TM Magazine - June 2016 Comedy Connection

June 2016 magazine had a beautiful article called “Comedy Connections”. Four funny people from different professions have given their valuable tips about delivering an effective humorous speech

How a humorous speech should look like?

1.       Do not take the jokes from online or books. Instead use truthful anecdotes

2.       Let it not be offensive. If you are not a woman don’t make fun of women. If you are not an athlete do not make fun of athletes

3.       Humour is built on timing and on the unexpected. Go with your own style of humour, body language and reflexes instead of building a library.

4.       Humour is challenging and can easily upset people. Self-deprecating humour works well because, you are putting yourself down so people will feel better about themselves.

When your jokes don’t work:

1.       Keep going

2.       They suggest a few recovery phrases to make fun of yourself and light the mood:

“I should stop buying jokes from jokes.com”

“It seemed funny when I wrote it”

“You people are going to get this joke and laugh tomorrow morning”

3.       Do not blame the audience. Accept that you have not done the homework of knowing your audience.

4.       Best comedians learn from failures and create changes as needed.

Quotes the phrase, “A bad joke deserves a good autopsy”

Dealing with hecklers

1.       Owen lean a street performer had a person making fun of him during his performance. He spontaneously said “Ladies and gentlemen he is my uncle. I locked him in a car before coming. The person said, “Hi nephew nice to see you again” and then he kept quiet for the rest of the show.

Audience body language

1.       Just because people aren’t laughing doesn’t mean that you are bombing. Some express it with a smile. Sometimes it is difficult to predict.

2.       People with folded arms is not a good sign

3.       Be sincere with your audience and they will embrace you in the end

CC3 - Get to the Point - PPD

Has anyone heard of the term PPD?

It is Post Partum Depression"

Good morning TMOD, toastmasters, and guests.

Having a baby is a heavenly feeling. Women experience a mixture of unusual emotions when they have a baby. Women experience an unstable emotional state of mind after delivery which is called postpartum depression. It is said that 20% of women suffer from PPD all over the world. But this data is not true as many women prefer to keep it to themselves and they succeed in coming out of it in a few months.

When I was expecting, I was not even aware of a term called PPD. I was maintaining a strict healthy diet due to which my weight, BP and sugar were intact. C section was the last thing I thought I would end up with. I chose one of the celebrated hospitals in Chennai but little did I know that nobody showed hospitality to the patients there. On July 19^th 2011 I was admitted in the hospital at 5 PM as I did not encounter the labor. After that things were totally out of our control. 24 hours of painful procedures were carried out which ended up with no success. If it involved only my life I would have literally ran away from that place and stayed at home waiting for destiny to decide my fate. But I could not do that obviously because of another life involved.

The next day at 5:30 they decided to carry out an emergency c section. Anyone with a uniform inside the hospital looked like a villain to me. I could experience a sense of fear looking at the people with green uniforms inside the operation theatre. something I had never felt before in my life. As the local anesthesia given in the spinal cord did not work, I was given general anesthesia. For a few minutes I was unconscious during the surgery and then I became semiconscious. I could see people around me but I could not talk or move. I was overwhelmed when they finally announced that it is a girl. Then I was taken to the “observation ward” where patients were observed for 4 hours after the surgery. That 4 hours of trauma cannot be explained in words. I was shivering of cold and I could not tell that as I was semiconscious. There was nobody around to give me a blanket or reduce the AC. Nobody was allowed inside. I could not see my husband, mom or my new born. To make it worse there was an elderly person near my bed shouting loudly out of pain. I could clearly hear her words in Hindi. She was saying please give me some injection and kill me I can't bare this pain. Her loud cries went into deaf ears. Later most of them including the elderly lady were taken to the wards. And finally I was the last to be taken to the ward at 11:30 that night.

I would say that was the most painful night I have ever lived. At 3 am the effect of epidural started reducing. There was extreme pain in the sutures. When I called for the nurse, she rubbed her eyes and told me to just sleep and forget about the pain. Obviously I Could not sleep. The next day I was so excited to see my baby for the first time. She was so cute. I was able to forget all my pains looking at her innocent face. Before starting to walk I was discharged. I needed a wheel chair to move from my ward to the gate to reach the car.

