Indian Cinema – An Ideal Way to Decay Your 6^th Sense

Good Morning Toastmasters and esteemed judges. If you ask the parents of any teenage boy, I don’t know about girls and hence I don’t want to make any comment, I presume and assume that they study all the time, what their son does during their free time, the most probable answer you will get is “ My son is utterly useless and watches movies all the time “. Hence as I am 19 years old and still a teenager, I am going to give my speech about Indian cinema. But there is a problem, Most of my friends think I am a bit weird, and that I come from the gandhian era, I am not sure why but I assume it is because I am the only 19 year old boy who steps out of my house, early on Sunday morning wearing full formals. As I am a bit weird I am not going to speak for, but against indian cinema.

Recently, a huge research project about indian cinema was conducted by a very famous scientist. Do you know who that scientist is? It is none other than me. From the research I have found out 3 concepts of reality that Indian cinema has made a mockery of in the past few decades. Those 3 things are :

1.Concept of Time.

2.Concepts of Newton.

3.Concept of logic.

                Let us first discuss about the concept of time. I shall now narrate to you a scene from a Ramarajan movie which I recently saw on youtube. There are these goons who come to a market and demand money from the people. Most of the people give whatever they have. An old woman resists as she does not have any money. One of the goons pushes her and she is about to fall on the ground. At this point of time a bike, a hero Honda cd100 to be precise, suddenly flies from nowhere carrying ramarajan. HE then lands and does a donut stunt with the bike. A donut stunt is one where you keep one leg on the ground and drive in circles like a donut. He then suddenly emerges and catches hold of the old lady who was about to fall. So let me share with you a few things that popped up in my mind after seeing this scene. Number one. My dad has owned a hero Honda cd 100 for 15 years and I am quite sure you cannot perform a jump or a donut stunt with that bike. Number two. How can someone possibly do all those stunts and then come and save the old woman. The director fails to understand that there is something called “ the clock is ticking “. Even someone who is 5 years old will agree that the scene is rubbish

                Let us now discuss about the concept of gravity. This concept has been mocked in more than 90% of the fight scenes where the hero hits the villain and the villain flies and lands somewhere a light year away. But there is a particular scene in a particular movie which immediately struck to my mind when I thought about this concept. How many of you have seen the epic long jump done by actor vijay in the movie kuruvi? For those who haven’t let me brief you about the scene. Vijay jumps for a building to the MRTS bridge which is about 200 to 300 meters away. He then runs and boards a running train. The jumping scene makes a mockery of newton’s law of gravity and the train boarding part completely demolishes newton’s laws of motion. On seeing this the first thing I thought was, what would have issac newton thought if he had seen that scene? He would have probably wished that a huge rock had fallen on his head rather than the apple.

                Now let us discuss the most important part, the concept of logic, the concept of using your 6^th sense. For this let me narrate to you the introduction scene of a blockbuster telugu movie. In the scene, the hero’s hands and legs are tied to a rope and the hero is thrown into the sea which is full of sharks. As soon as the hero goes under water, he is attacked by a big and ferocious shark. He fights with the shark with both his hands and  legs tied with a rope and somehow manages to break one of the shark’s teeth. The hero then uses the tooth to cut the ropes which his hands and legs are tied to. He then sits on top of the shark and rides it like a horse. He uses his legs to move the shark’s tail fin which incidentally controls the direction of the shark and goes towards the villain’s boat from which he was thrown. He then ties the shark to the rope with which he was earlier tied . The villain lifts up the rope thinking the hero is dead but gets the shock of his life when he sees the shark tied to the same rope. The hero then emerges from nowhere and delivers an apocalyptically idiotic punch dialogue. After seeing this scene I made a small list of people whom I think will go mad or commit suicide if they see this scene. The list consists of 1.Ric O Barry, who is one of the top 10 animal rights activists and mainly concentrates on dolphins, whales and sharks. 2.Tom Seitas, the world record holder for the longest time spent under water and most importantly 3. All who use their sixth sense while watching this scene.

