My 4th speech at Toastmasters

The purpouse of the 4th speech is to use simple & small sentences, rhetorics, quotes, similies & metaphors,etc.

Good afternoon everyone. Today, I am going to talk about my best friend Suresh. Actually all of us here have met him at least once. At least once, we have lived his life too. Infact, we are living his life right now. If you are wondering who he is, let me give a clue.

He doesn't have a face. He doesn't have an identity except a series of numbers called as an employee id and another series of words called as project name. If you are still not sure who our friend is, then just look around yourself. You will find him everywhere. Our friend Suresh is a software engineer in a multinational company.

A few years back, our friend joined an engineering college. Why did he join an engineering college? Of course because, that's what everyone does, isn't it? Become a doctor or an engineer. The four years spent at the engineering college were hellish for Suresh. He didn't like what he studied. What he liked he couldn't study. Our friend wanted to study history. He wanted to study about the great kings. The Ashokas and the king Arthurs. He wanted to study about the great battles. The battles at Waterloo and at Plassey. "But what would you do after studying that?" his father had asked, and, Suresh had no answer. So, quietly and obediently, stifling his inner longings, Suresh studied engineering. He studied about balls rolling and the forces acting on it, and, about how to represent figures in two dimensions from front and top, and, about how Sodium and Chlorine reacted to form salt, and, about how to use integration and differentiation.

He of course excelled in engineering too. For he was judged on his ability to remember things, not, on his ability to love and cherish things. When he reached the third year of engineering, one day his father asked him. "Son, what do you want to do now? Do you want to do an MBA or MS? Or do you want to do an MTech? Or do you want to work?", and, Suresh had no idea. What he actually wanted to do was study history. Study about the great revolutions that took place. Study about how our fore-fathers fought for independence. He replied, "Dad, I want to study about the independence movement. I want to understand the values that make this country unique. I want to go and see the temples and mosques and churches and Buddhist monasteries, that make-up this country's culture". His dad laughed and said "You can do all that once you have earned sufficiently and have retired. Why don't you join the IT industry? Kumar uncle's son Arvind works in a software company. He earns so much. He has so much respect in society", and, so Suresh ended up attending the interview of the first IT company that stepped in his college campus.

"Where do you see yourself five years down the line?" they asked him in the interview. He wanted to reply "I see myself sitting in the British Council Library, reading about Troy and the Spartans and the Athenians. I see myself as a professor, teaching students about the Chinese and the Ming dynasty. I see myself as a torch spreading the light of knowledge and banishing darkness", but, he replied "Five years from now, I should be leading a team of motivated individuals, who are passionate about their work, and who would work as a team to effectively deliver on services without any compromises on quality", and, of course he got selected, because, that is what everybody wants to hear. Isn't it? He finished his engineering and joined the company. He had a training where, 300 more clueless engineers like him were huddled in a nice, big conference hall and given lectures about the company's Vision, mission and values. He was told to be proud of the fact that he was a member of a fifty thousand strong family. He could only compare this family to the 2nd world war Russian army. Big and respected. Respected not for quality, but, for quantity. With passing days, the boredom in the lectures only increased, for they would teach about Java - the programming language that was changing the world, and, he wanted to learn about the history of the Java volcano in Indonesia.

Just when Suresh thought that he could bear it no more, the training ended, and he was told to go to Chennai. Suresh wanted to come here, to Hyderabad, so that he could see the shield, seal and jewels of the Nizam. So that he could see the beauty of the Gloconda fort. He wanted to understand more about how the Hyderabad princely state joined India, but, reluctantly, he had to agree to go to Chennai, because, he had no other option. Well that was two years back. Yesterday, I was talking to him, and he was telling that he was doing some Java development work now, which would seem like a great job to most people, but, that he was not happy. "Why?" I asked him. He replied that, he doesn't see any challenge in his work. "I mean, I do some real development work. My boss is happy with my work. My client is happy too, but, I find it mundane." He also said that he was planning to go for higher studies, do an MBA to climb up the proverbial corporate ladder. "But what about your passion for history?" I asked him. He had no answer. The passion was still burning in his heart, but, he had become too busy working for material comforts in his life, that the passion was just that - a passion, deep inside and nothing else.