After reaching home I could not sleep for more than 1 hour continuously even during the night time. At 10 pm I would put her to sleep and she would wake up at 11. Again at 12. It would go on like that. The pain and frustration due to lack of sleep made me depressed. I could not be cheerful to anybody around. I was always in a sad or angry state of mind without any reason. My husband and my mom were very supportive during those tough days. My mom took care of the house hold and cooking. My husband took care of the baby as much as possible. In spite of the immense support from everyone I could not come out of the distress. Those were days of power failures. Every day 2 hours of power cut and monthly 2 times of power shutdown increased my agony to the core. I had to sit with the baby without the fan chasing the mosquitoes around her all the time. My child loved to cry every 1 hour like all other babies. Consoling her and putting her to sleep was the toughest challenge for me. This went on for 6 months after which she learnt to sleep the whole night without waking up. I was waiting for that day. Slowly my sleeping habits became normal. It took 6 months for me to come out of PPD. I thought I was the only person to experience this agony, but I was surprised when my friends told me similar stories.

Finally, I would like to say that bringing up an infant after a C-section is not a cake walk and cannot be handled all alone by a woman. So please be aware of PPD, understand and support your wives or daughters. Do not allow PPD to last for long for the woman of your life.

Thank you!!

CC2 - Organize your Speech - Prayer

OPENING:

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul”

“Prayer in any form is effective because it is an action. It will therefore have a result. That is the law of this universe

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays

 Good Morning toastmasters and guests

One fine morning my four-year old asked me "Mother, why should we pray to God?" Getting dumb-stuck on an early morning is not new to me. It was indeed a thought provoking question. The only issue was that it was posted to a wrong person. I am neither a religious and spiritual person to talk for it, nor an atheist to talk against it. But the question definitely kept me contemplating for a few days. That is when I thought I could pen down what ever came to my mind and that became an inspiration for my CC2.

BODY:

FUNNY PRAYERS:

I started recollecting something I read in a book, a long time ago. "Prayer should destroy our ego and pride. The thought of "I" and anything that is selfish should be buried. We become a part of the supreme power when we pray and there will be no "I" any more." With this in mind I was thinking of how prayer itself brings pride to us these days. We see people who regularly visit temples and talk proudly about it. They would say "I walk around the Navagraha 9 times every day. There is no chance that God is going to abandon me at any point." Another says, "I regularly give butter (to Hanuman and I walk around the temple 108 times on all Tuesdays. I am a very religious person you see!" We even hear people say, "I had been to Tirupati, walking all the way to the top of the hill several times in my life time. I am sure that I am going to Vaikuntam after death.

Quote: No matter how rich you are, you cannot bribe the angel of death

WHEN DO WE PRAY TO GOD?

Whenever we find ourselves in a tricky, helpless situation we pray to God. Or when we aim at something desperately we pray to God. Our prayers seem very funny at times. It goes like these, a middle class guy prays, "God! Settle all my debts!" A student prays: "God! I should get the first rank this time". It sometimes goes even to this extent, "God! Let the first rank holder fall ill so that I can secure the first rank this time!" An engineer prays, "God! Give me an on-site opportunity at least once in my life time." In a big dining hall during a marriage, a man who is fond of laddoos prays this way, "God! Let the biggest of the laddoos come to my plate". As though the only task on Earth for Him is to weigh the laddoos and distribute them. A friend of mine, right from her teen age prayed, "God! Bless me with a good husband!" She had got too much used to this prayer that she could not control herself from this prayer even after getting married to a good guy and having children.

As a slap on the cheek to all these funny prayers I am reminded of Kabir’s doha: "When we are in sorrow everyone prays to God, in joy no one does.  How can sorrow come to one who prays in happiness as well?"

A GOOD PRAYER!

Great philosophers and religious gurus suggest a few things to be a part of every prayer.

