The Trail Goes On

I think of her every now and then
I remember her and I pick up a pen
To write my thoughts before they fade
To express my feelings truly made

Time heals all wounds or so I thought
It pains and It weeps, filled with wrought
Reliving, not the sad moments of the years
But nostalgia about the happy tears

You pick up the pieces and walk ahead
only to find another piece you shed
A piece of the heart that broke
With one syllable she spoke

You walk ahead and then look back
the trail you made on the beaten track
you look ahead and the trail goes on
meandering and whimsy, forever on.

Liquid Sunshine

The wind was blowing
The clouds were slowing
The sun was glowing
My thoughts were flowing

With a glass to share
living without a care
with my back to the sun
watching others having fun

My heart was sad
thinking of life I had
glad to be among such friends
there for you till the ends

And then it was that it rained
The wallowing feeling within me drained
The mind which till now was strained
My soul uplifted after long being chained

The drops like pellets of sunshine
warming me up, leaving me calm and fine
The stage beckoned me to come
I got high without whisky or rum

the adrenaline rushed through me
I put one step in front of the other
Arms opened wide in glee
I danced in the rain and shuddered

With no concept of time and space
I moved to rhythm and to pace
forgetting all my whims and whines
just enjoying the liquid sunshine.

The Briefcase

Chennai Speakers Forum

CC Project 8

The Brief Case

Props: 1) A briefcase 2)Poker Chips 3) Dice 4) Cards 5) Dealer puck

[Walk towards the stage with a briefcase in hand.]

Ladies and Gentlemen , Today I would like to introduce to you a personality like no other. A personality whom we all intimately want to know. A personality who means different things to different people.

A personality about whom thousands of books have been written, millions of articles published, scholars for centuries have tried to write a complete biography but failed, the personality who has many children including Fate, Hope, Desire and  Greed. Today we will meet the personality and his 4 kids as well.

I present to you the Briefcase of LIFE.[Opens up the case to show the contents 2,3,4,5]

Think of this briefcase as yourself. Think of the contents inside. There are 4 types of contents here

[Displays the 4 contents conspicuously to the audience and arrange them on the table in a row.]

You have all the children of Life within you. Each one of us has them within us.

Fate – Show the cards

Hope – Show the dice

Greed – show the Chips

Desire – Show the dealer PUCK

It’s how we nurture each of them that fill up our life. The games of life are the games we all play.

[Pick up the cards] This is the game of Fate. Life deals you a hand;[give one card to the front row audience] you have to play that hand. You do not have an option. Sometimes it is good hand, sometimes it’s a bad hand. Sometimes it brings happiness, sometimes it brings sadness, but the trick here friends is not to give up. Play the game, play against Fate because you can be sure that one day Fate would be defeated. As someone once said “A man’s character is his Fate”. Change your character. You will change your Fate.

[Pick up the dice] This is the game of Hope. [Role the dice on the floor along the aisle]. In life, you role the dice of action, and hope for the desired outcome. Sometimes you hit the jackpot, sometimes you miss by one turn, and sometimes you cannot hope to win. But still.. Hope lives. Hope that the next turn will bring you the results u wanted. His actions i.e the results are called the Re-actions .  Control your reactions and you will control Hope.

[Show the Poker Chips] Another mischievous child of Life is called Greed. For him everything is less. Nothing is enough. We keep on building our life on greed [build a chip stack], sometimes so high that it eventually falls on itself [make the chip stack fall].  You have more chances of winning a game with Greed when you know when to quit and when to move on. Control the chip stack. You control Greed.

The last and the final game of Life is called “Desire” [Pull out the puck]. There is no way to win against Desire. Because you see, he never plays. He just watches the fun from afar. He gives a puck to someone[throw it to someone in the audience], and watches others envy him, hate him, befriend him ONLY to get that PUCK. The desire to get that PUCK. In that desire to achieve the puck, we close all our senses to logic and focus on the PUCK. As soon as you have done that, you have lost.  Avoid Desire and you are better off.

