The Power of Speech

Yesterday, I completed my third consecutive assignment as the Grammarian and Wordmaster of the local Toastmasters club. Through my role as the G & W, I’ve had the opportunity to tremendously improve upon my listening skills as it is incumbent on me to note down on a piece of paper the notable quotes, similes, metaphors and more importantly, the egregious errors that speakers may inadvertently make during the course of their speeches. I later use these notes to present my evaluation report towards the end of the meeting. This process of actively listening and writing down what the speakers have to say, however, has resulted in some of the speakers’ themes resonating with me long after the conclusion of the meeting.

For example, one speaker, yesterday, spoke on the folly of prejudgement. The essence of the speech is that we often make assumptions about people based on incomplete information. This ties in with the overriding negative emotion detailed in Dr. John Gottman’s study of marital relationships. Yours truly has been especially guilty of prejudging people and treating them harshly only to later discover that malice is not the reason for even the best laid plans of mice and men to oft go astray. Another speaker spoke on the topic “Desire and Will are Power”. He used a brilliant metaphor wherein he referred to desire and will as the front wheel and the gear and pedal assembly of a bicycle respectively. Yet another speaker spoke on the phenomenon of weekend parenting and eloquently put his point across to the audience.

Perhaps the best speech of the day was an extemporaneous talk delivered by a guest in the “Table Topics” round. He spoke on the topic, “Will India be a Superpower by 2015?”. Not only did he quote President Kalam in his talk, but he also ended his impromptu speech with a poignant story about the two faces of India. He compared two groups of people running: one group that is competing in a running race and another group that is trying to flee a burning building. He said that the leaders of the group participating in a race are not expected to turn back and help the laggards. “But in the case of a fire”, he thundered, “those who are ahead need to turn back and help those who are left behind. And that is the kind of race, we, as Indians, should be running as we progress towards 2015.”

Truer words hath ne’er been spoken.