Thought to Word

Contest season 2011

2011-11-02T05:58:00.001-07:00

I’ve never been a contest-addict. While I have coaxed others to participate, I haven’t felt as strong participating myself. Last year, I suddenly felt up to the challenge of preparing for the Humorous Speech contest, but last minute travel kept me away. This year, the enthusiasm came back and I got a script ready for the club-level Humorous Speech contest. I also decided to participate in the Speech Evaluation contest. As luck would have it, the humorous speech ended up third best. I fared better in the evaluation contest, winning the Second Place award, behind Rajdeep Manwani. I would have loved to have the results of my 2 contests exchanged . Oh yes, the participation and winners certificates were really cool…

I was thus through to the Area Level contest. Area L3 contest was sponsored by Schneider Electric TM Club at their premises. I put in a bit more effort into the evaluation and ended up second best, again behind Rajdeep. 2 more certificates followed.

Division L Speech Evaluation contest was at the Royal Orchid Hotel. The setting unnerved me initially and I had to summon all my experience to put up a good performance. Surprise, surprise, I was second best yet again. No surprise for guessing the winner… Rajdeep Manwani again! The man is unstoppable in contests.

I felt, for someone resistant to participate, a return of 4 participation certificates, 3 Second place awards and one Third place award, including a beautiful trophy was pretty good. I don’t know if I will participate in the Table Topics and Speech contests starting February 2012, but my contest season for 2011 was a successful venture.

Testing Windows Live Writer…

2011-10-13T21:47:00.001-07:00

This is a test post. I’m using Windows Live Writer to publish this post. This software was recently downloaded automatically as part of Windows Live Essentials and I thought of checking it out. I’m eager to see how it fits into the dynamic page views that Blogger has recently moved to.

Being Selective for Success

2011-10-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

I recently competed at the Humorous Speech contest conducted at Bangalore Toastmasters Club. This was my first speech contest appearance in almost 2 years and I was apprehensive that I would be rusty. It didn't turn out so bad, in spite of the script getting ready about 5 hours before the contest! Nothing unusual about the last-minute preparation! Winning the 3rd prize was a bonus! And before you ask, there were 5 contestants participating :-)

The speech title was inspired from one of the topics I presented at a recent workshop at St. Joseph Engineering College, Mangalore (see http://sjecmba.blogspot.com/2011/09/workshop-on-motivation-and-leadership.html). That time, I spoke about Time Management, but this was a totally different theme... I've had to edit out 2 sentences so that I don't hurt the sentiments of 2 individuals who might read this. Happy reading... Comments welcome!

[Edited 1 sentence] Which works best - an arranged marriage or a love marriage? What is the ideal profession of the girl you are marrying?

Contest chair, Toastmasters and guests,

My last attempt at a contest was a speech titled “The Power of Choice”. I didn’t win the contest because a certain gentleman going by the name Aaron Watson was just beginning the ride of his life, a journey which took him to the World Championship arena for 2 years in a row. But even though I didn’t win, quite a few people came up to me and said, “You really inspired us”. Spurred by this feedback, I decided to share with you all, through this speech, the story of the choices I have made in my life and how they have positively impacted me.

In our day to day lives, we are faced with choices almost every second. What complicates our decision making is the fact that though we are blessed with a single brain, there are 2 hemispheres, a right and a left. The left brain does nothing right and the right brain has nothing left in it. Jokes apart, it’s only when we are selective in our decision making that we will be happy, be it during a date or in marriage.

It was when I was in the second PU, my 12th standard, that I was invited for my first disco party. Some of my students now call me Harry Potter, but 15 years ago, I was a totally different avatar. I was substantially thinner and my glasses were substantially bigger. I had just presented my Icebreaker at the Toastmasters club and felt confident enough to approach two girls I thought were approachable; individually of course! [Edited 1 sentence] Thankfully, both the girls said they were expecting their respective boyfriends. Poor fellows, I thought to myself. I want to highlight the correct choice of the boyfriends: both girls achieved success in modeling, while the only modeling I do now is when trying to entertain my daughter Christine.

