FOSWL Talk on 15/4

TH Iyer mama featured me as a guest speaker for this month’s talk. FOSWL stands for Friends of Same Wavelength and it is a neighbourhood gathering. We invite a speaker who rattles off for 40 minutes on a semi-spiritual or health topic and then questions for 20 minutes before we are served two Marie biscuits and a paper cup of Tropicana juice. TH Iyer is the President of this initiative and he really packs in good speakers despite the attendance never crossing 20.

            I had a PPT prepared where I segmented the talk in three areas: Definition of Mindfulness and its origins, Buddha’s teaching in a nutshell on Anitya and Dukka, and finally the concept of Metha Bhavana or loving kindness. I was at the venue at 5:00 pm for  a 5:30 start and one of those early birds and arrange plastic chairs. Yogalaya is a wonderful venue. The crowd trickled in and we started off exactly with Swiss efficiency; T H Iyer is a man who spent four decades in Germany and he observes punctuality to time scale of an European or Japanese metro trains to the precision of a 8:31 and 6:38 kinds.

            Ms. Uma Seshadri had gotten the slide projector for me to plug on to my laptop and project it on a white screen. She got everything including the white screen but forgot the linking chord to the source which meant no PPT. Since this is a subject I breathe in daily, it was no sweat as I planned my talk more on practical experience than a theoretical construct. TH Iyer introduced me to the audience and said,” Sathya is one of those genuine thinkers and he speaks so fast. I will now request him to speak slowly,” and got the show started.

            I spoke for 40 minutes and speaking before an audience is not my cup of tea. It is real time show and you have get a lot of things right including tone of voice, content should flow and you make eye-contact with the audience and throw in a smile now and then. I did all this amateurishly. I was adequate for the day but a long way to go before reaching professional standards of a MC or a TV anchor level.

            My sister was there and so was my brother-in-law and it felt nice as I could talk uninterruptedly. Speaking from a dais feels like a money lender with so many ears and faces staring at you and you are literally on a pedestal. There were a crowd of 25 which was the highest in recent months. I had personally invited over a dozen friends at the beach and but non stirred on a Sunday evening and an IPL match. Ravi and Jacob said: SORRY on meeting me next day. Satish the actor said,” I wanted to come but I had a heavy lunch and dozed off after putting the AC at full volume.” I realized that on the count of reliability we can write the names of our friends and contacts on the beach sand close to the waves.

After the talk, Viji got me Idlies and Bajji and a coffee for I was ravenously hungry at a self-service at Adyar Signal. I was sure excited as hell with all this talking and being the cynosure for the evening; being on the spotlight does not sit nicely on my shoulders. I would rather be a writer any day where you write to your strength and to your time convenience whereas public speaking is ON TIME activity but the rewards are immediate too. You get a round of applause and lots of people wanting to talk to you after the show.

The next day at the beach TH Iyer mama asked for the speech notes. He loved the PPT content and a couple of weblinks I had mailed. Mrs. TH Iyer and their son-in-law in Australia loved the piece and it came as a sigh of relief that this was not altogether a squandered effort.  On Monday the 16/4, I was feeling jumpy and stressed for a post speech hangover. Give me writing any day was the thought I was left after this experience. Teaching soft-skills in contrast is not such a fanfare and tension thing.

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Vivek and his wife visited me on 14/3.  This is my second meeting of the Saharanpur doctor in flesh, the first was in 2010. There is an air of affluence and positivity about the Banerjees. He said, “Both my kids are more or less settled and we as a couple are in a stage of life to afford monthly vacations. Last month it was Kaziranga and now Pondicherry.”  He looks so perfect as a doctor, a family man, a compatible partner, a proud parent that I envied him for a second. ARROGANCE and ENVY are two qualities entirely foreign to my genes but that day I felt a green monster thinking: even if I had 10% of his contentment and affluence, I will settle for them with unabashed glee and gratitude.

            There were here in Besant Nagar for 90 minutes as I took them to Vishranti in the hot midday sun. Vivek showed the Eliots beach to his wife and he also spotted a few rare birds which only a naturalists like him can spot.  On camera he said, “This is low end camera while my camera equipment is over 6 lacs and even the lens is imported,” as I told his wife,” Vivek and I are two unlikely characters.  He sees hundred patients a day and I get to see hundred TV serials a day.”  As they departed in the Ola cab I was left thinking: In my next birth I will be more than happy being a Vivek Banerjee. He packs in so much reliability and trust and competence in one frame.