Toastmaster Fourth Project:
I delivered my fourth project at Toastmaster.
The fourth speech as per Competent communicator manual
is "How to say it".
This objective of this project is to use simple yet
descriptive language.
The speech is as below.
Friends. I’m going to share a haunting secret of my
life.
It started, like everything else.... with a woman. A
women who is now my wife. When I met her first time, I asked her a question
that meant a lot to me. She could not answer due to some interruption and I did
not push.
A few weeks after marriage reality dawned on
me. My deepest fear has come true. My wife too is an Ekta kapoor's serial
addict.
(pause)
Mr. Toastmaster, fellow members and dear guest, My
speech today is about TV TRAUMA
To say that I don’t like these daily soaps will be an
understatement. I just can’t stand it.
These serials led us to believe that everyone is a
scheming person, hell bent on making the life of other person a living hell. Even
ten minutes of it makes me as depressed as Big boss participants, Causes my blood
pressure to go up like petrol prices, I feel as awkward as our prime minister.
For those of
you who wonder how come a movie like “Kya super kool hai hum” become super hit,
It was because of the wishes of people like me, who wants her films to be soooo
successful that she don’t make serials any more.
By the way, I said my wife too because guess
what ? My mother also is an ardent admirer of these serials.
So there I was, trapped between the devil and the
deep blue sea. I was feeling as insecure as Rohit Sharma is in Indian
cricket team, as Desperate as Abhishek Bachchan is for a hit and as lonely as
India's Olympic gold medal.
Not the one to give up without fighting, I tried ev.....erything,
(1) sharing with them various research works showing adverse mental effect
of watching these serials, (2)informing them that their social behavior is
affected by too much tv, AND (pause) (3)
climbing the water pipe to disconnect the cable connection.
But all the efforts goes down the drain, my advice
fell on deaf ears.(sigh) I have to admit that Ekta Kapoor is here to stay
in my home.
As nervous and hopeful as a speaker giving Ice-breaker
speech. I gave my last shot. I said " you know being a couch potato can
make you FAT. (FAT)
The Reactions –
1)
Wife - "I
don't trust you". See that's why I hate serials - lack of trust.
2)
Mother
- "A bit of weight will actually
look good on my wife".Effect of serials - Generation gap.
3)
Both
said they heard neighbors saying someone was climbing up our water pipe.
I brush off - people make these conspiracy theories on watching too much
serials.
Alas, I had to give-up, I was dejected, disgusted and
devastated. Furious, frightful
and frustrated.
I tried to seek positives in this torturous trauma.
Console myself with eccentric excuses. Like
1)
My productivity
has greatly increased in office. As now I have no hurry to go home and watch
the serials with my wife.
2)
We
don’t fight like other couples as the breaks between serials are also utilized
for checking other serials leaving too little time for arguments
3)
I
brought new laptop to check the cricket score and keep myself busy as I have no
control over tv remote.
But none of these gave me comfort. I continued to feel
miserable , till one day I had that Eureka
I had a call from one of my best friend at the very
ungodly time . He asked asking to meet up right then as he was in town.
Aaanndd... my wife did not object as she was engrossed in television.
That was the moment my life was shaping up for , I
realized that I wrongly blame Ekta Kapoor for everything , She had given me
personal space for 2-3 hrs every days. In which I can do anything I want.
Without making too much noise to disturb my wife off course.
From here ; I
would like to declare that "Behind most of the successful men there is a
woman named Ekta kapoor and her army of women like Tulsi, Parvati, Kumkum.
Together they keep women in house busy so that men can go and accomplish goals
while having peace of mind.
So kudos to Ekta Kapoor.
Over to you Mr Toastmaster.
This speech was my first attempt at humor. So far my
first three speeches are just to get a feel of public speaking. Now as I feel
bit more confident. So I tried to present a funny speech.
Also I don't want to follow the holy grail of
toastmaster speech topics, i.e. speaking on motivation, inspirational (read
preachy, boring and repetitive) topics.
This speech was the first time I try putting in use
the tools like "rule of three", "similes",
"metaphors", "Alliterations" etc.
Speech was well appreciated and I even won best
speaker award.
