P3 Toastmaster - Laughing At Youself

Last week, en route to office, my bike stuttered for a while and then conked out. After checking, I found out that the vehicle ran out of fuel. Unfortunately that day my sweet and dashing friend Neha had come with me. While I was figuring out my options to solve the issue, Neha fired a question ‘Rama, What is your plan of action’? A question of this nature was usually asked by my manager. It was quite an embarrassing situation. I smiled at her and laughed at myself.
Mr. Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmaster’s and Dear Guests, a very good evening to you all.
Almost all of us in the hall I guess at one point or the other in our lives would have faced an embarrassing situation and may have ended up blushing and cursing ourselves.
And how many times have we ‘Laughed at Ourselves’?
I can recall and share couple of embarrassing situations.
When I was in my second grade at school, my English teacher, Alma in her sweet and shrill voice announced “Students we have our elocution competition next week”. I did not have the slightest idea of what the competition was about or what you do in it. Just to show off, amidst the admiring glances of my classmates I went forward and submitted my name for the competition.

The topic was ‘Time and Tide waits for none’. I memorized the speech my sister wrote for me. On the D-day, the Auditorium was packed to full house. I was called on stage. As soon as I held the mike, my legs started shuddering and my hands were trembling with fear. Then I started my speech “Time is a gift given by God. One has to use it as a tool and not a crutch and...”
“Dei.Naaye. Sollrra.Naaye” which in English means ’Hey dog!! Come on tell, just tell’
The best part was, instead of my speech, my whispers were amplified to the audience. What next? I had no option but to tell “Thank You” and disappear in sheer embarrassment. That was my first public embarrassment.
I was cussing myself and it was heard by the audience. This proved to be more embarrassing than the fact that I forgot my speech. When I recollect that experience, I could not stop laughing at myself.
Next experience was in the first year of my college, when my English professor was explaining ‘Technical writing’ and giving practical tips to improve the same. I was seated behind the topper of my class Nishaanti. Instead of listening to the class I was trying to catch a glimpse of the pictures on the magazine she was furtively reading. Suddenly I was picked up by my English professor. ‘Rama, what are you doing? Well I was perplexed, how did Mam this figure out?

Mam went on ‘Are you a scholar in technical writing?’
Me: No.
Mam: Then why are you not taking notes?
I looked around the class. To my surprise, the whole class except me was taking notes of the tips. Gosh!! My English Mam went on like: Why do you come to my class? Why don’t you just stay out if you knew everything? Once the teacher went out of the class, I was again taken for a ride by my friends.
I was unhappy and furious at that point because my ‘self image’ had taken a beating. Maybe at that time I didn’t have the maturity and mindset to accept the embarrassment. Now though I can’t stop laughing when I think about it.
In the great epic, Mahabharata, we all know that kaurava prince Duriyothana fell into a water pond disguised as Rangoli art. In spite of warning, he fell into the pond. Pandava queen Dhrowpathi laughed at Dhuriyothana referring him as blind because of his stupidity. Dhuriyothana developed a negative mindset to take revenge on Pandavas and Dhrowpathi. Instead, if Duriyothana had accepted his stupidity and if he had laughed at himself, who knows maybe, Kurukshetra war wouldn’t have been fought.

Now this calls for a question, why could not Dhuriyothana laugh at himself after the fall?
Well, the answer is simple. Not only Dhuriyothana, most of us want to be perfect and in that quest, we could not accept if we ‘mess up’ things. More importantly we just can’t let others see our embarrassment or ridiculous situations.
In my first speech experience I learned “Attempting to cover up the situation would add more embarrassment”. From my college incident I learned “accepting the embarrassing situation ‘as it is’ is usually the best thing than worrying about our self-image”. From the Mahabharata story I could infer “When caught in an embarrassing situation, developing a negative mindset would prove to be futile”.

We never know when we might be faced with an embarrassment. Be excited and happy that you are getting a chance to laugh at yourself once again.