So now, having met the kids, I shall introduce to you the personality.. Life itself. 

Life is humble, gentle and caring.

In fact the word defines itself. LIFE. Look Inside For Everything.[Close the briefcase].

In words of Mother Teresa,

 “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.” 

I am going to do that. Are you?

 [Walk back]

Lingua Franca

Chennai Speakers Forum

CC # 7

Lingua Franca

Do you know whats the difference between the words “I am” and the words “I do”?

Well.. the first is the shortest sentence in the English Language and the other is the longest sentence of our lives.

How many of you think that there is a difference between the English and the French language? The grammar between the English and the French Language?

Toastmasters,  we all are here , speaking a common language, creating history and giving birth to leaders, but have you for an instance, paused to reflect on why we use English as our language? Do you know the history of English? Would you like to join me in the quest to know more about English? [Expecting a yes/no]

Come .. Then let us join English in his home for a quite chat.[Move from one end of the stage to another].

3 generations of the family were living in a bustling city centre, a market place where people of all nationality were interacting.  The Father, his Son and his 2 grandsons .

I went to the Grandfather and asked him.” Grandpa, please tell us about your life.”  The old man smiled feebly and said “My child, I am more than 1500 yrs old and almost extinct from the real world. I was born when Britain was invaded by several tribes like the Angles and the Saxons. The Angles came from a land called Englaland and the language they spoke was Englisc. That is the root word from which words England and my name English has been derived. My parents were speakers of these tribes and with their marriage I was born.  Growing up, I was influenced greatly by a man called Latin. Almost half of my knowledge has been taught to me by him. No one knows me nowadays but my grandsons are very famous and widely known.”

His son, Middle English then took over [Move to centre stage] and said “My dad then married my Mom, a French lady who had come to Britain when French invaded England some 900 yrs ago. She was a member of the royal court where French was exclusively spoken. As a result of it, I became proficient in both languages. Most of my knowledge has deep roots in both my father and my mother. I frequently use the words envelope, bon voyage, café and so many more. I taught the great poet Chaucer- who is considered now as the father of English Literature”

The elder of the two grandsons Early Modern English came forward. He looked familiar and seemed to talk pretty much as I did. He added on to what his father had said. [move to other side of the stage]

“At the time I was born the British had just started their world conquests. That was more than 400 yrs ago. This bought them in contact with a wide variety of people. My mother was one such lady. I signed up for the British Navy and enhanced my knowledge with the languages of the other civilizations. During my time standardization of English came into effect. Grammar was perfected, spellings were corrected. The language of London was made the Language of English. That’s when my younger brother was born.”

 [come back to centre stage]

Surprise of Surprise, I saw my own Teacher standing right there. Professor, this is your family? I never knew. It’s an honour to meet your family Sir!!

The professor laughed  at me and said. “Rohit, the only difference between my brother and me are the words we know. I don’t want to brag about it, I do know more words than him!!!. Words for things the he didn’t have a word for. Like Yogi, Bangle, Chutney,Guru etc from Indian Origin”

“So now Rohit, do you think you know just 1 language” , he asked. I smiled up at him and said “ No sir, I know all the languages of the world, including English” J

Toastmasters, the English Language is a living , breathing, growing language. It was born out of a union of languages and keeps on growing by fusing with many other languages. There is nothing called as Pure English Language. Has that been the case, we would not have had so many revisions on the Oxford Dictionary.

There are more than 2 billion people speaking this language all over the world and more than 400 million people are native English speakers.

There are over 2,700 languages all over the world, but only if you know English would you be able to understand over 75% of all email communications, 50% of all scientific journals and 80% of all information stored on a computer.

English is slowly becoming the Lingua Franca i.e the bridge language or the connecting language all over the world and is our link with the rest of mankind. There are more than 500,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, but, how many of them do you know?

