Abhinav Bhatt

Toastmasters Speech 9 : Black Mirror

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/watch-blackmirror

As a follow up to my blogpost: “Dumbing my Smartphone” I thought of reframing it as my Toastmasters CC9 speech. CC9 is all about persuading your audience to take some action or change their beliefs. I attempted to ask the audience to do away with their phone’s notifications.

The title was inspired by the TV series Black Mirror. Do check that out!

Here’s the script for the speech:

Can I request you all, to take out your smartphones…
And place them in front of yourself on the table.
With the screen facing up
Thank you!

Toastmaster of the day, Fellow Toastmasters, And Guests!
Good Afternoon!

Now tell me, how long can you resist NOT looking at your phone screen?

Or even glancing it.

I am assuming that each phone here is in Silent Mode, but you can still have distractions, right?

Now can you please place your phone face down? Thanks a lot.

Since we don’t have any distractions anymore, can anyone here tell me about a term called “Gamification”?

The dictionary definition says: Gamification is the process of adding games or game-like elements to something like a task to encourage participation.

For example, there are Numbered Levels in a Video Game. As soon as you finish Level-1, the next challenge pops up. And you find yourself eager to go to the next level. And the next, and the next. There is a sense of reward, an achievement when one does that.

I am sure you can relate to another example.

Project 1 – Ice Breaker

Project 2 – Organise your Speech

…

Project 9 – Persuade with Power

Project 10 – Inspire your Audience

You get a Competent Communicator Award.

And then?

Advance Communicator Bronze, then Silver and, then Gold and so on.

Human Mind finds “Next Level” or in general “Numbers” irresistible. As soon as we achieve a level or a number, we want to go to the next. Then next and so on.

This Gamification concept, has been beautifully used on our Smartphones. Through a simple, harmless word called as “Notifications”.

Admit it or not, our ego gets a boost or a jolt when we see Notifications on our Phone. It could be a New Message. A +1 in number of New Friends in Facebook. Or New Followers on Twitter. We want to get more Number of Likes and more Number of Retweets. And as soon as we see a Notification Number on an app, we like to read it, we want to read it, we *have* to read it.

And this is how, we turn into ‘Screen Time Addicts’.

Too much of our time is being spent looking at our phone screens.

Studies show that, an average person, spends 3 to 4 hours looking at their phones in a day. That is, apart from office hours where we spend our time by looking at Computer Screens for at least 6 hours a day.

So do we all agree that we do spend a lot of time looking down at this black mirror, instead of looking up?

When we go to a restaurant, as soon as we settle down, everyone’s phones come out. And before taking the first bite, we first take Instagram Picture of our food. And after we take our first bite, we check again to see the number of Likes.

When we meet our family and friends, shortly after, we stop looking at them and instead start checking our WhatsApp messages. Looking for approvals and gratification from virtual friends than real people.

I don’t want to brag, but I have close to 900 friends on Facebook. I run a Facebook page with over 8000 Likes. I have over 1000 followers on my Twitter account and I am part of over 25 groups on Whatsapp. People love me? Heh, of course not. I get notifications left and right, morning or evening, day or night!

And I am *seriously* fed up of notifications. So much of distraction they are, which actually affects productivity.

So do we all agree that there is a problem, right? And we should do something about it.

I am going to try to help you all, and also, help myself through this speech. I am as much guilty of above actions, as you may be.

There are 3 ways to get rid of your Screen Time.

1st Way – The Hard Way

Throw away your smart phone or Drop it in the dustbin. Move on with life!

Of course, that is not possible. Phones are not free of cost. You have already spent more than your salary on them.

2nd Way – The Relatively Easier Way

Get your smart phone exchanged. And switch to this.

[ showed a dumb phone : samsung guru ]

This is the cheapest phone available. It costs Rs. 1200. It has no Internet, no FM, no Bluetooth, No MP3. No notifications. But it does its job of calling perfectly. And fits the pocket really well! Only notifications are SMS. And who sends SMS nowadays?

