Chp 122. Speech in Mizoram

One of my closest friends Isaac (Online nick: Jupiter) called me up the other day:

"Bastard, don't tell me you're the same Kima who gave a motivational speech on career guidance at Dawrpui School recently?"

"Uhhhh... yeah. How in the World did you find out about thattt???"

"My girl-friend is studying in that same school and she told me about it. I knew there won't be that many Kimas in Mizoram who can pull off something like that while making it interesting at the same time. Plus she mentioned about IIM-Bangalore..."

"Your girl-friend is in 12th standard? Oh my God!!! Catching them young huh? Is she into M&B novels or she's still at the barbie doll phase? Ever heard of statutory rape? You're one step away from pedophilia..." And the tables turned and I ended up taking his trip even before he could continue with his plan to take my trip. Wrong day to pick on me Isaac :)

So that's what I did, on the last day of my stay in Mizoram a month ago before flying down here to Delhi: Gave a speech infront of a large School audience on the topics: Career, Enginerring, MBA, UPSC and "studying outside Mizoram". Yeah if my friends Amol, Tommy, Monu, Amra, Ankita, Shubha etc ever knew about this, they would all die laughing.

Two of my UPSC tutors at MU (Mizoram University) - Dorothy (English) and Pratab (GS), invited me to give a small pep talk at Dawrpui School of Science and Technology, Aizawl. At first I was a bit reluctant of course, but then, never underestimate the persistence of an English teacher: Dorothy’s continuous bombardments of complex English vocabulary finally annihilated the very last bit of resistance within me: I gave the speech just before leaving Mizoram.

Speaking in front of an audience is a cakewalk for me now, thanks to my short stint at IIMB, where our speeches were not only monitored and judged on the spot, but also videotaped for further analysis. Stage fear was not a problem; neither was coming up with an impromptu speech. The only problem was, I’ve never studied in Mizoram since class 2, hence I had no idea what level should my speech be tuned to for my target audience.

On D-Day, I walked into the class. The students of both sections were packed into the auditorium, with the teachers hovering by the sides. I stood on the podium, took a deep breath and looked around. Girls clearly outnumbered the boys. I also felt that the girls had too much make-up on them for merely class 12 students, but then, maybe that’s the practice in Mizoram.

Prof. Bringi Dev, my beloved Managerial Communications Prof always used to say, "The key to making a great speech lies entirely in the opening line; Make it interesting and you have the audience’s unmitigated attention throughout the speech; Screw that up and expect tomatoes to be thrown at you". My opening line was, “Ah. 12th standard. I’ll do anything to relive those days again. To be young, carefree and wild once again. To fall madly in love with a person sitting in your class thinking he or she is the one you’re going to end up with for the rest of your life. Well, let me assure you that that will not happen. Similarly, you will most definitely not end up doing what you dream about the most. And that is what I am here to talk about.” Hook, line and sinker.

Trick no.2: Body languages, eye contacts, dramatic pauses, spontaneity, confidence, enthusiasm etc to increase the audience’s attention, a fact that need not be mentioned here.

Trick no.3: Making them comfortable. The more comfortable they are, the more they open up. During the Q&A round, the first student to ask me a doubt stood up and addressed me as "Sir". My immediate reaction was quick smirk followed by an immediate gesture to make him sit down. I told them not to call me "sir" or stand up, and that everything should be casual and informal. I sincerely believed more students ended up asking more questions because of that.

I talked about Engineering and MBBS. I cleared one of the biggest misconceptions about computer engineers in Mizoram, where most people think a Comp Engg is just someone who can fix your computer that won't boot, or install Windows and Anti-virus, repair system registry and configs, recover corrupted/lost files, download codecs for movie files etc etc. I told them the real meaning of a software engineer, and explained about programming using different languages, and also the importance of Maths in any engineering field.

Trick no.4: A brief joke here and there, especially if directed against one of their teachers, makes everything seem more interesting *naughty grin*. I took Pratab's trip on a couple of occasions: The entire class laughed, and when I returned to my topic, the response from the students was much fresher. And then of course I couldn't help cracking a sexist Engineering joke. Like, when I explained about the trend in which more males go into engineering than their female counterparts, I slip by a brief jest: Suppose there is an engineering crisis, say an electrical fuse. A man will look at the fusebox and try to analyse what is wrong. Is the transistor malfunctioning? Is there a loose connection somewhere? Is the input power voltage too low? A woman on the other hand, will first think, ok if I’m going to fix that, what dress should I wear? Will the color of the fusebox go with my nail-polish? Will the spark reveal the foundation on my cheek?

I can wholeheartedly say I captured the student's undivided attention especially when I was talking about MBA, explaining what marketting, HR, finance, consultancy etc were all about, although I confess I did get a little bit carried away with some of my examples, judging from some of the blank expressions on the students' faces. Hehehe. Anyway, I sure am glad I was able to clear a lot of the students' doubts. The entire speech including the Q&A round was estimated to go on for around 30mins to an hour; Instead we easily crossed 2 hours of amazing class participation.

Another topic I really enjoyed talking about was on "the life of a Mizo studying outside Mizoram", where I warned them about the dangers of "parental detachments", that they should all be extremely careful about not attending classes and about the "night life" of the metros that could devour them into pieces if they did not have any self-control. The girls should especially be aware of the fact that they would no longer be under the protective eyes of their parents and the Mizo society, hence there would always be guys around at every nook and corner ready to "do something to them that they will regret later". I warned them about the liberalness of the places outside Mizoram where one could acquire not just alcohol but street drugs freely unlike in Mizoram.

All in all, I felt a strange feeling of satisfaction and contribution to the welfare of our society after giving that speech. Even though I knew that these children would definitely be given such warnings by their parents or friends, I felt better knowing I personally played a small role in carving out the giants that they would be later on in life. God bless them all.