CC #1- The Ice Breaker- Streaky Phoebe

CC #1- The Ice Breaker- Streaky Phoebe

It wasn’t the time of a Kings’ rule, but from the land of Nawabs was this one cute little princess. Her birthday was the First day of a month. She was envied upon for her astounding beauty- her long eye lashes, soft tresses and her naturally red lips. People came all the way from various places just to get a glimpse of her.

As she grew up, she became more beautiful and seemingly blessed- she lived in her own cozy home that was surrounded by a garden full of trees and flowers. She had her own bunch of friends she would play with. It used to be a battle to decide which kitten belonged to which person!  She even had regular guests visiting her place- deer, woodpeckers, puppies, kittens, robins and kingfishers. (Well, I mean the bird.).

Good afternoon fellow Toastmasters and guests! This tale is indeed special; you can actually see the princess unlike Snow White and Cinderella. You might have guessed it, yes, that’s me.

I was born in Hyderabad and brought up in Chennai. And yes, the story is real; it was a time when Chennai had more connects with nature.

I always will be the craziest person you can meet. A person who loves to experiment everything- be it small or big, tree or a twig. Every time I see someone doing something, I get this stimulus in me which says, “Hey Vaish!, go for it!”, be it good or bad, and I live with the wish, expecting to fulfill it someday.

Many –a-times I have a whole lot of people telling me to do only those activities that I can do and that I was wasting time doing unnecessary activities that I cannot do. But, I strongly believe that a person who is an expert now, was a novice earlier. There is no offense in being odd for, “You need to be Odd to be number One”.

If I listen to a soulful musician, I would want to be a Rock-star. If I see someone dancing, I would want to be a ballerina. If I read a good book, I would want to be an author and if I see someone speaking on stage, I would want to do that too. The innate quality in me wanted me to be a winner in every single aspect that I participated in every contest that happened, just to prove myself in that aspect. I even believed that my birthday ONE made the first encouraging impact on me to be the number ONE. While I managed to do the others with at least a meagre self satisfaction, public speaking was always something that I looked up to.

To speak in front of people with natural attitude has always been a hurdle to me. To satisfy my own self as a public speaker, I am here as a Toastmaster, to learn and let learn. 

Together we’ll make miracles happen.

That’s a snippet of my life; await more competent code in the coming days.

(Over to you TMOD.)

CC #2- Organize your speech- Pieces of My Puzzle

CC #2- Organize your speech- Pieces of My Puzzle

I was three. Shifting from ICF quarters to Tambaram quarters wasn’t that easy, for, I will miss my best friend- Parvathy. We rarely spoke. Okay I agree we hardly knew to speak properly at that age. But the love we had for each other’s company was something that contrasted our size.

Good afternoon fellow Toastmasters and guests. I am sure all of you have a similar story from your childhood to narrate about losing friends. It might also be the case that you have totally forgotten your age old friends as you have moved on in your life.

I honestly do not remember minute detail of every friendship I had had, but I confess that I do remember a few details for certain ones. Yes, that’s exactly what you call BFF- Best Friends Forever!

First of the lot is Preethi- my kinder garden class mate. This isn’t a friendship story with a sad ending like the previous one. We grew up together, stayed next door, and ended up choosing similar graduation disciplines and yes we studied together all the four years of college for every single paper. As we spent more time together, our friendship grew more. I am an emotional person- I cry even now if I have had a fight with her. Not that I am scared of separation, but because I can’t bear the heart of not talking to her for some days because of a silly fight. I am sure you all have a friend like that too. Aww, I see smiles on everyone’s faces.

And to all the people who said you cannot get true friends at college, I broke your assumptions. I had this little (this tall) innocent soul in my class. Sreeja, a.k.a “The Sree kutty” is someone I met at college. We never felt embarrassed snatching each others’ lunch boxes even when we were surrounded by people of all sorts at college. We both landed at TCS. That was an extremely happy moment coz College had ended and still we were sure to meet each other at work.

But Things weren’t as we had expected. The moment we got to know that her ILP was in Ahmedabad, both of us were equally shattered. I wanted my ILP in Ahmedabad too, just to be with her, but unfortunately I got it here in Chennai. I was worried if she would feel alone there. That’s when the Super woman in me found out that another school friend of mine had her ILP at Ahmedabad. There they were for 3 months, as roomies. It was another blow when she got posted in Kochi. Sadness worsened but fortunately she got a transfer to chennai. Now in siruseri is my bestie, a person with whom I don’t bother to be embarrassed.