3rd Way – The Easiest Way

No need to throw your iPhones. No need to exchange your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (anyways they will blast off themselves).

All you have to do is to switch off the things which can curb your Phone’s Gamification Quotient.

Go to your phone settings and then the app you use the most.

Just do this – Switch off the notifications. Simply. Block them all. No notification, no distraction.

Whenever you are free and want to get connected, you can open the app and see it directly. Instead of Phone pushing down notifications upon you. You can pull them yourself.

Shutting down notifications is the best thing which I did recently. It helped me to focus better, increase my productivity and allowed to me to talk more freely to people face to face. You can do the same. Just try it for a few days and see the difference.

We should only pay attention to one notification. Hiccups! They say, when someone actually remembers you, you get hiccups. That’s the only notification you should care about!

I have taken charge to not get notified every 5 minutes!

We should not leave our life on the mercy of notifications.

We should take control of our lives back from this Black Mirror.

High time we do this!

Let’s get back our lives!!!

Here’s a brilliant comic book style poster series for the show BTW:

#BlackMirror #Nosedive pic.twitter.com/fPrzciqY8Q

— Butcher Billy (@billythebutcher) December 9, 2016

And more: http://mashable.com/2016/12/10/black-mirror-comic-book-covers/#24AtBrsAuiqH

International Speech Contest – Who Am I?

I recently participated in Toastmasters’ International Speech Contest. This starts at your club level, then Area, then Division, then District and then Internationally.

I won at my club level, surprisingly. And then moved to participate in Area level at IIM Bangalore. Although, I didn’t win there but I did good, as per my own expectations.

Here’s the script for the same:

Instance 1
I was in 12th standard. At a coaching institute in Jaipur. One guy walks up to me and asked:
“Are you from West Bengal?”
“Nope!”
“Oh, but you do look like a Bengali?”
I was as confused as a non-Bengali when they hear Bengalis say ‘A for Orange.’

Instance 2
I had just reached Bangalore. I met a few people in company’s cab.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Abhinav Bhatt.”
“Oh Bhatt? Single T or Double T. Are you from Mangalore?”
“No.”
“So you must be a Gujarati or… Kashmiri?”
“Ah, no, wrong answer!”
“But Bhatts are from there only!”
“Sigh”

Instance 3
During an Interview when asked “tell me something about yourself…”
“Hi I am Abhinav. I’m from Jaipur, Rajasthan.”
“Ah Rajasthan. You must be a Marwari, right?”
“Err No.”
“Then, how far is desert from your place?”
“Desert? Oh that is about 300-400 KM. But do you know, we used to go to our school on Camels. And my mother used to travel 5 KM daily, to get us a bucket of water? Life was tough, indeed. Can I go and drink some water? I am perpetually dehydrated, you see!”

Has it ever happened with you? As soon as you give them a little hint about your name, surname or native place, people’s judgemental antenna come out. People start applying labels, tool-tips and subtitles to everything you say. They start judging you from the word go?

Oh you are a Northie? Hindi Speaking Paneer Guzzling Loud People!
Oh you are a Southie? All are Madrasis. What to say!
Oh you’re from North East. Noticed.

Happens! Right?

Sherlock Holmes is known for doing that. By seeing people, he gets to know, who are they, where they came from and why they’ve come! But, we all start behaving like Sherlock and start placing people on certain classifications as soon as we meet them as we deem right. Sherlock used the ‘Science of Deduction’. And we? We use the Art of Assumption. We don’t want to spend time to understand anyone. We have set rules to classify people and that doesn’t even take time. So, we judge everyone, in an instant.

I’ll share few real life examples:
I was in Hyderabad and for the first time, I had an interaction with a girl from Odisha. She told me, Abhinav, you are a boy. I said ‘Yes, of course why doubting?’ And you are an Engineer. I said ‘Indeed’. Then why don’t you eat Non-Veg and Drink Alcohol? I was as confused as you are or when one gets when one sees the payslip at the end of the month.

