When staying awake becomes a serious problem...

I wrote this entry while I was in Kerala on a junket, recently. Thought I'd reproduce it on my blog.

Conferences / seminars are always so interesting...NOT. I'm here on a perfectly lovely Wednesday morning in Trivandrum, trying to keep my eyes open in a workshop,that doesn't remotely concern me. Why am I here, then? Don't ask me, ask the PR person who invited me. In my defense, however, I'm doing a perfectly convincing act of taking down long-winded notes. So is everyone else. It's impossible to stay awake through this endless droning.

Why are Indian speakers (very broadly speaking) so terrible at addressing audiences? Why is it that they cannot keep up their audiences' attention for more than three minutes? Most people begin with reading out reams and reams of literature, hoping it will make up for the lack of enthusiasm on their part. And as if reading out volumes of text isn't bad enough, there is the variety that will support the endless droning with slides and slides data.

For instance, "In 1994, our organisation had achieved only 34% growth,which jumped to 61% in 2001. However, we weren't satisfied with this growth percentage, hence, our target for the next five years is to achieve at least 54.7% growth."

Excuse me, but all I heard was "Blah, blah, yak, yak". What's your point? Did anyone tell you, mister,that no one cares a rat's ass about your data? Can you stick to whole words and less numbers unless absolutely necessary?

There's a third type of speaker one often sees: the nervous type. This type is so obviously pissing its lacy panties, that they even have no idea what they end up blabbering about. Add to that, they even mess up their technology and end up displaying the wrong slides to the wrong headings.

When will people learn that seeming effortless and well-prepared with your material is the key?

As a favour to the world, I'm taking the responsibility on mine young shoulders to enlighten the public speakers of the future, with a few home-truths:

1) Make your session interactive. Ask your audience some trivia related to your topic, perhaps? It helps them keep awake and interested.

2) Talk to audience. Maintain eye contact. This helps them know that you're talking to them and not at them.

3) Do NOT read aloud, whatever you do. If reading out is all you're going to do, just hand over your literature to your audience and let them read it. It might be more interesting, anyway.

4) Cite as many examples as you can to support the point you're trying to make. Or ask the audience to come up with some. Examples help retain your proposition better, in the minds of the audiences.

5) Keep it simple, stupid! Avoid too much technical jargon unless absolutely vital. It is one of the reasons why your talk becomes a snoozefest.

6) Try reducing your talk to a maximum time limit of about 20 minutes to half an hour. Trust me, attention tends to wander beyond that. So unless you know that your presentation is going to receive nothing short of a standing ovation, don't drone on and on. And yeah, if you look like Bradley Cooper, you can talk for as long as you want!

7) Lastly, inviting your audience to be a part of your presentation is most important. No one likes listening to someone who loves the sound of his own voice. Believe that your presentation must get the attention it deserves. Once that is achieved, you have to take the effort to make people want to listen to you. It sure will take a lot of hard work from your side, but then, who said it was easy?

Whew. I'm done with all my gyaan, folks. Now, back to the very lovely speakers who are carefully disobeying my carefully put together advice!

Blonde moment of the week...

So yeah. I'd gone through the week without any blonde moments hurled my way (not important enough to write about, anyway), when I decided my week would be incomplete without at least one such moment.

I was at a Rich Media workshop yesterday, and it was a lot more fun than I expected. Well, some of the speakers were crashingly boring (is it me, or can't most Indian speakers hold up their audiences' attention for more than three minutes?!), but the two or three that were interesting, made the trip worth it.

One of the interesting speakers was a senior Indian guy from advertising (let's call him Apple Junkie), who sort of has a reputation to be a bore. I'd never heard him speak before, so I believed what my friends had to say.

To my surprise, Apple Junkie's session was nothing short of fabulous. He was funny, goofy, intelligent, witty and very knowledgeable, all at the same time. Everyone loved him. So throughout the workshop, I was steadily tweeting about the sessions (less in the interesting ones, a LOT during the boredom inducing ones).

After Apple Junkie's session, my tweet said exactly this (and I'm NOT proud of it):

"Apple Junkie was superb. I'm glad I came."

To which the Overated Outcast almost instantaneously replies:

"I'm sure Apple Junkie is glad you came too. (Sorry couldn't resist that)."

Seriously, could I be anymore stupid?!

P.S. You know where the comments section is. What's been your best blonde moment of late?

P.P.S (Shameless plug alert) Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eyemanut87

You know life's good when...

1) Your boss is nice enough to convince you to stay back although you've quit. And not just because he particularly needs you, but because he cares enough to convince you that you're making a bad career move.

