58th session

Kick-off was at 3.13 pm by SAA TM Ramalingam. 

After a very long gap, we heard a Presidential address from TM Kumar. As always, his easy manner of speaking is a treat, and his subjects easily digested. He related a story of how a gardener was taking feedback from his various clients about his own performance by pretending to be another gardener offering his services. Luckily, none of his clients agreed to switch, so satisfied were they with his work. Self-evaluation is an enriching process and contests are ready-made grounds for self-assessment. So, TMs, participate, participate, participate in the upcoming club contests.

TMOD Panna had chosen as her subject HOBBIES. It was a topic of universal appeal and wide variety. TM Panna held forth for a while on the subject and subsequently introduced the role-players by relating their hobbies and asking them to show-and-tell, if it was possible. We heard some tuneful stanzas from TM Raja and TM Swati in the process. A good topic, TM Panna.

Timekeeper role was played by TM Afroz, who smoothly introduced the timing rules to the audience. His was perhaps the most adept handling of the coloured flags, with no fumbling at all while shuffling them around. Is he as skilful with a deck of cards, I wonder... However, his hobby turned out to be cooking.

Wordmaster was played by TM Alma, who had chosen the word PREROGATIVE as the word of the day. Choosing the word was her prerogative, of course. People handled this tongue-twister with aplomb, elan and panache and served their sentences successfully. TM Alma's hobby, as a child, had been to make colourful chains with rubber-bands (she showed us one), which would become a skipping rope of the day.

Jokemaster TM Chaitanya delivered classic medium-length jokes, with plenty of bounce. His hobby was not only cricket by the way, but also quizzing, of which he is a master.

TM Venkat delivered the evaluator's address that lays down the criteria of the upcoming speeches, which happened to be a duet of P-2 speeches. He was calm, clear and collected as usual, and the audience settled down to some serious listening. Venkat's hobby was cricket, cricket and more cricket.

The first P-2 speech "The Resolute Resolution" was delivered by TM Kaviya. Based on the subject of new year resolutions, their creation, sustenance and dissolution, and her own travel through the process, it was an apt topic with the new year only a couple of weeks away. A good speech, TM Kaviya. May you go from strength to strength.... and keep up that hobby of reading novels.

The second P-2 speech "Striving to Dream" was delivered by TM Saleem. Dreams do not always turn into reality, but the fun is in dreaming and striving and the experiences gained are worth the heartbreaks. Thus spake TM Saleem, whose hobbies include fishing off the Corniche and Yiti beach. Good going TM.

Table topics were conducted by TM Rajat. The topics were based on the subject of hobbies and for once were not formidable. Apart from members, guests also enthusiastically participated. His off-beat hobby was making crosswords, which at one time he and his father used to exchange by post!

The first evaluation was carried out by TM Ananth, who dissected the speech well and gave clear feedback. We also learnt about "encoding" and "decoding" , the yin and yang of communication, full transference of information being achieved only when these complementary pairs are present. TM Ananth had varied interests, which included talking and looking at girls, the latter being more in his student days, he assured us.

The second evaluation was delivered by TM Venkat, in his usual encouraging manner. He also pointed out specific areas of improvement, especially in stage management. To be kept in mind, TM.

Harkmaster TM Swati was doing a role familiar and enjoyable to her. Her students had paid attention and passed the viva-voce questions that she posed. We were lucky her hobby was singing and convinced her to sing a couple of lines of her favourite melody.

Grammarian TM Raja gave an Ah-count to start with, something that is not done frequently by grammarians nowadays. His remarks were encouraging and did not take anyone to task. In fact, he became the most popular person after the jokemaster. His hobby was palmistry, which he did not demonstrate out of sheer wisdom, but regaled us with a snatch of a song in his mellifluous voice.

General Evaluator TM Ramalingam started by being sombre and critical about the indifference performance by the SAA...which had also been played by him! His role-reviews were succinct yet full of humour and were remembered for both these reasons. His hobby, he said was cricket, though limited to carrying out drinks to the players. But more recently, table-tennis with colleagues has won his heart.

Acting President TM Kumar declared the session closed, after informing us that he had no hobbies, or rather whatever he had done in childhood were not tagged as hobbies but as fun past-times. Still, if anything, his hobby would be talking to people and perhaps travelling.

With that, we all travelled to the tea table, talking and laughing.

The day's awards were:

• Best table topic:    Mrs Usha
• Best evaluator:     TM Ananth
• Best speaker:       TM Kaviya

See you all on 24.12.16.