The next major dilemma I faced was whether to take a chance and fall in love myself or to leave the choice to the selection panel: my parents. Given my poor track record so far, remember the 12th standard party, the selection committee wisely decided to take responsibility and the search for a bride for me began in right earnest in 2004. From the outset, I was keen on marrying a teacher. She would have regular working hours and guaranteed holidays. Getting admission also should not be a problem, besides the incentive of getting a few extra marks here and there, being a teacher's child!

The next choice: what subject should she be teaching? Social studies was ruled out: she may probe too deep into my history, or she may ask to be taken around to new places in the guise of learning geography. Language was also ruled out: imagine me whispering sweet nothings into her ear and “eh-huh! Grammatical error!”. I finally decided on a Science teacher. We could strike up a good chemistry, generate heat through application of concepts in physics and of course, biology would of course follow. The smartest decision followed: I married a lecturer in physiotherapy. Now all theory sessions are followed by practical demonstrations.

Being selective helps in making the best decisions. Bachelors, I’ve shared with you my success mantra. For the married men, I can share my wife’s contact number with your wives. I'll leave you with a few lines dear to me:

If upon your choices you do not think,
You will not get to sleep a wink.
Yours may be a marriage, arranged or love,
You can still make it as pure as a dove.
Remember, a selective choice can your destiny make,
A wrong word and your bones can break!

Contest Chair!

Poetry after a long time

2011-02-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

I'm updating my blog after ages... and what better way than with some lines of rhyme... I'd saved about 4-5 of them on scraps of paper, but my desk got messy (yes, it happens after a few years of marriage :-)) Here are two that I found after a short search. More to follow.

Incidentally, both were composed during Toastmaster meetings. What was special was the audience... members from 4 clubs from Bagmane Tech Park... Crystalk Talk (Motorola), Novell, Juno Speak (Juniper Networks) and CY SpeakSense (Cypress).

The first was on 20th Jan 2011, as part of my evaluation of Sumangala Rao's CC9 speech evaluation. Here we go:

Say no to New Year resolutions, a topic up for debate,
This is an issue that will not completely abate.

You said to visualize your life as a movie,
Taht would be, for me, pretty groovy.

Your speech had a fair bit of humour,
You're bubbly like this, that is the rumour.

From your CC, you are a step away,
I would advise you, do not delay!

The second was composed in about 5 minutes after the GE commented after my evaluation that he was expecting a poem, which didn't happen. So I composed one commenting on the meeting as a whole... This was yesterday, 23rd Feb 2011. Incidentally, I became an uncle during the meeting :-)

It was the 23rd day of February 2011, (pronounced twenty eleven)
I felt I was in heaven.

Four clubs of Bagmane got together,
As Toastmasters, all birds of a feather.

Satya kicked off the meet,
Just 4 minutes late, that's quite a feat.

Babula spoke on the benefits of meditation,
His is a success story, calls for jubilation.

Abhi's CC was the icing on the cake,
It was obvious, in his speech, there was nothing fake.

It was a successful meeting from clubs numbering four,
I look forward to enjoying many, many more!

Until the next installment, take care!
JAM

Christine Mathias

2010-06-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

On the 26th of April 2010, our first child was christened Christine Mathias at a simple Baptism ceremony held at St. Pius X Church, Mulund, Mumbai. The ceremony was witnessed by our parents and my grandmother, among other relatives. Barbara's sister, Laveena and her husband Floyd were the Godparents.I thank you all for your prayers and best wishes. May Christine grow in body, spirit and faith to make her parents and well-wishers proud one day.

Mumbai road trip - April 2010

2010-05-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Been doing a bit of driving lately. There was the road trip to Pondicherry (now Puducherry) in February to drop Chaitanya, my brother-in-law when we took the Esteem. Now, with baby C's christening coming up, I thought of us traveling as a family to Mumbai by car. We'd done it before, in December 2005, when we drove Bangalore - Mangalore - Mumbai - Bangalore, so there was the experience. I figured, that with 4 people traveling, it would be even cheaper than AC 3-tier train.