2) When you join work again and almost half the office thumps you on the back with sheer happiness.

3) You feel good about going to work, because suddenly everything seems sunshine-y.

4) You have enough money to buy your mum a washing machine, on a whim, without calculating your budgets.

5) You really love meeting old friends, who in turn, seem absolutely happy in catching up with you.

6) You are in touch with the first guy friend you ever made, and love how he's turned into this really awesome, witty, funny person.

7) You have the power to make Manchester United lose by going on saying that they will, just to spite your best friend and cousin (read: Lammy and Rohit). Hee hee. This is fun especially since you don't even care two hoots about what happens to the future of football.

8) People tell you, you write well. (Ok ok, that may not be true, but a little flattery never hurt anyone!)

9) One of your closest friends is almost getting a job she's really been wanting. With AWESOME money too.

10) Your haircut (courtesy Mikachu) looks lovely and you begin to feel like the diva that you've wanted to be. :P (Shameless plug: I'm not saying this because she's my best friend, but she's a REALLY fabulous hair dresser. You should totally get your cut from her sometime. Just go to Bandra, Mad-o-wot). :)

11) When you've read the entire Harry Potter series, for the 8th time (excluding book seven).

12) When you're up at 12 in the night, wanting to make a list of all the things that make you happy.

* big, happy smile* :D

I love you, world!

Happy Diwali and other rambles

Hello, kind readers and Happy Diwali! Since I get supremely bugged with the long-winded "Happy Diwali and have a crappy new year full of prosperity'' kind of messages, do know that I mean the best for you. Just don't make me say it. :P

On a not-so-side not, this year's 'Foot-in-Mouth' Award goes to me. Why? Because I was a part of the following conversation:

The cleaning lady from the gym (called Mavshi) saw me in the gym after quite a hiatus. She stopped by for a chat, reproduced below:

Me: Hello Mavshi, how's you?
Mavshi: Fine. Long time no see!?
Me: Arey haan. No time. So Diwali preparations in full swing?
Mavshi: You know I won't be able to this year, since I lost my son five months ago.

After looking suitably ashamed of self (but horrified in the inner depths of my mind), I wondered why, at such time, the earth doesn't open up and swallow me up whole. Alternatively, someone gagging me with a wet, smelly sock at the precise moment wouldn't be such a bad thing, either.

If God was sitting up there and distributing traits at the time of my birth, I'd like to have acquired some proficiency in knitting sweaters or gardening or making paper hats or something. Why such copious amounts of skills in asking a woman who has lost her son (and knowing about her loss) whether she's going to be partying hard this season?

It's like asking a student who's failed his exams if he's bought his text books for next year.

Why do I do this? The fact that it was unintentional is no excuse.

In fact, I have no excuse.

Sorry, Mavshi. I really am. But I sincerely hope you have a good Diwali. Wherever your son is, I know he will want you to. You owe this to yourself...

The Travails of the Traveler

Yoo hoo! I'm back from Delhi. I know I should have blogged about it ages ago, but what to do? I'm uber lazy. To describe the trip in a sentence, I'd say it was fabulously rejuvenating and fun.

Met up with loads of people I've been wanting to meet for the longest time - Sakshi, Shayon, Arushi and Phoenix, being some of them (actually that is the complete list, but I don't want to sound like a loser). I wish I'd seen a lot more of the places in Delhi, though. Whatever people may say, I strongly believe that our country is host to some of the most picturesque spots in the world, but it's disheartening how we still choose to hold ambitions of going abroad and gawking at the Leaning Bloody Tower of Pisa, while so many of us haven't even been to the Qutub Minar.

I went and visited a lot of these street shopping places though - Kamala Market, Sarojini Nagar and Janpath and bought loads of stuff of the streets. I have no qualms in saying that Colaba Causeway has more order to the chaos and that given half a chance, I'd go to Colaba a 100 times.

See this picture up there? That's Chandni Chowk. And that's all I'm going to say about the place, since nothing I say about it will justify the madness, the crowd and the utter craziness that is Chandni Chowk.

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritties of the trip; I'd only make the whole thing sinfully boring. Suffice to say it was just the break I needed; I needed to get away from this city, meet new people and come back feeling like a daisy.

Now for all ye faithful readers, some photos.

The annoying wish-fulfilling pillar from Cheeni Kum.
The fabulously towering Qutub Minar...

That's our bloody government ripping off them poor foreigners. So that they can pay for us to scribble about our sordid love affairs all over the walls...