                Hence the tip of the day is, if you wanted to enjoy a typical indian masala movie, you must develop a seventh sense which is capable of shutting down your sixth sense before you watch the movie. If you can’t shut down your sixth sense, then the theatre will be more or less like hitler’s holocaust centers.

   GREED-THE WORLD’S BEST ILLUSIONIST

Good morning fellow toastmasters and guests. Let me begin my speech today with a story. Vijay, a young lad, 15 years old had gone to visit his uncle Ranjit, a forest officer, in Port Blair in the Andaman islands. One fine morning, vijay, his uncle ranjit and mito, their helper set off in their raft on a journey into the forest. Their weird objective of the day was to catch monkeys from the wild. During the journey, uncle ranjit asked mito to teach vijay how to make the monkey traps. Mito took a sailor’s knife which was placed amidst a heap of coconuts and started puncturing the coconuts one by one and started to drink the sweet coconut water. After draining the coconut of its water, he stared hollowing the coconut making a small hole on the top. Vijay also started following the same procedure on the remaining coconuts and in the end they had a bunch of hollow coconuts ready. After many hours of travelling they landed at a deserted island at around 4pm in the evening. They travelled well into the dense forest and started setting up monkey traps. They started filling the hollowed out coconuts with a mixture of jaggery and boiled rice and the coconuts were chained to a stake, which was driven firmly into the ground. By this time it had become dark and the three of them then started to set up camp. After sometime the heard a noise at the place they had set up the traps. They had caught their first monkey. I had got stuck with one of its hands inside the hollowed out coconut. By midnight they had managed to catch three monkeys. Dawn broke and uncle ranjit started explaining to vijay why the monkeys got caught. He told that the openings in the coconuts were only big enough for the monkeys to put their hands in, but not big enough for its fist filled with the jaggery  to come out. The monkey gets trapped, a victim of his own greed, until captured. He is forever a captive of his own greed. Uncle ranjit then enquired about vijay’s parents. Vijay then told him that they were working all the time, travelling very frequently and attending corporate dinners etc. He also told that Sundays are the only holidays they have and they sleep the whole day as they are extremely tired after a whole week of hectic work. If they don’t sleep, they go to play golf with their bosses or attend corporate seminars. Uncle ranjit then pointed out that vijay’s parents were like the monkeys, trapped in the golden cage called greed due to their desires of coming first in the rat race. They may be earning 6 digit salaries but do not have and feel the essence of life.   This incident turned out to be the turning point in vijay’s life. His uncle, being the most intelligent in the family could have easily become a doctor or an engineer or could have landed in any high paying white collar job. But he chose to become a forest officer as that was the job he loved. He did not want to lose the essence of life in the greed for money, power and prestige and get caught in the trap of greed like the monkeys did. Greed is like an illusion, like a mirage,  it always makes us to foresee and feel that a bright and glamorous life lies ahead of us. But the truth is very different, the truth is very harsh and ugly. In the end, we do end up with lots of money, power and prestige but we lose the main essence of life, namely happiness and peace.

            How many of us are like those monkeys, trapped in the cage of greed? How many of us are frantically running in the rat race? The sad truth is that most of us, including myself are indeed like those monkeys, caught in the trap of greed and running pointlessly in the mad rat race not knowing where the finishing line lies. The true fact is that the finishing line never exists. We endlessly and pointlessly keep pushing the finish line farther and farther away as we progress through the race due to our greed. We actually never finish the rat race till our last breath due this very reason. Even if we miraculously finish the race, it is too late and by that time happiness and peace are lost.

            My dear toastmasters, there exists a very thin line between need and greed. We must discover that line and must master the skill of balancing out life on that line. It is actually better to fall on the need side rather than the greed side but balancing on that line gives us the essence of life. We must be able to make an accurate estimate of what our needs are. Some of us are contented with 1 crore, some with 10 crores and some with 100 crores. The need differs from person to person but we need to keep in mind that we must never dilute happiness and peace in the pursuit of money because that’s what is called greed.