Thanks

PUSH PULL

Chennai Speakers Forum

Project # 6

Pull-Push

Toastmasters – We all know the story of the hare and the tortoise, don’t we? How many of you think that the moral of the story is “Slow and steady wins the race”? But what If I told you that is not the only moral of the story?Do you  know what happened after the race? Do you want to know that?[Expecting a response]

IMAGINE - you were at the finish line of that race. The hare came whooshing past, smiling  and sweating, staggering and swaggering at having surely won the race , can you imagine what would have been the look on his face when he saw the tortoise sitting there chewing green cabbage?

He was baffled, confused and thought he was having hallucinations. But after having a carrot and still seeing the tortoise patiently chewing away decided he indeed had lost.

He went up to the tortoise and with great sportsmanship said “So you have won, fair and square. Congratulations. I should not have been overconfident and should not have taken the nap. What do you think?”

The tortoise, weary after the long race, smiled feebly and said “Thank you. Yes you were over confident and should not have taken the nap. But I think there was a way we both could have won.”

The hare astonished remarked “We, both, win. Then who loses?”

By this time a small crowd had gathered around.

The cow exclaimed “Ooooooooooo... how is that possible?”

The goat said “meeeeehhhhh, Impossible”.

The donkey started laughing “ heeeee haw heee haw, The tortoise has gone mad”.

Amid this entire din, the tortoise smiled and said “We all believe a race is to be won by a single person. All the others lose. That basically is what you define as a race. You ‘PUSH’ yourself forward to be the first. But think what would have happened if the hare had taken me on his back and we both had crossed the line together, or if I had woken up the hare on seeing him sleeping? “

The crowd murmured...”Oh what a brilliant idea ... why didn’t we think of it.... the tortoise makes no sense...told you.. he is as dumb as a dormouse.” The hare was intently looking at the tortoise and trying to figure out the meaning of the words. 

He slowly nodded his head in agreement and said “Oh wise tortoise, what you say makes sense and I now see how foolish I was to ‘race’ against you. Life is a race only because people are PUSHing themselves. We never stop and see who is lagging behind and never ever try to PULL them up so that we together can enjoy the benefits.” 

The crowd was stunned; silence was reigning supreme as each one tried to figure out the implications and impact of these words. The cow stopped chewing cuds, the goat stopped braiding his “goatee” and the donkey as usual was “dumb”struck.

The tortoise with a contented smile on his face said. “In life we all have a choice, that of Push vs Pull. Performance vs Progress... Activities vs. Accomplishments. Many of us always chose the former. We always push for performing better which is why we enter into a race. All we hear is that Life is a Rat Race. No offence to you dear rat. But for how long do you run? Forever?  How many of us have ever stopped , looked back, saw people lagging behind , went back, pulled them up and progressed together towards the goal.  One complements the other , each pulls the other along . The progress may be slow, but it is a progress nonetheless. This way we all benefit and we all share our progress.

Life then would not be a race but a GRACE

With that ... the tortoise entered his shell and went to sleep.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

 - Benjamin Franklin

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Henry Ford

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

Khalil Gibran

And that Toastmasters is the moral of the story.

Oh ! I still have a few minutes time... Do you know what happened after the all the rats had jumped into the sea by the song of the pied piper? [No....?]   They all died....

Thank you.

Ti Amo

Ti Amo

This is a poem

Written out by me

At a time I was feeling blue

And also without a clue

As to what went wrong

Between candy and chocy

I would give a lot to know

Why everything became so rocky

You and I were different

I cannot deny you that

But the point was to make it work

Even after that.

If you were confused

Then why did not you tell

I poured my heart out to you

And now it feels like hell.