See the route we took in a larger map

We set off at 3:30am on Friday 23 April with me in the driver's seat. The idea of leaving early was to avoid the truck traffic on the Yesvantpur-Nelamangala stretch of NH-4. Our plan worked and we breezed through to the first toll collection point a little past Nelamangala in about an hours time. This was the first of almost 15-20 toll collections booths along the route to Mumbai. In all, we spent almost Rs.500 on tolls each way!!

The 4-laned NH-4 is beautiful and pleasurable to drive on for the most part. Work is in progress in certain stretches where a bypass is built around a major town. The one which gave us the most inconvenience was the Ranebennur bypass. The Chitradurga-Davangere stretch too was made challenging due to the unscientific building of speed breakers at unexpected places.

We stopped for breakfast at the Kamat Yatri Nivas at Ranebennur. It was passable. Dad then took over the wheel. The condition of the road was now better and it improved steadily as we crossed Haveri. After Hubli-Dharwad, it was back to being a beauty and we made up for lost time. At the half-way point, Belgaum came and went and it was approaching lunch time. Just as we drove into the Kamat Yatri Nivas beyond Belgaum, we discovered, to our shock that the right rear tire was punctured. Fortunately we discovered it just as we exited the highway onto the service road that led to the hotel. A quick tire change and lunch later, we pulled into a roadside tire repair shop a short distance away. We discovered that the tube was shredded beyond repair!

We were now almost half-an-hour behind schedule. However, not wanting to risk traveling without a good spare tire, we got into the town of Sankeshwar and purchased a brand new tube. After this adventure, we were almost an hour off track. A little while later, we entered Maharashtra and the traffic seemed to increase all of a sudden. Mum had taken over driving duties. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, honking impatiently, weaving in and out at speed and jumping the queue at toll booths! It was quite exasperating...

The scenery also changed dramatically in places. We crossed some beautiful ghat sections, the tunnel under the Khandala and Khatraj ghats seemed to stretch on endlessly. Truly remarkable feats of human engineering! Something unique happened at the Khatraj tunnel. It was around 7pm when we entered the tunnel. All seemed well until we exited the tunnel to the crash of raindrops on our car. Yes! It was bone dry at the entrance of the tunnel and pouring rain at the other side! We drove through Pune in the rain and safely crossed the sprawling city using the signal-free bypass road. Wish our ring roads in Bangalore were like this!

Having crossed Pune, we were now on the home stretch. We got into the Mumbai-Pune expressway and though we were zipping, the other vehicles seemed to fly by us even faster. Since it was dark, we couldn't quite enjoy the breath-taking Lonavla-Khopoli stretch. Believe me, I've traveled this stretch by bus during the day and it's a sight to behold...

A quick drive through Navi Mumbai and the last toll at the Airoli Bridge later, we reached our destination in Mulund East, Barbara's home, a little past 10:30pm. The 1000km journey had taken us 19 hours in all. Excluding the breaks for breakfast, lunch and the tire puncture adventure, we would have done it in about 17 and a half hours. Google maps and my navigation safely brought us home in good time :-).

I'll cover Baby C's baptism in another post. On to the return journey. We pretty much retraced our path, except for the puncture part, fortunately. Nothing untoward happened on the way back. We again left early to beat the morning rush at Pune. We had breakfast at Hotel Natraj at Khatraj and stopped for lunch besides the road a little beyond Hubli. We decided to skip dinner in favor of reaching home soon. We were home around 10:30pm, tired, but safe after another 1000km drive!

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip.

All in the family

2010-05-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

This was an article I wrote that was published in the March 2010 issue of "The Bangalore Toastmaster" newsletter. The accompanying photo was "borrowed" from my orkut collection by the stand-in VP-PR Jindow Joseph...

