Talks

I heard myself speak for the first time today. As part of a recording for a presentation that has been plagued by bad luck of epidemic proportions. I sounded like a child! Why no one has ever told me that, i dont know. With a tinge of Maharashtrian accent*, if anything. Very surreal, the whole hearing oneself speak thing. There was nothing at all in the recording to tell me that it was me speaking. A little bit like when you sometimes look into the mirror and dont recognize what you see.

Presentations. Sigh. I wonder if i'll ever get used to them. Takes me about 4 times the time it should take to prepare. Like Calvin here, it takes me an hour before i'm done griping. Then another hour of getting scared. Then i meander through the material, mostly keeping off the main road, getting lost in the lanes, some of which lead to other universes where the audience is very interested in some personal anecdote precariously connected to the presentation material. Finally, when its just about too late, i gather up whatever thoughts are closest and go talk.

The end result is not as bad as it used to be a long time ago, but its all magic to me, really, because i dont seem to have learnt anything about how to get there.



* Which doesnt mean much, other than the very obvious fact that i absorb the stuff around me. A few days ago, i invented a litmus test for determining the place you belong to. Famous people of whichever place make you feel a teeny bit more irrationally proud of their achievement than the rest, that is where you belong. If someone from Pune (or Maharashtra) achieves something - i feel nothing irrational, though i've lived here practically all my life. But talk about Rehman or Hariharan or V Anand or (you were waiting for Rajnikant, werent you? Ha!) and there it is! The feeling of a tiny bit of their glory being reflected off me.
Idiots from everywhere though, I treat the same.