Your sorry will not help me

To forgive about those things

Those times are the ones I cherish

And the feelings that it brings

For you are the one I love

Without a tense attached

Without you I feel so lonely

Miserable and detached

You are the one and always will be

The person to whom I gave my heart

And although you may not feel the same for me

Whenever you call I will come to thee

For love need not be a 2 way street

Love doesn’t require a return

Even though we may not meet

It is a feeling that eternally burns

Within my heart.

I still don’t know what went through your mind

But you have stolen my peace of mind

Everything I see or hear reminds me

You and everything that could be

I may never know why it didn’t work out

There will always be in my mind a doubt

As to why did you do what you did

Why did you keep your confusion hid

That one mistake of yours

Had ruined my heart and mind

But at least I lived a life in which I loved

And experienced ….briefly

The Divine.

First Love

FIRST LOVE

BEFORE I GO TELLING THIS TALE

HEARKEN ME

I AM NOT ONE WHO HAD THE BLESSING OF LUCK

MY LIFE WAS ONE SORROW AND IT SUCKED

LONG HAVE I LIVED

WITHOUT HOPE OR JOY

SEEING WORLD THROUGH TEAR STAINED EYES

HIDING MY HEART FROM EVERY EYE

BUT ONE DAY CAME AS SUCH

WHEN MY HEART CHANGED SO MUCH

THE WALL OF LONELINESS WAS KNOCKED DOWN

BY A SINGLE PERSON WITH EYES BIG AND ROUND

I FELT THE WALL CRUMBLE

ALL AT ONCE

I WASN’T ABLE TO UNDERSTAND

WHAT TURNED STEEL TO SAND

MAYBE IT WAS HER EYES

BIG AND ROUND

ONE LOOK FROM IT

AND I FUMBLED

MAYBE IT WAS HER LAUGHTER

SO CLEAR AND LOUD

THAT I STOOD

RIVETTED TO THE GROUND

MAYBE IT WAS HER HEART

SO KIND AND PURE

THAT I FELT INSTANTLY

I WAS IN LOVE FOR SURE

SHE DIDN’T KNO ABT MY FEELINGS

FOR A VERY LONG TIME

AND I LOVED HER EVER MORE

AND MORE AND MORE

WE WERE GOOD FRNDS ALL THE WHILE

AT EACH OTHERS THROATS ONCE IN A WHILE

I DO NOT KNOW ABT HER

BUT I ALWAYS MELTED SEEING HER SMILE

I FOUND OUT THAT MY HEART COULD FEEL

THAT IN REAL IT WASN’T MADE OF STONE AND STEEL

BUT IT HAD SUFFERED A VERY GREAT DEAL

WHICH ONLY LOVE AND CARE COULD HEAL

AND THEN CAME THE DAY

SOME CALL IT MOLE DAY

FOR SOME ITS JUST 23^RD DAY

BUT FOR ME IT WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE D-DAY

EITHER SHE GOT IT OUT OF ME

OR WHETHER I WANTED HER TO KNOW AT LAST

AT LAST, THE TRUTH WAS OUT

SHE SAID SHE LIKED ME

AND NEEDED TIME TO THINK

TO LET HER LIKENESS TURN TO LOVE

AND THUS LEFT IT AT THE BRINK

WE HAD SOME UNFORGETABLE TIMES

MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS NOW LOST IN TIME

I YEARN FOR THEM

SEEING HOW IT IS NOW

ITS BEEN A MONTH SINCE D-DAY

WE HAVE SHARED JOY AND SORROW

AND KNOW EACH OTHER WELL

AS BEST AS WE MAY

WE FIGHT AND WE CLAW

WE LAUGH AND WE SMILE

WE HUM AND WE HAW

 WE CHERISH AND WE DELIGHT

WE FREEZE AND WE THAW

FOR WE KNOW

AT END

WE LOVE AND WE LIKE

EACH OTHER

SO I STILL LOVE HER

AND ALWAYS WILL

ALWAYS

LIVING APART FROM HER IS NOW MY BIGGEST FEAR

AS I HOLD HER TOO CLOSE , TOO DEAR