This was an incident which can be overlooked as being funny. However, Things turn ugly when this stereotyping goes beyond jokes.

You must be familiar about a racial attack which happen with African people in Delhi recently. Similar, there was a huge ruckus when an anti-North-East people Text Forward became viral and Bangalore and almost everyone from the North East had to run home for their lives.

When I hear such incidents, I question myself. Who I really am and what is my native place?

My ancestors belonged to some place in South India, near Pennar river. Then they moved north few centuries ago. Few landed at MP, few at UP, some took a detour towards Maharashtra and Gujarat. Rest of us landed at Delhi and Rajasthan.

That leaves me with a question: WHO AM I? WHERE I AM FROM? WHERE DO I BELONG?

Am I a Hindi Speaking North Indian who was brought up in Rajasthan, studied in a Punjabi School, and now works in South India? Seriously, who am I? And if you think about yourself. Who are you really? Where are you from?

And most importantly, do you think it matters? Do you think we have time to think about someone’s geographical background in today’s day and age. We are now so much connected with technology that it doesn’t matter where you are from. Everything is Global.

I take pride in my city and language I speak. But I fail to understand how does it make me superior or others inferior.

I look like the most average Indian brown-skinned person who could be any caste or religion, speak any language and from anywhere in India. If it can happen with me. Imagine what happens to those who: Look different. Speak different. Dress different. The only way, to stop people from judging others, is to wear this wherever you go around. And when everyone will wear this, it won’t give anyone else a chance to form opinions about others, just by reading the name, hearing the language and watching the color of the skins.

Do you want everyone to look like this?

Think about it!

Toastmasters Speech 8 : You're Fired!

Transcript of my 8th speech in Toastmasters. This uses Visual Aids. Aids means help (please!).

Toastmaster of the Day, Fellow Toastmasters & Guests!

Good Afternoon!

Before starting, I would request you to please spend few seconds on this slide.

Thank you!

So!

How many of you have seen this around? No, I’m not talking about First Floor. But the big one.

(Others haven’t because they always use Elevators, don’t you?)

Have you ever tried to read it, thoroughly?

(I understand that you don’t have time. Fair enough!)

Have you tried to understand it?

(Now there lies the real deal, people!)

Nope! Nobody has gone through it properly. Because we are a bunch of lazy people. We don’t have time to read things. We can also understand, only if, someone else tells about it. Through a Speech.

For that specific reason, being the responsible person I am, I took it upon myself. To tell you clear and concise steps, which you should follow, if you come across any Fire Hazard.

I’m going to tell you, in most lucid terms, the Do’s and the Don’ts you should follow, when you encounter fire in your surroundings. Specially workplace. I will share few Time Tested Tips which will help you gain confidence to overcome such tough times. The Goal of this speech is to make sure that each and every person in this audience knows what to do and what not to do. This would help you to save yours and your colleagues’ respective lives!

Body

Imagine this situation:

You are working desperately hard and the deadline is upon you. You have 100s of pending tasks and your boss is eating your head to finish the work ASAP.

You start praying

“GOD, PLEASE SET UP THIS BUILDING ON FIRE AND HELP ME! PLEASE!”

And VOILA! God listens to you!

You hear loud continuous alarm.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Now here are things you should NOT DO.

Don’t try to become Sherlock Holmes and try to find the source of the fire. Leave that job to the Professionals or as we call them here in Oracle, the Emergency Response Team.
If in case you actually find fire nearby,

TAKE A SELFIE AND POST ON FACEBOOK?

“Fire in office! Enjoying the thrill. #FiringInOffice” with 21 others.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER think of doing this.

Fire or no fire. This is not the right human behavior. Please.

If you have heard the alarm, and think that it is no big deal. You are doing it wrong!!!

Now here are things you MUST DO.

First Escape and then call for help. Leave all your belongings and Laptops and just run. You may inform others on the way but don’t wait for anyone. Remember that , they will also not wait for you. That’s how life is, unfortunately.
Now where would you run actually? Good question. Thanks for asking! Always be aware of the escape plan which you can find on all floors. Keep that in mind and find the ways to stairs.
Head over to the Safe Assembly Area Straight. Don’t take any Detour. Go there and as instructed by the ERT people, stand in line so that they can take a headcount.

