THE ENTERTAINING SPEECH

Objectives: 

• Entertain the audience by relating a personal experience

• Organize an entertaining speech for maximum impact

• TIME: 5 to 7 minutes

Love to Express

Do you watch romantic Bollywood movies? Dilwale Dulhania, Chennai Express, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, and Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania? Can you name the one thing that really inspires all the directors of these romantic movies? It is something in these movies that I also really love!!!

It is trains!! Can you think about how many bollywood scenes have been shot with heros and heroines catching trains? The typical scene goes like this: Hero on the train. Heroine on the platform. When the Heroine's tubelight comes on, she stretches her hand, and suddenly she starts to run and run in slow motion alongside the moving train. She is panting, but instead of her, the cinema audience are totally out of breadth! Finally, Lasssssssstt moment, hero confidently reaches out his biceps! Actually, I mean his arm! He grips heroine's hand and pulls her in.


Whew! The whole cinema hall sighs with relief!!! Thank god he caught her hand, and she caught the train!! No? And then the couple smiles beautifully or they sing a song!!

Well naturally, it is fun because Bollywood stars don't have to book train tickets at the famous IRCTC website!!! Okay, if you do not know, let me tell u. All online train bookings are done through IRCTC website. And if you can manage to book your tickets through the IRCTC website without tearing your hair out in frustration, I think, boss, you are an international cyber genius!!!

You see, the IRCTC website has an antique Indian system. At any given time probably a million users in India are trying to book their tickets at the same time. And just when the website is about to display some meaningful information, SHIT!!! The site will hang or crash!

So Barack Obama has almost declared it as a technological wonder! You can store the MOST confidential military intelligence data on the IRCTC server, it is guaranteed the Chinese or Mujahideen will never be able to access it, leave alone hack it!!! Thanks to superb Indian IT talent- the cheapest and best in the world!!

Now despite these IRCTC problems, I still think train journeys are still the best, and extremely entertaining!!! Thinking of trains brings up nostalgia from my childhood days. Those were the days we used to do a lot of second-class, budget travelling. We would carry bedholders, food, and large containers of water. Mind you, those days only the rich would buy water, or Bisleri.

Luggage has always been free, and of course unlimited. We normally had about 6-7 Aristocrat suitcases on the to journey. Double the luggage items on the return journey. Had to be yaar, after visiting grandparents!

And then those were the days we had no mobiles, no tabs, no instant cameras, and no videos in a train coach. So what did we do? Ah well, we had Windows!!  Na na, che, not Microsoft Windows, but Real Windows. For fresh air, scenery and total timepass.

And somehow, there was no shortage of food or entertainment on a 24-28 hour journey. In fact, I think the diversity of India is best seen on the trains. There were some typical interesting characters and scenes on the journey. Any day better than saas bahu and comedy soaps on SAB and Sony TV.

 The day would begin with the familiar hollering. Chala chai garam chai, kopi, wada sambar, wada sambar, omlette, kopi kopi kopi omlette! One just looked around and here is what one usually found.

A big noisy group, with lots of jovial  comments and loud laughter, singing and swearing ? Aha this had to be large punjabi family on board with Pappi, Pinky, Happy, Lucky!!!. A smaller group but with a larger hamper? Okaii,  that's got to be Gujjus. Watch the food hamper - 100% there would be pickle, salad, chutneys, farsaan, papad, dhokla, theplas, fafdas, handwa and lots more.

And you were lucky if you had a smart Fauji soldier on your coach, then he was your rail information desk!!! You could ask him anything about the train, the halts, the reason for the unscheduled stop, the precise minute-wise train delay and whatever. He would have all the answers. And then there would surely be a large Maarwari or UP group invariably headed for a marriage.

Usually the day would end with a mild pop-up with the bald government babu or the obese aunty who occupied the lower berths. They would insist on going to bed at 8 pm. Within 6 seconds flat they would be snoring away, while you somehow had to squeeze up with 5-6 others on the opposite or upper seat and munch your dinner.

Yet the hours would fly by happily, even if the train was running a 3-4 hours late. In any case who expects punctuality on long train journeys in India!! Most important part is that during the journey if the loo availability matched with the timing of your nature's-call, then all was well, and would surely end well!!! Yahi hai hamesha Bharatiya rail ka vaada!!!

So get on the train babe, ready steady and po!!!