back Bengal witnessed the setting up of a 2MW solar power station in Asansol area. So things have started to move the solar way. And it’s a good indication that the human beings are being more intelligent and efficient in terms of usage of energy.


So we see that the story of sun is an epical one. The sun created the earth, reared her up, and it provided a solution whenever she faced a problem. So to sing the saga of the soothing sun that enamoured us for millions of years, mere few minutes is not enough, and this talk can go on and on, but to conclude, I must reiterate that this beautiful earth is a magical wonder – and the magician sun spells its golden rays – which in my imagination, are the sparkling magic wands. And upon earth, life begins with sun. Life gets food, life gets fuel, life gets the go to move on – for there’s sun. We play, we talk, we sing in joy – Anything’s possible, just under the sun.