One more thing

Also, one more thing. NEVER USE ELEVATORS when there is a fire hazard. Always use stairs. Difficult I know, but a little inconvenience can save your life.

Now there may be a case that no one is there to help. Only in that case, you can try to be a Superhero and try to douse the fire. But do you know how can you do that? Yes, by using Fire Extinguishers.

But do you know how do they work? Of course, no. Don’t worry. I have got you covered.

So that you don’t become NO-MORE, you should KNOW MORE about Fire Extinguishers. You can find out their type by looking at them. There are many types of Fire Extinguishers but as far as work place is concerned, there are generally 3 types:

Type A –

ORDINARY SOLID COMBUSTIBLES LIKE WOOD, CLOTH, AND PAPER PRODUCTS

Type B –

FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS AND GASES

Type C –

ELECTRICAL FIRES – DO NOT USE WATER TO PUT OUT THIS KIND OF FIRE.

YOU COULD GET ELECTROCUTED!

I hope now you are well-equipped as to how to save your life during a fire hazard. I hope you paid attention to this speech. If not, you can still save your life if you attend next fire drill. To summarize everything, here’s a recap.

Attend Fire Drill. Most people skip it, or take it very lightly. But it is the nearest real life simulation available. Don’t avoid it, please!
Keep Escape Routes Clear
If you smell something weird, report immediately to the facilities team
Keep your eyes and ears open for instructions from the ERT Team. They know.

We don’t know when emergency might strike, but it is good to be geared up to be knowledgeable enough to handle it. Now how many are comfortable in knowing what to do in case of fire. If you need more information we could talk after the session.

I wish you the best and a safe work environment. Here are the references I used to make this presentation. Over to Toastmaster of the Day!

Here’s the presentation:

P.S.: I delivered this speech wearing the Orange Vest, a Fire Safety Professional Cap and a Whistle. 😛

How PowerPoint became my favorite tool to make posters?

We don’t ask the sewing machine’s brand when we see a beautiful dress. We don’t ask the oven’s make when we relish a lovely pizza. We don’t ask which pen was used to write the manuscript when we read an un-put-down-able classic.

But we do ask the make on certain occasions. For instance, when we see a brilliant photograph, most people would ask, which camera is it? Also, when I have made some posters, people have asked me which tool have I used to make this poster.

The problem is nobody believes that graphic design or photography is an artform. *coughs* Not that I am an artist-artist per se, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been asked this question a lot.

Which tool do you use to make that poster? Do you use Photoshop? Do you know Illustrator? Corel Draw? Some advice on how to use them, please? You must be good at drawing.

Well, I do know Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign and stuff but how does that matter? And, No, I am not good at drawing. I am just a last page of the notebook doodler like most of the people.

So, recently my 7-year-old Dell Studio Laptop died. (I hope it will rise like a Phoenix again) But because of its motherboard failure, I am unable to use it to do any graphic designing work. So, should I hang my boots and stop doing things I like to do as a hobby? No, I turn to the next best thing available. No, it is not a Graphics Editor Software. It is not a high-end pen tablet where you just think of something and voila! it appears on the screen.

I switched to PowerPoint. The good old slideshow software which most of us just hate because of the bad quality presentations we all have to go through at some point or the other in life.

PowerPoint is amazing. It is, of course, the most basic thing available which doesn’t give you many options to edit, and exactly for that reason, it is the most underrated piece of software. I have used PowerPoint to make Posters and Logos. Recently, mostly for my Toastmasters Club’s Weekly Invitations and some logos for friends, but for a normal person, it can do a helluva job easily.

Just drop some background images, which you can easily find from allthefreestock.com. Add some text in a font of your choice from dafont.com. Add some icons from thenounproject.com. What else do you need? And if you indeed want to edit something, feel free to hop over to pixlr.com/editor/ which works great like Photoshop.