At first, Bangalore Toastmasters Club meeting #705 on 16th April 2010 seemed like any other. There were 2 Icebreakers, which wasn’t unusual considering the number of new members who’d joined the club recently. What was coincidental was that both the speakers who gave their Icebreaker were men who’d joined Toastmasters along with their wives. A little coaxing from the VPE would have resulted in a truly memorable meeting with 4 Icebreaker speeches from 2 sets of Toastmaster couples!

This situation got me thinking as to what could be the pros and cons of being a Toastmaster couple. Having spent close to 4 years in the category myself, my views are credible and many of the observations I present before you come out of personal experience. So let’s look at the positives first:

- This is definitely top of the list. The husband doesn’t have to give an account of his time spent on a Friday evening. As a bonus, see the next point.
- The Friday evening meeting concluding at 8.30pm is an excellent opportunity for the couple to spend quality time together over a romantic dinner outside.
- Mentoring/coaching/evaluation of project speeches in the convenient and comfortable confines of home.
- Opportunity to get your speech ghost-written for free if you are either short of time or creativity.
- This is priceless. The feeling of pride when listening first-hand to your partner deliver an outstanding speech or get some recognition.

If there were only positives, Toastmasters clubs across the world would be full of either couples or aspiring couples. So here are a few disadvantages of having a Toastmaster partner:

- Feedback is the breakfast of champions, but it might not get you dinner! The husband had better be a master evaluator before considering giving his opinion on how a new dress looks on his wife.
- Thanks to the sandwich approach of evaluation, even a compliment can be looked upon suspiciously, with the partner anticipating something not so pleasant coming up.

I thought long and hard, but couldn’t add to these. The advantages outnumber the disadvantages 5-2. It pays to have a Toastmaster partner, to be with you before, during and after the meeting. Here is my call to all you married members, get your partners into Toastmasters soon. Both of you will speak better, think better and listen better. It will be a decision you will not regret.

Our baby is born

2010-05-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

At 8:34am on Friday 26th March 2010, the unceasing wailing of a new-born baby girl stirred a myriad of emotions to certain individuals. To the mother, Barbara, and me, it marked the end of a journey as expectant parents and the beginning of a new phase in our lives. To my parents, it was a step forward as first-time grandparents. To Barbara's parents, it was a welcome change after 2 grandsons. To my sister Rohini and Chaitanya, it marked the entry of "Chumkins". To Barbara's sister Laveena and Floyd, it was their chance to be godparents.

Baby C (let's call her that for now) entered this world, giving joy to so many people. She, however, didn't feel very happy at being eased out of the comfortable confines of Barbara's womb. She protested in the only way she knew, crying incessantly, and stopped a good hour later, when the new mother was back in the ward and ready to give her her first feed. After a nourishing "breakfast", it was time to give everyone, including herself a rest. A couple of hours later, it was back to the crying and feeding routine.

Baby C was born by normal delivery and weighed 2.7kg at birth. She was 43 cm tall and her dad couldn't stop beaming at the size of her fingers and feet :-)

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and sent us their best wishes.

One of a kind

2010-02-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

This was a speech I delivered on the 22nd of Jan this year. It was a "roast" and the guidelines were to:

Poke fun at a particular individual in a good-natured way
Adapt and personalize humorous material from other sources
Deliver jokes and humorous stories effectively

My subject was our club VPE and my Asst. AG Marketing Pawas Chandra. At the outset, thanks to him for being so sportive and agreeing to be subjected to a little leg-pulling :-) Here goes....

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when this part of the world is asleep, this gentleman is wide awake.He still has a couple of hours before going to bed. The best time to speak to him is between 3 to 7pm when his faculties are wide awake. Hi Orkut profile says he is "infectious and incurable". He is the one of a kind, Pawas Chandra.

Pawas is a typical modern-day bachelor. One look at his room will convince you if you have any doubts. He has, at last count, 517 friends on facebook and 411 on orkut. Okay, there may be a few duplicates, but a healthy percentage are of the feminine species.

