Everyone hates long speeches and sermons, be it from any excellency of verbal exuberance or politicians of great oratorical skill. They say the Romans got bored with the inspiring speeches of Mark Antony, the crowd charmer, and told him to keep them short.
The many clubs we have are the cursed places where the speakers practise their beastly verbal warfare on the poor members mercilessly kept hostage! The ordeal usually starts with the fellow who welcomes the “august” gathering. He introduces the “distinguished” guest who has deigned to deliver a “pithy”, “informative” “entertaining” speech to the invited and uninvited guests.
The speaker strains his nerves to bring home the truth that the audience has a really renowned man in its midst and that he has an excellent track record in academics, with a PhD from a university somewhere in the US.
He doesn’t stop there but goes on and on by giving his family profile, that he hails from an aristocratic family and is a “self-made” educationist, et al. Meanwhile, he keeps yakking about the various activities of the club and its contributions to the people in the locality—how they brought drinking water and electricity. Then, on behalf of the club he makes some promises to build a bridge when there is no river at all!
All the while he successfully withstands the wide guffaws, yawns and small talk among the audience! He is undaunted. Nothing can prevent him from rattling off a list of achievements of the organisation of which he has been the secretary for 10 years.
Now comes the final blow to break the camel’s back. He has only started with his welcome speech and threatens the audience by saying, “Now let me start with my duty of welcoming all the speakers and you my dear friends who have taken great pains to join us on this auspicious occasion.” These introductions of the in-laws and outlaws take at least 25 minutes!
The poor welcome speech is a plight indeed. The talker cannot leave out anyone who is someone even in the crowd.
Meanwhile, the compere has started off showing off his verbal ability. Before each small item he gives a huge description of how the singer has participated in musical shows in places like Dubai and Muscat. So, these days a meeting of any club or outfit is an occasion to test your limit of tolerance though there are definite rules of keeping the limits to two or four minutes.
Recently, there was a great show of a celebrity somewhere in Kerala. We had to endure the felicitations of speakers starting from an honourable minister, ex-MP and sundry future leaders. But the show that followed was indeed super. So the humble request of the aam aadmi is to keep the addresses as short as possible or KISS (keep it short and sweet)!