Considering you’re not a high profile graphics designer, like 99% of the world. These resources can get you what you want, with just PowerPoint. And there is no tutorial needed too!

Here are some of the posters I made. Solely using the above-said resources.

Featured Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash

Toastmasters Speech # 7 ‘Anonymous’

Greetings citizens of the World!

Speech 7 in Toastmasters is ‘Research your topic’ where one has to search and research about some topic and deliver a 5-7 minutes Speech.

I recently had watched We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (2012) on Netflix which gave me this idea to speak about ‘Anonymous’ the hacker + activist group. Most of my research was derived from the documentary. Rest was sources from The Internet as usual. Not saying that all the facts stated here are 100% true but they’re not 100% false either. Because facts, you know, can change based on opinions. 😉

The following is the transcript of my speech:

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Let me ask you all… Can you guess, from where this verse has been taken?

Alright / Correct, this is taken from an amazing British Graphic Novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, named, V For Vendetta. This was also made into a movie in 2005. I’m sure many of you must’ve seen it. If not, please read the graphic novel or watch it.

Actually, this phrase comes from an event in British history. A person named Guy Fawkes had planned to assassinate King James I of England and the members of the Parliament with a huge explosion. However, this was prevented with his arrest on 5 November 1605.

Another question, do you know about this mask? What is it called? Indeed, this is Guy Fawkes Mask. Generally linked to “Revolutions”. Now before you think that I am going to start something related to Political Revolutions, you are almost.. wrong.

This is a speech, not about the traditional revolution per se, but about methods of revolution in today’s day and age.

Nowadays, this mask is the symbol of “Anonymous”! I’m sure you must have seen this in some movies or TV shows. They’ve always been shown wearing this mask. In their videos, or their display pictures and even physically during a protest march.

Anonymous is a loosely held group, whose members are spread all over the world. They are hackers and activists, usually called ‘Hacktivists’. This group started takings its shape from an image sharing website called as 4Chan. It started out as just a joke where they shared Photoshopped images as memes. But eventually, it took the form of a group of like-minded people who used their computer skills to achieve a bit more than making memes.

This group doesn’t have any leader. They don’t have any headquarter and they don’t even have meetings. And one doesn’t have to even register to be a member because everyone is temporary.

Anonymous does most things in a Non-Violent manner. They make jokes against wars, against Global Warming, Media, Homophobia, and even help WikiLeaks occasionally with their Hacking Skills.

Once they hacked into Fox News’ Twitter account and posted that Obama has been assassinated. As a joke.
During the Arab Spring of 2011, they helped the local people in organizing protests marches.
They have tried relentlessly to keep Internet free and Democratic and launching attacks against Facebook’s privacy breaches.

They can do all of this because the Internet is a free place! It is as Democratic as Democratic can be. You can be Anyone, from Anywhere, And Access mostly Anything!

On the Internet, anyone can be Anonymous and sometimes even bypass laws online.

So not everything the Anonymous have done was harmless pranks and practical jokes. Some of their members have also crossed the line-online.

Once they launched a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Services) attack on a Religion’s official website. That is as simple to understand as about 10,000 people logging on to a site simultaneously, and thereby crashing the servers.
Some of the members indulged in some serious hacking and stole data from Paypal.com and Sony.
They have hacked political parties Websites, Twitter and Facebook accounts and posted what not! They have vandalized properties with Graffitis!

Their modus-operandi is pretty plain and simple. They communicate using social media, sometimes using cryptic messages to others, which may sound like silly jokes to others. If you have seen the TV series, Mr. Robot, that will give you a slightly detailed idea as to how can the Internet be used to do big things!

Democracy on the Internet is obtrusive. While some cherish it, others think it is a breach of privacy and laws on Land or Online should be same. For some Anonymous are a bunch of kids who want to disrupt the status quo and should be put behind bars. For some Anonymous are Robin Hoods who should disrupt the status quo. Anyone could be an Anonymous member. Maybe among the audience here, some of you are a member.

