Sons of the Motherland

A soldier at the warfront
searching an enemy to confront
His mother praying for his wellbeing
without his hands to hold or him seeing

A wife awaiting his arrival
with a baby yet to come
Him at the warfront
fighting for survival

The television blaring out the news
about the countries in a fray
the public merrily celebrating
the Independence Day

Do we realise the costs they pay
with their own sweat and blood
Courage and pride their only might
Against bullets and bombs in the night

I write this poem as a tribute
for the true patriots of the land
I salute the flag of our nation as a symbol
of my obeisance to the sons of my Motherland

The Elemental Truth

SIBM Bangalore Toastmasters Club

CC Project 9

The Elemental Truth

It was 7.00 am in the morning; the air was filled with the chirping of birds, the ringing sound of the milkman’s cart and the call of the newspaper guy. At 7 , usually the sun is out shining but I did not even bother to go the window and look outside, because I knew that at that time, the air is filled with pollution which makes visibility almost zero. It was preferred to buy bottled water because the pollution made the metro water unfit for drinking. Oh , as well as I didn’t have power for the last 2 days.

Toastmasters, do you know that the Rs 18/water bottle[wave it to the crowd] which we pay is not because of water scarcity but because of water wastage, the recent grid failures ,not once but twice are not because of power scarcity but because of unchecked exploitation of natural resources,  every time you use the axe deo[wave the spray], I am not sure if angels are falling,, but  the pollution level is surely rising.

Had Newton been alive today, he would never have discovered the Law of Gravity, because there are no trees nowadays from which an apple can fall.

The capital of Iran was forced to declare 2 days of extra holidays because the pollution level reached beyond permissible limits.

And that, friends, is the Elemental Truth.

Toastmasters...

Imagine a world with no power, plunged into darkness, a place where the moonlight is hidden by polluted air and the sunlight is too harsh to stand. A planet where even a spark of light

Is a welcome feeling, the warmth of the fire is a luxury, the sight [switch on the lights] of a fellow being a blessing.

A planet where you cannot distinguish water from a drink [show 2 bottles, one full of black coloured water and another a real coke bottle] .

[Forcefully, asking some individual toastmasters] Do you want such a planet? Would you live in such a home?  Which bottle would you drink from?

 [Pause....]

But where there are shadows, there is always a light somewhere. And the good thing is that the light is shining bright, far off, but still shining. While some people are ignoring the environment, 300,000 trees are being planted every day. The change is has already begun. And we need to be a part of it. We should be.

Research has shown that the coolness of the shade given by a full grown tree is equal to 10 room sized air conditioners running 20 hours a day.

In winter, trees help to keep the area warm and the heating cost can be reduced by 25%.

100 trees can help stop the soil from getting washed away by water equal to 400,000 litres of water.

1 tree can store 20 kgs of toxic carbon dioxide in a year and give out oxygen for 2 human beings.

I am sure you would be asking “How? What to do? I love clean air, clean water and a clean life but I am not sure how I can pitch in."

All you need to do is just PLOT.

PLOT stands for Plant Lots of Trees

Every one of us can help our planet by making PLOT the keyword in our daily activities.

Can we not plant a sapling in our own backyards and neighbourhood, wherever possible? Can we not nurture this sampling using our daily kitchen wastage?

We can ask the kids of the neighbourhood to plant a tree, nurture it and have a competition on whose tree grows the fastest.

For every happy occasion in life we can resolve to plant a sapling.

When we are booking tickets online, be it for travelling or a movie, there is an option to donate a small amount for planting a sapling.

There are NGO’s like The Sapling Project which have exclusive drives in neighbourhoods for planting trees.

By way of PLOTting , will can ensure a future which is bright as the sunshine, clear as river water, free as the air and solid as the earth.

We would then be leaving a legacy for our successors, because,

“We have not inherited this world from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our successors”

Toastmasters, I’m pledging to PLOT to share this wonderful gift called Earth. Will you also do the same?

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.