Our friends Suresh is a very dedicated and hard-working man, mind you. I am sure he will succeed in whatever endeavor he takes up. He will succeed. He will earn well. He will have a lot of respect in society, but, would he be happy?

This is the normal career path that most of us follow. Study something because everybody does that, join an industry because, society respects it, manage people because, that is the established sign of success, but, deep down inside, are we happy? When we retire, would we look at our lives with content and happiness, or would we think that our children should not suffer the fate that we suffered, so, let us "guide" them in finding the right career. I think, we all need to look at the Suresh in ourselves and see if the path we are taking is leading us to where we want to go or not. So, let us all think and contemplate and see if we are taking our life to places, or is it society and people's opinions that is doing that job?

My 3rd speech at Toastmasters

Gave it long time back (read "a couple of months"), and have been thinking of posting it also for a long time. Finally doing it today.


The main idea of the 3rd speech is to "get to the point" wherein the speech is supposed to have one central idea and multiple supporting ideas.

Good Afternoon everyone. I am Krishnan Subramanian. Let me start off by taking a quick poll. A couple of questions.

1. How many of you cross the Cyber Towers signal (Cyber Towers is a famous landmark in Hyderabad) while coming to office? (Almost everybody raised their hands)

2. How many of you have seen small children begging near that signal? (Almost everybody raised their hands)

3. How many of you feel that instead of begging, the children should be studying in school and should be playing with other children in the evenings? Basically, how many of you feel that they should have a life better that what they are having right now? (Almost everybody raised their hands)

When so many of us feel that those children should be having a better life, then why are those children still begging on the streets?

That is because, all we do is give lip service. We all agree that those children should have a better life, but, none of us are ready to actually go and do something about it. Ladies and gentleman, today, for my speech, I don't have any speech topic. All I want to do is give instances where we indulge in lip service, and, all I want you to do is, think about it.

So, what can we do for the children? The first and most natural thing thought that comes to our mind is - "give them some money to alleviate them from this poverty". But, do u think that it is money that they need? Can't they get that from begging too? Do you think that the money would actually go into their pockets? Giving money is the easiest thing to do, but, what they actually need is compassion and love. They need to feel that - "yes, there is somebody out there who cares for us", and, how do you do that? Go and talk to them. Make them feel like a normal individual. Stop avoiding them. Convince them that begging wouldn't help them in the long run. Help them join a good child welfare institution, where somebody would love them. If you do this today, so that they can stand on their own legs tomorrow, then you have truly alleviated them from poverty and misery.

One of the core values in TCS states - "respect for individual". Now, we all respect individuality, don't we? We all respect every individual's ideas. We all respect an individual's contribution in a team, but, do we equally respect all individuals? I mean, do we treat our team-mates as respectfully as we treat our managers? To take it further, do we give equal respect to our manager and to the boy who cleans the floors here in TCS? In restaurants, do we treat the waiters respectfully? Is it because, they are providing us a service and so we are superior to them. If that is the case, then just think how we would feel if our clients treated us the way we treat waiters and cleaners? Is it that the waiters and cleaners cannot influence our lives in a negative way, so they can be treated as inferior to us? So what I am trying to say is that we need to treat every individual respectfully in letter and spirit. In terms of respect, there should be no difference between a big shot in our company and a lowly placed person.

Well, I could keep on talking about such instances from our day-to-day life where we indulge in lip service, but, what I am asking you to do is - THINK. From now on, think before every action you take, think before every action that you decide not to take, think before every sentence you utter, think about your feelings, think about your emotions, and follow what your conscience says. Thank you.