I will end by stating the phrase, Anonymous always leave behind, after their operations:

We are Everyone. We are No One.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
We are Anonymous.
Expect us.

QR-yrddv — And I forgot to mention, that I delivered this speech in a peculiar format.

When my name was called to come up on the stage, I wore this mask, walked all the way up to the stage wearing this mask. Shook hands with the Toastmaster of the Day. And then recited the ‘remember remember…’ verse. Then I took off the mask and delivered rest of the speech, till the last phrase Anonymous is famous for when I wore the mask again and delivered the lines in a slow menacing way. Fun!

And here’s my audio rehearsal:

Toastmasters Speech # 6 ‘Stranger Things’

This is the script of my CC6 Vocal Variety Speech in Toastmasters:

Who all here believe in God?

And who all believe in the “other entity”?

Rest are atheists here or just shy so that ‘they’ don’t listen to you?

Fellow Toastmasters welcomed Guests and those “guests” who are not welcomed but are here anyway, silently observing us, Good Afternoon!

I personally don’t believe in any entity for that matter. However… sometimes, you may experience events which make you doubt your beliefs. Let me share with you, one such instance.

2 of my friends Abhishek and Abhilash, along with myself, Abhinav were planning an all-night-out trip.

Abhishek suggested, “Why not Bhangarh?”. He was always the adventurous type. “Bhangarh? really?”, Abhilash said, who was not an outgoing person per se.“We can try..”, I added. 2 against 1, the majority won.

We decided to head over to a place called as Bhangarh, about 80 KM north of Jaipur, Rajasthan. Bhangarh is also known as ‘Bhooton ka Bhangarh’, which means, ‘Ghost Town of Bhangarh’. Google it for more information. It is mostly in ruins now. But once upon a time, it was a small prosperous town with a fort, few temples, and a bazaar. It is said that the place was “cursed” by some priest and since then it has been in shambles.

It is often said that one shouldn’t go there after sunset. So, we decided to reach there by 9 PM to see what the fuss was all about. Because we thought, why not!

It was May, Friday the 13th, 2011 and a full moon night.

We reached the entrance of the Place. It had an eerie silence which reminded you of a cemetery. Slowly we climbed the metal gate and entered the compound. It led to a pathway, which had another smaller metal gate which rotates when one enters. I entered it first, carefully, watching my steps. The rusted old gate rotated and made a weird sound. We all looked at each other. We entered eventually and walked towards the deserted fort.

Most of the place was dark but we could see a dimly lit window on 1st floor. “Should we go there?”, Abhishek asked. Abhilash said, “Let’s go back home”. With trembling voice, I swallowed and nodded, “No harm in trying”. With creaking steps and wide eyes, we found stairs to the 1st floor. The place had slight chill in the air, even though it was May in Rajasthan. We reached the 1st floor. The dimly lit room was about 50 ft away. We walked towards it. The room had a wooden door, slightly ajar and with cracks big enough to see that it was lit up from inside, probably it had a lantern or a fireplace. As we reached closer to it, I heard giggling sounds. Probably of a girl. Sweat rolled down my cheeks and I slowed down. My heart was pounding so heavily that I felt it would come out of the rib-cage. Abhilash also heard it but kept on walking just because of curiosity. Abhishek was beaming with excitement to see the inside of the room and had ignored the sound completely. When we were just about to reach the gate, the door slammed open! BAM !!! and then suddenly room’s lights went poof! Pitch dark! And then there was a sudden loud shriek. EEEEEEEE!!!

Just before it went dark, I am sure, I saw a glimpse of a young girl standing in the room with a doll with red hair.

We, turned and without wasting any time, we ran faster than Usain Bolt, and kept on running till we had reached the main gate. We jumped into our car and headed back towards Jaipur. Nobody said a word till we had reached the safe confines of the city which had proper lights and warmth. We promised each other to totally erase this cowardice from our memories and promised to never do this stupidity again or even discuss this anymore.

Phew! Days passed. Eventually we got busy in our daily routine and put this incident behind us.

