51st session

This session, we celebrated our completion of 50 sessions and a year of operation. It was our first birthday.

What to write about this session....

For those who attended, it would still be so powerfully etched in their minds that a blog reminder is unnecessary. For those who missed it, no amount of description will reproduce the starry-eyed thrill, the warm bonhomie, the gay laughter and the vigorous handshakes that marked the initial interaction session. It felt more like the season's first ball at southern mansion of pre-civil-war America than a serious toastmaster meeting. The walls were decorated with balloons and posters, and a cake nestled coyly at the back. 

With all guests and the keynote speaker seated, the session was kick-started on the dot by TM Afroz, who, like Haley's comet, happened to be whizzing past and had been roped in. Thanks to the body-mikes arranged by TM Chaitanya, everybody had a booming voice today. Nobody could possibly ignore the SAA's stern injunctions.

Our President Aji Baskar, with no premonition of impending doom, started the session by welcoming our chief guest, the keynote speaker, Dr K Rajesh Nayak, Director Training - College of Banking and Financial Studies. Aji then addressed the gathering with a joke-based homily about how a husband, who felt his wife was going deaf, tested her out by speaking to her from various distances. Not finding any replies from her, he finally learnt that she had been speaking to him all the time, which meant he was actually deaf, and not she. Moral of the story - before blaming others, look within.

Hardly had he finished this episode, the lights went out and a cry was heard: "Oh ho! I have been killed". Lights returned to the sight of our beloved President prone on the ground, his head bent at an unnatural angle and blue tongue hanging out. TM Chaitanya, suddenly attired in a jacket and hat, pipe precariously stuck in his lips, bent over the body solicitously, checked for breathing, examined his tummy with a magnifying glass, and declared him definitely dead. All he could tell right then was he had been strangled by a tall man who might be elderly, given the presence of white hairs near the body. As a stand-in detective from Scotland Yard, his manner and demeanor were perfect, and his effort at speaking with clenched teeth (because of the pipe), gave an impression of deep menace. He confided that definitely one of the role-players was the murderer and he would be questioning them in the course of the session and the answers to the same would reveal the culprit to the audience.

I do not think there ever was a TMOD role played like this, with so much preparation of handout material, pre-prepared questions and answers, ensuring co-operation of the role-players and the President and a script for himself that was at once a role as well as a roll (meaning humorous). An excellent idea, energetically undertaken, and professionally delivered. Kudos TM Chaitanya.

The ghost of the President was called forth by a couple of beautiful Tantrics, MTMs Kaviya and Kavita, which allowed our President to clamber up (he getting quite stiff, lying on the cold floor) and take his seat in the front row, beaming happily at his death.

The Timekeeper TM Karthik was introduced, who is a seasoned veteran. He explained all the timings without fumbling with the flags at all. However, he was questioned by the Detective and admitted that the denial of allowing him to carry out his project speech had left a grudge in him against the President. The audience nodded its head thoughtfully.

P-4 evaluation criteria were explained by TM Venkat, in his usual nonchalant style, which highlighted that the speaker was, in this speech, learning How to Say It. However, the interrogation session revealed his frustration at being given very little time to prepare for his debate session. The audience looked at each other and winked.

P-4 speech "Life after IIT" was delivered by TM Nagesh. It was a very thought-provoking speech, questioning whether the pressure that children undergo in preparing for IIT entrance examinations, especially in places like Kota, is worth the damage to their psyche, since many of them commit suicide. He appealed to parents not to live out their dreams through their children and to reassure them about parental support in whatever field they want to excel in. A very nice speech, but our Detective showed no mercy. Questioning revealed that TM Nagesh as Treasurer had been castigated by the President for insufficient fee collection. The audience sighed, understanding the Treasurer's turmoil.

P-6 evaluation criteria was delivered by TM Kumar, who took everybody through the learning steps in the six project speeches and explained what was being attempted today, viz Vocal variety. Our Detective pounced on him, of course, and his probing immediately revealed the sense of competitiveness that GK felt against Aji, who was flying high on a club promoted by GK. The audience looked very thoughtful at this and wondered how deep the envy was. And why did GK refuse a DNA test?

P-6 speech "Sounds of Silence" was delivered by TM Rajat. He revealed a dialogue-writing concept  called Subtext and ran through a few examples of outer and inner dialogue in literature and films. The ending emphasized that it is equally important to understand our loved ones' inner dialogue in real life and not just in the creative arts. Our Detective prompted him for his inner dialogues about the President and came to know that the President had stolen TM Rajat's thunder a few times. The audience rolled their eyes and wondered how the President had been alive so long.

Table topics were conducted by MTM Panna. In keeping with the theme of the day, most of the topics were mysterious story-beginnings that the speakers had to complete. Some speakers revelled in it, some decided to stick to real life, but all in all the comfort levels of all speakers was very high. Our Detective cornered the Topicmaster, of course, and forced from her that she was under a lot of pressure from the President for arranging the agendas perfectly and well in advance. But was that a reason to indulge in murder? The audience shook their head, doubting whether this motive held water.

Speech evaluations were crisply delivered by both the evaluators, with great width and depth. Our Detective found nothing further to extract from them and left them alone this time.

It was time for the President to return on stage, but his ethereal version would simply not do. So the beautiful Tantrics were summoned again (MTMs Kavita and Swati this time), who restored body to soul with their magic chant, probably uttered in reverse this time. President promptly demanded to know the identity of his murderer and the Detective, after much humming and hawing, declared that the culprit was none other than our Ex-Director, TM Kumar ! After that, in an unprecedented show of forgiveness and sportsman spirit, the corpse and the murderer hugged each other, presided by a beaming Detective, sucking furiously away at his unlit pipe.

The President introduced our keynote speaker for the evening, Dr Rajesh Nayak, who must have been both amused and bemused at the murderous proceedings, wondering how to match this theme to the theme of his speech. Notwithstanding, Dr Nayak delivered an excellent address, with humour and insight, ending with an encouragement to quickly complete our 100, like Don Bradman, whose fifty mostly meant a hundred. We look forward to seeing you there sir.

A cake was rolled out and cut by the President and....the First Lady, whose birthday it happened to be. This must have been a party of a kind for her, with so many Toastmasters toasting her good health.

General Evaluation was carried out by TM Mathen. Given the attendance, energy and quality of the session, he was almost the hypothetical person - a satisfied mother-in-law. We hope that even in future sessions, such abundance of participation is repeated.

The awards presented were as follows:

• Best Topic Speaker:  TM Varun
• Best Evaluator:          TM Kumar
• Best Speaker:             TM Rajat

President Aji Baskar presented a memento to Dr Rajesh Nayak. Mementos were also presented to the Golden Boys - TM Kaushik, Vignesh and Rajkamal, who had been integral to the running of this club from the inception. Sponsors of the club DTM Rajendra Varma and TM Kumar, as well as mentor TM Saiju Victor were felicitated and thanked for their unflinching support.

The session ended with cake, snacks and tea and lots of back-slapping. The hypothetical tensions created by TMOD for his theme dissolved in laughter and good cheer.

See you all again on 22.10.16, in the great race to our 100th session.

PS - More photos can be seen in the Facebook page