I'm sure all of us have been struck by the time stamp of Pawas' emails. Being an owl, it is quite difficult for him to get up early in the morning. For our recent club picnic, we were required to assemble opposite Metro on Kanakpura Road at 9.30am. Pawas was determined to be there on time, even if it meant getting up early. He arranged for a wake-up call in the form of Jindow. It's a different matter that Jindow himself is no early bird. How, between themselves, they managed to reach Metro by 9.30am is another story! Pawas, I hope you've made some arrangements for getting up early this Sunday... there's the Officers Training Program, remember?

Before joining Toastmasters, Pawas was a bright engineer at HP. Now don't get me wrong, he's still bright! While at HP, he had 5 patents to his name. I asked him about it. He gave me a detailed explanation of how they were an amalgamation of marketing strategies and technical know-how to finally arrive at some mumbo-jumbo. I then realized how he'd got his patents... if you can't convince, confuse!

Pawas joined Bangalore Toastmasters in April 2008 and a few months later, chose me as his mentor. A few months later, he had set his target: CC in 4 months or less. From then on, his life changed. As his mentor, so did mine!

He called me over to his house for a speech practice session. There wasn't much furniture in the room, just a mattress on the floor that looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a few months. I asked him if the mosquitoes and bedbugs didn't bite him. His reply - Oh, they don't trouble me at all... they sleep before I do!

It's a tribute to Pawas' commitment and determination that Pawas today has set a goal and achieved it. That's on the communication track. Along the leadership track too, Pawas has been steadily rising. He's been our Sergeant-at-Arms, where he had to greet guests and make them feel comfortable. He did pay special attention to the lady guests. He then rose to be the VP Membership, where he had to "pay more attention" to the guests. He's now the Asst. Area Governor Marketing, where his job involves talking to pretty HR executives selling them the concept of Toastmasters! He's doing a pretty good job actually...

Pawas is preparing for his MBA now and this reflects in his conversation. We were discussing the games we love and I mentioned cricket. He said, what's great in cricket? You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man in the side that is in goes out and when he's out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they've all been in and out, the side that has been out in the field comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get out those coming in. Sometimes there are still men in and not out. When they've all been in and out, including not outs, that's the end of the game. What's great in it?

Pawas, you're a young man and I see great things ahead of you. If you want to cement your relationships, here's some advice for you. Don't kiss a lawyer, she'll say, "I object". Don't kiss a doctor, she'll say "Next". Only kiss a physiotherapist. She'll say, "Hold for 10 seconds and repeat 10 times".

Mr. Toastmaster!

It was a good experience speaking again... after more than 6 months! Ok, so the content could have been modified a little bit. I had another joke for the MBA part but my presence of mind let me down - We were discussing golf and Pawas said, "Golf is an ineffectual attempt to direct an uncontrollable object into an inaccessible hole with instruments ill-adapted for the purpose!" For the most part, I got a pretty good reception from the audience. The final line was the clincher. Those who know Barbara and me will appreciate the humour more... incidentally, Barbara forwarded me this SMS joke!

Cheers!
Arun

p.s. Thanks to Sunil for processing the video. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOHZYmYt0U

Poetry revisited

2010-01-03T22:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted a poem, so here's a piece I composed between 10am and 12noon on the 23rd of August, on the last day of an NLP program I attended. Those who were part of the program might appreciate the context more.