            If you cannot estimate your need then there is a simple way to find that thin line between need and greed and decide on your long term life framework as told by my boss during my internship. Finish your highest level of educational qualification, be it M.S or MBA or PhD, before the age of 27. Join a company or any firm, slog hard and work your way up to the top position before the age of 40. Maintain your position and become the czar in that field before the age of 45. By this time you would have earned in millions, or even billions. Step down from the top job, become an adviser or a consultant and start enjoying the rest of your life with your family. In this way you would have satisfied your needs and also will feel the essence of life namely happiness and peace, in plenty. So my dear friends, life has only two paths, the path which satisfies your need and the path which satisfies your greed. It’s up to you to decide which one you are going to take.

            

        THE JOURNEY THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Good morning fellow toastmasters and respected guests. As all of you, at least most of you may know that I study in tanjore and hence travel a lot from there to Chennai. Incidentally I think I will be travelling for the 100^th time between trichy and Chennai tonight. So I am going to share with you a journey from trichy to Chennai which happened about a year ago, which absolutely changed my life and the way I see my life.

                It was a busy Friday evening. Everyone was preparing to leave to their respective homes as it was an “open holiday”. An open holiday is one where most of the hostel guys go home ( In my college, one is not always allowed to go home, there a million restrictions when it comes to hostel life) . The monthly tests had just got over and I was in a bad mood as I had done them pathetically. I thought that life can’t get worse. I packed my bags and went to the college entrance to find a huge surge of students wrestling each other to get into the buses. On seeing this fish market like situation I became even more frustrated and thought that I have worst life in the world.

                With great difficulty and a torn shirt I finally got into a jam packed bus. I was hanging from the footboard with two heavy bags clinging to dear life. There in that bus I saw that the conductor was seated in his seat and was asking people to pass the money to him for him to issue the tickets. This was very unusual because conductors always come around to issue tickets. Many people who were seated in the rear end of the bus started hurling abuses at the conductor for not coming to their respective places.

                Then the conductor offered his seat to an old lady and started slowly walking through the crowd to the rear end of the bus to issue the tickets. He was not at all angry with people who scolded him with abusive language but issued them tickets with a smile. It was then that I realized that he had only one leg. The other one was a false one.  I then found out from him that he had lost a leg in an accident but still continues to work as a conductor, which is a very strenuous job keeping in mind his condition, to support his poor ailing parents. I then realized that there is one person who has a harder and worse than me.

                I then reached trichy station and boarded “Rockfort Express” B2 coach and occupied my berth. Sitting opposite to me was a young, smart, well dressed person wearing black glasses. I casually started talking to him about what he does, where he is from etc. etc. It was then that an elderly gentleman came and sat. He asked the young guy whether he could exchange his lower berth for the old man’s upper berth as he could not climb. The young lad readily agreed. After out tickets were checked and all of us had decided to go to sleep, I noticed the young man was searching all over the place for the climbing ladder which was bang in front of him. To my shock I realized that he was blind. As he was my opposite berth I started talking to him and asked about his past.

                He told me that he was working as a supervisor in a factory after finishing his B.E . He told me that he lost his eyes 2 years ago in an accident in the factory. His employers cheated him without offering compensation and had removed his name from the employees list and claimed that such an accident never took place.

                His wife ditched him as she thought he was a vegetable without eyes. But this guy left his past behind him and started to learn blind reading. He even started learning many languages. Today he works as a linguist for a leading translation company.   

                Hearing his story I was nearly in tears. I realized that all my thoughts about my life being miserable were rubbish. I realized that there are thousands of people out there in the world have a much worse life than me. The blind guy never felt that his life was miserable. He told me that he is blessed to have a life that he currently has. Those words hit my heart like bullets from gagan narang’s rifle. I have heard about

                I became a totally new person from that day onwards. It was from then that I started thanking god to have given me this wonderful life. It was from then that I started facing problems head on without bickering about it. It was from then that I started seeing disabled people as Differently abled people.