I still don’t believe in ghosts. But that incident was strange, and weird, and scary. Maybe it was a prank by some people. May be I didn’t see properly in the dark. Or may be I was hallucinating. But my friends were there too and they also confirmed that someone was in that room.

Anyways, few days ago, I was returning from office, and it was late in night. When I reached my lane and was about 100 m from my apartment building, I saw one girl standing at road side. She was holding the same doll with red hair.

Back to Ghost-Master, I mean Toastmaster!

Rehearsal Audio

Toastmasters Speech # 5 ‘S.H.I.T. It’s about time!’

This is my 5th Speech in Toastmasters from CC manual:

After World War 2, when Japan was trying to rebuild their economy, THEY WERE BROKE, BUT NOT BROKEN. They wanted to make the best use of the resources they still had. So one of their industrialists, Toyota, devised a technique called as ‘Just-in-time’ or ‘JIT’ manufacturing. They used to order inventory, just in time, before it was put to use in the manufacturing process. With JIT, they saved a lot of space and money. Japanese could do it well because they are known to be culturally very punctual. After JIT became successful, other countries also started to implement it. In India, however, it never caught up, because, in India, we don’t follow Just in Time or JIT. We follow SOMEHOW IN TIME or S.H.I.T.

Good Afternoon fellow Toastmasters and Guests!!

Punctuality for Indians is just a word which exists only in Dictionaries. And there too, it comes after the word ‘Late’. We all get late regularly. We even start our Toastmasters meeting late. Because it is in our blood. It’s who we are!

Raise a hand if you have never been late?

I usually don’t get late. I reach early.

I reach early at parties where even hosts are late.
I reach early in the office.
I reach early in Movies so I get to watch Vicco Vajradanti ads multiple times over.

No idea why, but being late for me is like doing a crime. I just can’t make others wait. I hate to be late.

But being early has always costed me heart-ache because I have to wait for long durations of time. Not only it wastes my time but it has also resulted in weird situations. Let me share an instance when my punctuality gave me a memorable experience.

I had once gone to Coorg. My return bus was scheduled for 11:30 PM. So I reached the bus stop at 6 PM as I was staying far from bus stand. I knew I will have to spend 5-6 hours doing nothing. While I was sitting at the bus stand, it started to rain heavily. It became cold and chilly. The place deserted quickly as the evening turned into night. At the place where I was sitting, the roof started to leak. I switched to another vacant seat. The roof started to leak there too. Then I had to switch to another seat. I was trying hard to not to sleep but I did doze off for 20 minutes. When I woke up, a wet dog was sleeping next to me, probably trying to get a bit of heat from my body. I got startled and the dog also got up. Then it started shaking itself to throw off water from its body. While I was just 2 feet away!

Then I continued to wait. The bus stand now was deserted. I was wet, alone and bored like a lone statue in a park on a rainy night. I kept on shivering like a wet chicken and it felt like I was waiting till eternity.

Somehow time passed and it became 11. I was hopeful that I will be able to board soon. Then it became 1130. I started getting worried. 1130 passed and now the time was 12. It was still raining cats and dogs and my bus was nowhere to be seen. I was now as scared as a person on a death sentence. To top that, the power went off and it became pitch dark.

Then from somewhere a guy came and sat next to me and he kept on crying. I gathered the courage to ask him the reason. He said he had eloped from his house as his father used to beat him. Now imagine someone telling you that at around 1230 AM in the night, in my situation, it only made things worse.

Then he also left and I was left waiting alone. It was beyond panicking now. I was now just regretting my life. I had almost lost all hopes by now and was about to cry.

Then somehow in time, a saw two lights shimmering at a distance. It was my bus. Which had somehow in time arrived just 2 hours late to pick me up.

Moral of the story my friends is that Time is a funny construct after all, isn’t it! It is something which moves at a different pace for everyone. You might be punctual but the world is not so. But remember, before you lose all hope, somehow in time or SHIT, things will happen. As they say, shit happens.

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