I just completed my first NLP course,
For 6 days, 24 of us were to each other an inspiration source..
Each of us was a true gem,
Through these few lines, let me introduce you to them.
Our trainer was the enthusiastic, experienced and expressive Ashlesh,
He appeared to us as inspirational as Lord Ganesh.
Divya and Nandana were assisting from the start,
To the effectiveness of the sessions, they played an integral part.
Let me introduce you to the bouncy and vibrant Vandana,
And the quiet and introspective Shamna.
Michael was a true inspiration,
His anecdotes and naughty wit were a revelation.
George was his schoolmate and friend for 40 years,
He broke 4 tiles and allayed our fears,
Sunand had scaled many a Himalayan peak,
He sacrificed his treks for almost a week.
Rajesh and Raghavv stood tall,
When they stood side by side, it felt like a wall.
Chethan told us about his inner voices,
He was exceptional at making animal noises.
Pankaj was as active as a bunny,
When he walked into the room, it suddenly felt sunny.
Shridev and Shivdeep caused me confusion,
One of them smoked, that was the differentiation.
Joshua was the bubbly guy,
Priya was leaving for her MS, so after the course, we said bye bye.
Lieske was the sole foreigner in the group,
When we used Hindi words, she was in quite a soup.
Ranga shared his experience as a coach,
It created in us a lot of thought or soach. (Hindi)
Shubani got rid of her fear of dogs,
For her it felt like the lifting of logs.
Sumith and Kiran were like peas in a pod,
They shattered the tiles like would a rod.
Anand was the CA, always with a number,
Many of Puvana's experiences made us wonder.
Richa was the first to break a tile,
She drove her fears many a mile.
Surya and Reshmi were the last of the bunch,
I'll never forget the laughter after the last lunch!

Cheers,

Arun

Creepy...

2009-12-30T22:36:00.000-08:00

This is spooky.... It started rather innocuously when I saw about an hour's bit of the Kannada movie "Yajamaana", courtesy KSRTC screening this movie en route from Mumbai to Bangalore. This happened on Sunday morning. The movie starred Vishnuvardhan in a dual role as an elder and younger brother. Read the storyline here.
On Tuesday, I was browsing through photos on facebook and saw 2 of my classmates, Arjun and Santosh striking a pose that suggested a song being sung in true Kannada movie style. I wrote a comment "Let me guess... Arjun is singing a Vishnuvardhan song..."
On Wednesday morning came the shocking news of the sudden demise of Vishnuvardhan due to a heart attack! This chain of events has left me wondering... was there a link? I'm not a fan of Kannada movies and I don't follow the lives of Kannada film actors, but I was struck by the coincidence of it all.
What do you say?

My Hyderabad trip - Nov 21-22, 2009

2009-12-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

I visited Hyderabad for the very first time last month. The occasion was Reverberations 2009, the Semi-annual conference of our District. A group of us (Rajdeep, Karthikeyan, Balaji and myself) left Bangalore on the night of November 20th by bus. The 10-hour ride was unexpectedly extended courtesy a punctured tire. We reached Hyderabad an hour and a half late.
After a hurried breakfast, I rushed to Hotel Fortune Select Manohar, the venue of the conference. The District Committee meeting had already begun. I had to present the Division B status, since Srikanth was coming in late. Incidentally, this was the second time, after Delhi in 2007, when my Division Governor was missing and I had to present the Division report! Anyways, my report was well received. After lunch, I rushed off to explore the Hyderabad public transport, thanks to a shopping list prepared by Barbara :-). I was given superb guidance and found myself just where I wanted to be... Shopping done, I returned in time for the Division Council meeting. Among the items discussed were the possible realignment of District 82 to cater to the current size and expected growth of Toastmasters in the region. It was decided that the District leadership would put forward 2 proposals to TMI to split the District. We should know the outcome in February when the TM Board meets.
The evening of the 21st was dedicated to fun and party. Being the 85th year of the Toastmasters movement, the party was themed on the 80’s. The attendees were appropriately dressed in faded jeans, oversized sunglasses and bell-bottomed pants. I was dressed in a kurta-pyjama... don't know if I fit in the theme, but so what if I didn't, I was dressed differently! Toastmasters young and old rediscovered their dancing shoes and partied late into the night.
The 22nd was dedicated to the educational sessions and contests. The day began with the formal opening ceremony and keynote address by renowned social reformer Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan. The educational sessions followed a short cultural program. All 4 educational modules were appropriate and well received. The topics covered were Personal Change, Live Life With Passion, Voice Wish List and Managing Conflicts. Since 2 parallel sessions were held, I attended the first 2 sessions.
It was now time for the contests. Following Albert Tauro’s test speech, the 9 best evaluators of the District, representing the 9 Divisions, fought it out for the crown of the Best Evaluator of the District. Rajdeep was the 5th speaker and he finished his well-crafted evaluation with a piece of poetry that had his opponents gasping, the audience wowing and the judges nodding their heads in appreciation. Needless to say, Rajdeep’s winning was a foregone conclusion.
The quality of the Humorous Speech contest has steadily been rising, ever since the first such District-level contest in 2007. The audience was in splits of laughter from the first to last words of all 9 speakers. Unlike the Evaluation contest, choosing a winner was a very difficult proposition for the judges. Eventually, Vivek Reddy was declared as the Most Humorous Speaker of District 82.
A couple of things stood out at Reverberations. Firstly, the seamless organization and coordination between the various organizing sub-committees. Full marks to Host Division F Governor, Venkata Ramana Dittakavi and Conference Chair Ajit Dembla for ensuring that the 2-day program went off without a hitch. All needs of the delegates, be it travel or accommodation were looked after. The second highlight was the exceptional quality of evaluations and humorous speeches. This was reflected in the fact that all 6 winners, 3 from each event, came from 6 different Divisions!
Our journey back was uneventful. We reached Bangalore on schedule and I was even lucky to get the elusive direct bus home!! Thus ended my first Hyderabad trip... one of learning, sharing and fun.