For more pics, go clicketty click here. No, you won't find any pics of me anywhere, in case you wanted to. :P

Didn't know drifting away from you was an option....

My dear, dear friend

I am on a holiday in Delhi, like you so very well know. I'm having a whale of a time here, staying at a friend's house with her lovely family, roaming around Delhi when the city's at its best, eating the best food, blowing a lot of money and doing exactly everything that I should be doing to enjoy my holiday.

And yet, I'm making the time to sit here and blog. About you. Knowing myself, I wouldn't do that in normal circumstances. Why would I, when everything was going fabulously well here, and I could just blog about everything at one go when I return home? But nevertheless, I am here. Writing. About you.

Friend, I'm depressed. And I'm disappointed. I thought we were the kind of friends who'd never grow apart. The kind who, even if we didn't speak to each other for over several months, would always pick up from where we left off and still feel completely in sync with each other. As far as I know, we were always around for each other, for happy times and sad times, for silly reasons and funny memories. Midnight conversations were a staple. We'd speak to each other till the wee hours of the morning so many times. You were just the kind of friend who I thought was a security blanket. Whatever happened, I'd always have you to talk to. Or so I thought.

What's changed, then? Distance? If that was the case, we wouldn't be friends in the first place, right? Infrequent conversations? Well, it wasn't like we couldn't live without talking to each other. Is there someone who's taken my place? Hmm. Didn't think I was so easily replaceable.

Why don't I know you anymore? Why am I one of the general crowds who gets to know about you, through tweets or Facebook status messages or blog posts, instead of receiving a call about what's up with you, like was customary? Why don't I receive a text message anymore, whenever you update your blog after months? Instead, I only find out if you see me online and decide to ping me. Perhaps it's the restraints of a new job...but then, I know for a fact that your social life is otherwise completely active in all its glory.

So am I to take it that you've got a problem with me?

Why did you seem so reluctant to meet me, when I was in your city? Were you that busy that it was difficult for you to return a call? Or to find out how my vacation was going? Or was it just that you were partying really hard with other more interesting friends? I wonder if it was too much trouble making you come all the way even once. Sorry if it was.

I'm not washing my dirty linen in public here, you know me better than that. I'm just trying to find out what has gone wrong over just a few months. I'm not demanding an explanation from you either. I don't really know why I'm doing this. Perhaps because writing is the only thing that can make me feel better about this.

Forgive me if I sound like a lovesick, heartbroken wuss here. I'm not in love with you. Not the romantic kind, anyway.

I just thought, that after all the stuff that we've shared with each other, or rather, I've shared with you, you'd be the last person making me write this post. What hurts most is that, while our friendship definitely hasn't soured, you've become completely indifferent to my existence. I'm still coming to terms with that, but it will take time.

Thanks for meeting up with me over this small break. I don't know what to expect from you from our meet, but one thing is for sure. I definitely didn't expect to see a completely new person in front of me.

Again, no explanations required. Maybe someday I'll see the light.

And maybe next time, I won't take a holiday from work to spend the day with you, like I did the last time.

A hurriedly scribbled post

Like the title says, this is a very hurried post. Your blog post would be hurried too, if some last minute packing was to be done, dinner was to be eaten, bedroom was to be made to look like human habitat and less like earthquake site and songs to be put into iPod. All this amidst mum popping in from the kitchen every 10 minutes like a cuckoo and saying ,"Will you get off the computer and FINISH the stuff you have to do?"

Yeah. In a minute.

Anyway, quick update about my life, in bullet form because that's all I have time for:

1) I'm alive, and well.
2) I've quit my job (officially), but my boss is calling it 'indefinite leave'. I don't know what to call my sabbatical yet. Will decide when I'm back from my chhuti.
3) I'm off to Delhi tomorrow, speaking of chhutis, for a mini-break of five days. I'm going to be putting up at Sakshi's place. More about that when I return. Plus if you're lucky, you'll get pictures.
4) I have this lingering feeling like I've forgotten to pack something important. But I have certainly packed the chuddies, toothbrush, tickets and money, so I think I can survive without the other stuff.
5) I am officially broke now. Please contribute heavily to my 'Let's support Moo in the time of need' fund. I accept cash, cheques, gift vouchers, demand drafts and sodexho coupons.
6) I will sorely miss Mum, Dad, Sheroo, Snowy and Lammy throughout my trip. So used to talking to them every, single day. I'm such a wuss.

And now that's all you're getting. Detailed posts about life in general later. Leave me comments and be good.

Ciao!