Onto The Battlefield

(Speech 6-8 min.Project 5 from Persuasive Speaking ,Advanced Communication Manual)

“The Brahmastra mantra you learnt from me will not be useful to you when you need it”—Parushuram cursed Karna .He did so when he understood that Karna of the Kshetriya clan deceived him by saying he is a Brahmin.Parashuram knew that learning is of no use if one can’t apply it, even if it be the Brahmastra mantra. Same is the case with communication skills and leadership skills.

Fellow toastmaster and distinguished guests, good evening.

We gain communication and leadership skills from toastmasters. But there is no point in gaining higher and better skills if they are not to be applied. Of course in daily life situations, these skills will definitely help us. However, we should look beyond these to contribute to the word in all the ways we feel we can. I urge the inspirational speaker in you to go and inspire the world. I urge the motivational leader in you to lead the masses. I envision that the toastmasters go to every sphere of life and put their stamp there .We will then have toastmasters conjecturing new ideas changing the face of the world. We will have toastmasters leading social activites. We will have toastmasters making people laugh and feel better. Toastmasters is the practice ground. After the practice, where are the real matches played? Are you playing any real matches? Our mission should be “to go out of this 4 walled shell onto the outside world and contribute in every possible way through the skills we gained in toastmasters,”

The movement of toastmaster have inspired me tremendously. It inspired me to act on the passion I have on cinema. With friends I had spent hours discussing on movies. The leadership skills I attained in toastmasters helped me to form a film society called Lumiere Celebrations in Bangalore along with my friends. We are closely associated with Bangalore Film Society and working our way through. It’s not that everything we did there was successful. But the fire of passion rekindled in the furnace of toastmasters never died out. The determination persisted in me to apply the learnt skills amidst several failures.

The unending desire to apply the learnt skills in the battlefield of life has helped human kind attain remarkable feats. In the 1950s, few students from the Quarry Bank High school at Liverpool decided to learn guitar. They soon decided the learning was quite enough. They went for real action .They formed a band called The Quarrymen. They rehearsed their songs at the house of Shotton, one of the group members. They were shoed away by Shotton’s mother. She asked them to move somewhere to the back of the garden because she was irritated by the noise. Their music was all noise for her. On attempt to get a chance they sent several flyers to theatres and ballrooms and put up posters. What they could manage was just few intermission concerts. Even there, they were outshone by other bands. However, it was a beginning - a beginning of a journey to fame, glory and adoration. Adding few other friends, the founder of the Quarrymen band, John Lennon renamed the band as Beatles. The others in the gang were Paul McCartney, Ringo Star and George Harrison. The extent of idolizing them was of the kind unheard before and remains unrealized ever after. These gods of rock music were never satisfied by just learning music. They went ahead using the skills developed. And all the crowns of music cherished to adorn their heads.

Toastmasters itself provides us an opportunity in going to the outside world to apply our skills. We can go to different areas and spread this movement. One toastmaster took this opportunity to his heart and went on to conquer the hearts of people around him. In just 3 years he started 12 clubs among which 7 clubs he mentored. He started a mission to educate the facility staff of his company. He formed an association called ‘Joy of Giving’ * to help the underprivileged and the malnourished. His leadership skills helped it to expand like a banyan tree. In a short span of time there are 210 people actively involved in this mission. He went to 30 colleges and motivated the youth into action. He is associated with 2 rehabilitation centres where he inspires the drug addicts to fly free of all their addictions. The man who did all this is from our own fraternity, Sreekanthan Kumaraswamy.Yes, the same Sreekanthan whose lips were shivering like little leaves in a storm, whose heart was pounding like the beats of the Beatles, whose knees were jolting like a vibrating strings of a guitar , when he stood at this same lectern, 3 years ago to give his first ever words to a gathering. He could achieve all this through toastmasters; then we can also. We must. The skills we attain here are not meant to be put below the pillow for cosiness. Sword unused is no sword. The power of vision and words is the sword we possess. Lets us belligerently go onto the battlefield armed with this sword. Many battlefields beckon us. Our swords shall not remain useless. It shall script the renaissance of the people around us.

Over to you toastmaster.

(*Joy of Giving- www.meetup.com/joyofgiving )