Cheers,
JAM

Poetic Evaluations

2009-06-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

I've now composed 3 'poems' as part of my evaluations at Toastmasters. All three have fetched me the Best Evaluator award for that meeting. Do I see a pattern? Well, you can draw your own conclusions :-)
The first poem was for Ravi Pratap Singh's Icebreaker, the second for Nagaratna Nagaraj's Project II and the third for Rajdeep Manwani's advanced project on the guidelines "Speak off the Cuff". Nagartna wanted to keep what I wrote for her, so I don't have that to share with you. The other two are here for your reading pleasure. As always, your comments are welcome :-)

For Ravi Pratap Singh:
Strongly did your speech begin,
You shared with us the promotion joy you felt within.

You told us the struggles you went through in your early life.
You also told us about your child and your lovely wife.

You had us enthralled with humour,
This is a hit with the girls, that's the rumour.

You told us about your dream,
With the Toastmasters backing, you will achieve them, it would seem!

For Rajdeep Manwani:
This project speech has hardly been done,
With "The Magic Touch" our hearts you have won.

You spoke about how you took Bindu under your wing,
Over 7 minutes of impromptu speaking you proved you are King.

Your speech had a lot of facts and dough,
You spoke all along of what you know.

Facts and anecdotes were at your fingertips,
Humour as always was sweet from your lips.

You approached the topic from many an angle,
Which part of your speech was best, it was difficult to single!

Cheers!!
JAM

Another winner from our club!

2009-06-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

This post is loooonnngg overdue... On the 24th of May, Aaron Watson made history when he was declared Winner at the International Speech Contest held at Ovation 2009 in Colombo. It was a historic occasion because he earned the right to be the first Toastmaster from District 82 (Sri Lanka and India) to compete at the World Championship of Public Speaking! Seen below is Watson with District Governor Balraj Arunasalam and Pat Johnson, Second Vice President, TMI, after winning the contest at Colombo.The diminutive Watson joined the club in October 1999. He was then an apprentice at Mico. What stood out in his project speeches was his remarkable voice, loud, strong and variable. Over the course of his growth at Toastmasters, he worked on his strengths and tasted success by being voted the "Best Speaker" every single time he spoke. The turning point came when he won the III place in the International Taped Speech Contest, the first time anyone from our club had won such an accolade. Watson has moved on higher, both professionally and on the Toastmasters ladder. He is now Manager - HR at Sobha Developers, and even led the club for one term as President.
To reach this point, Watson has won speech contests at the Club, Area, Division and now, the District level. Watson will now lock horns with 7 other contestants in the Inter-district Speech Contest on August 11 at Connecticut, USA. If he emerges victorious, he will be at the World Championships on August 15. Would it not be appropriate for a winner from India to be crowned on our Independence Day??
Watson, we are all with you. You carry the hopes, dreams and wishes of all Toastmasters in the No. 1 District in the World! All the very Best!
Cheers,
JAM