Corporate- the high funda word is said to have its own limitations. There have been lots of myths associated with life in a corporate. Everyone is your colleague and NO ONE CAN BE YOUR FRIEND! Oh yes, I proved them wrong too!  Guess who she is, she’s right here. Any guesses? A kid in disguise- has a tough time in having her food! There she is- Madame Srishti.

Toastmasters gave me a gang, to hangout, have fun and have a great company. “The partners in crime” are right here. We are blessed indeed!

These people are important pieces to complete my jigsaw puzzle called life.

No one told us our life was going to be this way. When our job was considered a joke, when you were broken, when your love was dead or alive, when your life was stuck in the second gear and when it was not your day,your week, your month or even your year- you always have a friend who says-

I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour. 
I'll be there for you, like I've been there before. 
I'll be there for you, ‘coz you're there for me too. 

Happy world best friends’ day!

(Over to you TMOD)

CC #3-Getting to the point-Everything Begins at Home

CC #3-Getting to the point-Everything Begins at Home

Good afternoon fellow toastmasters and guests. Our Independence Day is approaching. The common wealth games in Glasgow recently had 64 Indians winning medals finishing 5^th place in the world. The World Bank report says India has displaced Japan to become third largest economy in the world in terms of Purchasing power parity. The place we hold in the world is made very prominent with University of Michigan taking up “India in the world” in their curriculum to teach how well India has prospered. Despite all this, India is still a developing country.  Can anyone tell me some reasons behind this state?

Thank you all. There have always been reasons and constant complaints about the people pointing out at officials that they were not doing their responsibilities properly.

Let us now consider Mr. Ravi, a sincere official who always did his job well. He is a 12 years experienced person and there aren’t any black-marks in his entire career. He has always managed to turn deaf years to all the people who wanted to get him into wrong practices- personally and professionally.

One fine day, Mr. Ravi has an important document to be sent out to his chief so that they can decide on the company’s revenue forecast. There comes Mr. Rony- formally dressed. He portrayed every quality that a gentleman would have. (Rony is actually the friend of Balu, the person who sits next to Ravi at work)They both have a casual conversation:

Rony: Ravi, I heard that you were working on this document and it was due to sent out to the chief today?

Ravi: Yes Rony. I am putting my heart and soul to deliver this document.

Rony: That’s really good Ravi. Could you do me a favour?

Ravi: Sure, please tell me.

Rony: One of my friends is running a company. He is very sad about his company performing badly at the stocks. He even went to the state of committing suicide twice!If you can change the value from 9 crores to 7 crores in your document, he would be happy.

Ravi: Rony, this is ridiculous! I cannot do something that’s against my value!

Rony: Does your value say you can allow a person commit suicide?

Ravi: No. But….

Rony: Please Ravi. He would also give you 1 crore rupees for the favour you are doing.

Ravi: Bribe? No way!

Rony: It isn’t bribery Ravi. You are Balu’s friend. Will I let you get into trouble? This is a token of gratitude; a gift that he would give.

Ravi: Still it is bribery Rony, I wouldn’t do it.

Rony: C’mon Ravi. When you presented your wife with jewelry, was it bribe? He is my friend, which means he is your friend too. Please help him.

Ravi: Hmm…

(Ravi changes his document from 9 crores to 7 crores, gets caught in the financial review and is behind the bars for bribery)

Let us see what happened in Ravi’s childhood that made him accept that it was a GIFT like Rony had mentioned.

32 years ago-

Ravi’s mom was very happy to have given birth to a healthy boy. She wanted him to be the first in everything, like every mother.

When he learned to walk, she stood on one corner and called him “Ravi! Come to your mother” and cuddled him. Every kid is born to experience love.

Suddenly things change. Ravi is in class one when his strict father tells him, “Ravi, get first rank and I will give you a new box of Crayon”

Ravi works hard thinking about the Crayon he would get if he succeeds.

Ravi grew up and his father now says, “Ravi, get above 90% and I will get you a new bike”

Ravi works hard that he gets the bike some way or the other. He studies day and night and scores more than 90% and gets his dream bike.

Just like Ravi, most of us were fighting to conquer our own self to get the GIFT promised by our parent. Never did we think that our parents would be happy if we got the first rank, our parents would he proud if we scored above 90%.

That is when the pride for a priced article overtook love. We yearned for priced goods than priceless love. We bribe the children unknowingly that, on doing something they would get something.

Children should be thought to work for a target to reach glory, not to reach for a target to get something that money can buy. If the child succeeds, let that be celebrated with a vacation with family/friends or a party with the closed ones; but let us avoid promising gifts for an achievement. Let us make children realize that it is for their good. We aren’t avoiding celebrations any ways!

Let us eradicate the root cause for bribery.

Let us remove corruption from our country and make India a developed country.

 (Over to you TMOD)