Dear Friends,
In the absence of Kurian Abraham and Venugopal, C.M. Daniel presided over the meeting. “The other day we were listening to a short-duration public speaking workshop by Dr. Venugopal Reddy, where he said that applied knowledge is power,” said Daniel. “There are two ways to acquire knowledge. One is by your basic qualifications, and the other is by reading. This will help increase knowledge and vocabulary.”
Table Topics was by me. Subjects included the rise in petrol prices and whether Karunankaran was a good chief minister.
Grilling was on Nirmala Lilly who was feisty as usual.
The introduction of the main speaker, Agarwal, was by me.
Agarwal focused on the talk given by the renowned preacher of Hinduism, Prema Pandurang, who spoke about the Sreemad Bhagavatha.
There were two innovations in this meeting.
At the suggestion of Venoo, in Table Topics, strips of folded paper was put on a table. People came up, took one, and spoke on the subject.
The second innovation was to follow the suggestion given by Dr. Reddy in our public speaking workshop. He said one must speak without the use of a lectern.
So, the lectern and the main table were pushed back. Daniel and I became part of the audience. Agarwal walked sideways, back and forth, stopped, held forth, and there was a dynamism in his talk, with many gestures, smiles, and forceful statements.
It looks like Dr. Reddy was right about a lectern inhibiting a speaker’s vitality.
Shevlin
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