It was a Sunday morning. I was sipping coffee. In front of me, the cook was chapping some wood for morning breakfast. Soon, a stranger came from the main door of the house. The cook was not facing the main door so he couldn't see the stranger. While approaching the cook, the stranger took an Axe which was resting to the wall. In front of me, the stranger chopped the head of the cook. The head of the cook rolled over before coming to halt.
My Dear Toastmasters and Guests, I believe in” Knowledge is power” quote. In 2008, I joined IIT Dhanbad, Jharkhand for gradation. The journey from Hyderabad to Dhanbad in a train is around 36 hours. The only way to pass time is either sleep or play rummy, like my friends. I couldn't do either of them.
In my first return journey, while sitting in my seat, I saw a magazine named “Front line”. I bought it and started reading it. It covered everything from politics to entertainment. I especially liked the middle pages where Nature articles were written. Magazine reading become a hobby to me and I loved the magazine. Till then, I never read magazines or books with that enthusiasm. This continued, until 2012, when my junior gifted me “Immortals of Meluha” by Amish. With little hesitance, I started reading the book. I could imagine the big mountains, the 6 feet shiva, grandiose architecture etc. I never thought I had that extravagant imagination. This fascinated me and I started reading more books. In Dec 2012, in HR interview, I told reading books as my hobby. When asked about latest book read, I spoke about “Chanikya’s chant ” for more than 5 mins.
To experiment and understand, I moved from fictional to all time reads like “Animal farm”, “How to kill a mocking bird” , “ The guide” , “ The alchemist”. Every book that I read gave me a different perspective and this made me mentally strong. To quote an example, in 2014, I was hesitant to move to a hostel for CAT 2014 preparation from my room. At that time, I was reading “who moved my cheese”. The book deals about positive effects of a particular change that we are afraid of. After reading the book, I shifted to a hostel near CAT coaching center. This change helped me to prepare better for CAT 2014.
Now I read a book on monthly basis. Every book is a journey of thoughts or Imagination of author of some part of his/her life. You can experience them through reading a book. You can travel to middle earth or be with crime detective to understand the logic or be in your fantasy world where you can imagine everything just by reading a book.
The story which I narrated in the starting of the speech is from the book “And there were none“. Raise your hand if you want to complete this book by coming weekend. Hand over the book to interested. Over to you, Toastmaster of the Day.
Book will be used as a prop.
CC9 Speech given at BOFA Toastmasters, Hyderabad in Dec, 2016.
Pic Credits: Tale Tellers Troupe India.