                Hence I conclude by saying that we always feel that the grass on the other side(pointing  towards left) is green. But we fail to see the other side(point towards right) is a barren desert and that the people living in that miserable place are not fretting as we are on the comparatively better place. So the next time you think that your life is miserable, pause for a moment and think about these people who have a much worse life and don’t fret about it. “ Don’t live to enjoy. Enjoy to live .“

Ice Breaker Speech

NUMBER 6

                Good morning fellow toastmasters and respected guests. It was the 24^th of May (2+4=6) , no it is not the day I was born. It is also not the birth date of anyone I know. As a matter of fact it was a very sad day for many people. It was the day my 10^th standard board exam marks were released. Even though I got a 100/100 in math and 96/100 in science it was a very sad day for me. Why ? To know this we will go a few weeks back in time. It was the time I was fanatic about cell phones. I used to keep asking my parents to buy me one. One day my dad came to me and told that he would buy me a nokia 3110C camera phone, if I got 450/500 in my 10^th board exam. I managed to get only 444/500. So I had lost my all-time favorite phone for 6 marks and settled down for this rubbish motorola. My total had dipped mainly because I got only 73/100 in English. That’s when my bad luck with number 6 started.

                In my 11^th standard I joined IIT coaching hoping that someday I would study in IIT. I dropped out of the classes in 6 months’ time as I could not cope with the pressure. My dreams of getting into IIT were also shattered due to the number 6.

                Two years flew by and it was time for my 12^th standard board results to be announced. This time my dad had offered to gift me a phone worth 15K if I got good marks in my board exams. But this time he allowed me to set the bar above which I would get the phone. I cleverly excluded English this time and told my dad to get me the phone if I get 375/400 in all the subjects except English.

                This time also the results were released on the 24^th of May, the same unlucky day my 10^th standard marks were released. I got 369/400 in all the subjects except English. Overall I got 460/500. So for the second time I lost a dream phone for 6 marks.

                As I involved myself too much in studying for the 12^th board exams for the cell phone and admission into NUS, I did not study properly for the engineering entrance tests. Hence I did not fare well in the entrance exams like JEE,AIEEE,VITEEE,BITSAT etc.

                I was depressed, flabbergasted and in absolute jeopardy. My board marks were not good enough for admission in any good anna university affiliated college nor in any foreign colleges like NUS and NTU and also I was not eligible for admissions in NITs, IITs etc. as I did not do my entrance exams well. Hence I landed in the ECE department of SASTRA University, thanjavur.

                My parents the felt that 460/500 is a very good total and told me that he will buy me the 15k phone that he had promised to buy me if I got above 375/400. By this time I was quite depressed and had lost interest in cell phones. But as both my parents insisted that I buy the phone I agreed. But this small happiness was also short lived as a bombshell came in the form of the rules booklet of SASTRA which said that used of camera mobile phones was prohibited in the campus. Hence I was forced to buy a basic color phone for 2000 rupees. Hence my cell phone ambition was absolutely squashed because of SASTRA which coincidentally has 6 letters. But when I went to college I realized that that rule was meant to be broken and found myself the only person having a basic phone. I was absolutely frustrated and decided that I will never aim or dream of buying a high end phone.

                It was then that I realized that life is not a 100 meter dash where in you run with your eyes open but a 1000 meter hurdles race where you run with your eyes closed.

                It was the time when I was uncertain about my future that I did an one month internship which happened to be the only productive act which I did in my life so far. One day during the internship, my boss came to me and said “ Pranav, you are a very hard worker and a good innovator and inventor. But an innovation is only 50% completed even if is fully developed. The other 50% is how well you communicate and convince the clients that your innovation is unique and better than other similar innovations “ .

                These very words made me realize that there is a lot more in life than grades and marks. These very words made me a new person who views things with a different perspective. These very words made me join toastmasters and stand in front of you all today.

                I don’t know whether my speech was good or bad, but the odds of me getting being the best        speaker today are not in my favor because of this impressive lineup and because today is the 15^th and 1 plus 5 is “  “.