1. First thank Him for all that He has given us.

2. Pray for the well-being of people around us.

3. Pray for "Wisdom"

4. Pray that we aim high and achieve what we deserve

I am not sure if God will grant our wishes if our prayers contain these. But I am sure it brings a positive vibration leading us to achieve happiness. When we thank Him, we realize that we have had several cherish able moments in life. We develop love towards our fellow human beings when we pray for their well-being thereby destroying the evil thoughts of jealousy, hatred, pride etc. When we pray for "Wisdom" it means that we have already started our search for it and will attain it at some point. And in the end we are here for some reason and our heights are determined by our aims. The height of the lotus is the height of the water level after all! So praying for a high aim in life will help us achieve our aspirations or at least help us find out our aspirations.

CLOSING:

I owe a lot of respect to the atheists because their minds are already filled with positive thoughts. A prayer or a provoker called God is not necessary for them. I am sure I have not attained that level and will not be able to attain it. Though so many of these thoughts flashed up in my mind as a result of my daughter's question, I did not dare to open up any of my thoughts to her. Perhaps she will have her own point of view after a few years.

Finally: "God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

CC1 - Icebreaker - Learning New Skills

                                         

The coolest things in life are things that you have not done before. - Afrojack

Good Morning toastmasters. I am Kavitha. I was born and bought up in Chennai – Saidapet to be specific. Both my parents were government employees. My father was working in MMDA and mother in PF. It was a nice beginning. But something tragic happened all of a sudden. When I was 3 years old, my father passed away. I still remember what happened on that day. There were several people around calling to me and trying to hide the truth from me. I simply told them, “You know what...? My father is dead” putting them into surprise. But at that time I did not know that I will not be able to see him anymore. And that was the end of my tragedy.

From then on my beautiful childhood days started in Saidapet in my grandfather’s house. I studied in Alpha school which is the next building. I have a brother who is 3 years elder to me. We used to play and watch a lot of cricket during our childhood days. I was always on the batting end and he was always on the bowling end. He was a cricket champion in school but he was not able to get me out because I was the umpire of my own game. My brother would not mind because he knew that I would not play at all if he insisted me to bowl. Now he is in France. Whenever he came here for a vacation it would be funny to see my daughter on the batting end and his daughter on the bowling end all the time. History indeed repeats!!

I completed my schooling and then my college and I got placed in the very first company. I still remember my first interview. I was so tensed to an extent that, the interviewer offered me a glass of water and asked me to relax before answering his questions. Finally, I was one among the three people who got selected. When I saw the offer letter it said the retirement age is 58. I really thought that I was going to work in Wipro and get retired. I have worked for 3 different companies in 7 years so far J. Isn’t it funny how we think and how it actually turns out to be?

When I was 25 my mom started looking for an alliance. Whenever the boy was from Ambatore or Tambaram she would say, it is far away from Saidapet, let us see someone from Ashoknagar or West mambalam. You know what? I ended up marrying a person all the way from Salem who is our fellow toast master here. The first time when I visited his place I expected a lot of greenery and paddy fields and motor pumps. I grew up watching lots of Bharathiraja’s movies J. It was disappointing to see the same traffic, houses and buildings there. There was not a single paddy field. But something interesting waiting for me there was his good collection of books. When he first asked me what books do you read, I proudly said, “I read Sydney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, R.K. Narayan, Chetan Bhagat!! He asked me one question that transformed my reading habits. He asked me, “Do you still read story books?”

I became a fan of Robin Sharma later on. He suggests lot of things, including waking up early, eating healthy, spending time with children, learning new things etc. I am religiously following the “learning new things” part of it. Working very hard to bring about “Waking up early” part. I see to that I learn a new skill every 6 months. Whenever I learn a new skill I would feel like a new window opening from within. That is how I learnt knitting, crocheting, composting, gardening, baking, playing the veena, learning French etc. For most of the skills, “Youtube” was my teacher. I am still in the process of learning and love to be a learner always.

Thank you!