Plight of the Indian

2009-05-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

I'd promised you in a previous entry that I would look for and share my poems. Well, here's the first... It was published in the school annual when I was in the 8th standard.
Given that there has been a clear mandate from the Indian voter at this election, there's some take-home from these lines. Hope you enjoy it. Feedback is welcome...

Prices keep rising now and then,
Nobody cares for starving women and men.
Prices rise beyond our reach,
But ministers make unwinding speech.
The more they talk, the less they do,
So there lies little hope for me and you!

Daily, poor Indians struggle for their bread,
And everyday, thousands are found dead.
So dear Indians, here's some advice,
Trust no politician who steals your rasam and rice.
Let's join together and build a strong nation,
Where there is freedom and no exploitation!

Cheers,
JAM

Our First DTM... finally

2009-05-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Last Friday's was a truly memorable meeting at the Bangalore Toastmasters Club. We had our first Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) in the form of Harikumar Santhibhavan.
For the unitiated, the DTM is Toastmasters International highest recognition to a member. It recognizes excellence in both Toastmasters tracks, communication and leadership. On the communication track, a member has to give around 50 speeches both within and outside the club. Along the leadership track, a member has to serve as an officer at both the club and district level. If you get your DTM, it shows a very high level of commitment.
Hari joined the club in May 2003. Among his varied achievements at the club level are the successful launch of club website (www.bangaloretoastmasters.org.in), which has been like a magnet, attracting guests and prospective members by the dozens. District leadership was next in the form of Area 8 Governor in 2007-08 and now Division B Governor. He has blossomed here too, leading them to Distinguished Area and Distinguished Division respectively.
DTM Harikumar, here's wishing you the very best! I hope to follow in your illustrious footsteps!

Poetry

2009-05-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if you can call it poetry. It's more a collection of words centered around a theme, with the last word of every pair of lines rhyming. If that qualifies as poetry, then so be it.
My poetic streak began in school, in the 8th standard to be precise. Two of my poems were published in the school magazine that year. One poem was about my classmates, while the other was on the "Plight of the Indian".
The poet in me then woke up in my first semester of engineering at PESIT. Our class team (considered underdogs) had just defeated a senior batch (who were favorites) in the finals of the inter-class cricket tournament. Voila, a poem flowed out. It was pretty long too. I was proud of it.
A long silence followed. Then, out of the blue, at a recent Toastmasters meeting, one of the speakers, in the course of her Icebreaker, mentioned that she composed poems and narrated one she had written celebrating her breaking the ice. I was incidentally evaluator for another speaker, who was also giving his Icebreaker. Presto, an impromptu 5-stanza poem was born. Needlessly to say, I was voted the Best Evaluator.
Then last week, I was evaluator for the poet speaker and I pulled off a 6-stanza poem, which fetched me the Best Evaluator award again. At this rate, my club members will expect a few stanzas from me everytime I come up to speak!! Hmm.. not a bad idea. Will put my creative skills to the test!
I'll post the poems I've composed some time.. I've to hunt them out first.

My first blog entry...

2009-05-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

... was actually this: thought2word.blogspot.com

I started out in November 2006, but didn't get beyond the first post. This is my second post on this site, so that's an improvement already ;-)

Lost and found!

2009-05-11T04:09:00.001-07:00

I'd completely forgotten about this blog I started more than 2 years ago. Chanced upon it by mistake... I've got some time on my hands now, so hope to get the thoughts back into words ;-)