July 01, 2013, the
date Toastmasters International awarded me with a plaque, I was a DTM then. The
award as I understand is a certification of completion of prescribed projects along
the communication and leadership track and appreciation of the efforts put in
by the awardee.
I turned respectable,
honorable, saab…and…; but were these addresses relevant or else was I close to
those addresses? To look for clues, let us travel back in time.
Project 7 of the CC
Manual requires one to research his topic from sources like internet, magazine,
reports, published papers, newspaper etc and support them by statistics,
testimony, examples and visual aids. Having done so, one is required to deliver
a speech in front of an audience. There is an evaluator to evaluate the speech.
DTM PGR Nair was my speech evaluator. I had heard a lot about him; he is a gem
of a person, he is excellence at its best, he is determination at work, he is an
ocean of knowledge and so on.
I was enthusiastic
but new to Toastmasters, me a surface swimmer and he a deep water diver. The
projects material was there but how to deal with it and to what extent was
beyond my grasp. He had a trait of working to the finer details of any thing
that he puts his hand on. His evaluation was crisp and clear, nothing more to
commend but lot more emphasis on the areas of improvement.
Thereafter we sparingly
met. I continued to work on completion of my CC and CL projects. Having learned
the basic tools of communication and leadership I started taking advance
projects of communication and leadership tracks. Leadership is all about
connecting with people, listening to them, helping them and marching along with
them to reach a goal. In this process I had to visit corporate as well as
community clubs. It was during some of these visits that I happened to meet DTM
PGR Nair again and again.
I had a couple of
chances to work with him as a grammarian, evaluator, workshop presenter,
toastmaster of the day, contest judge, chief judge etc. His comments, advice,
suggestion and sermons were well judged and well thought off. At times when
they are delivered in the presence of your mentees they add up to your
responsibility as a mentor. One after the other as I took them serious and worked
on it I could feel the confidence level rising in me, I could sense the ease to
tackle difficult task. I could see myself shaping up for a larger role.
I have come across
instances when a person approaches DTM, he feels to wait and check whether he fits
in to the honor, respect and the grandeur that comes with it or is there
something left to be done or reworked.
For me it was like “Awake arise and stop not, till the
goal is reached”. Personalities like DTM PGR Nair happen to come across by
chance and one happens to be a lucky guy if he could make the most out of those
associations. No one knows how long an association lasts. Every relation has an
expiry date. Currently he is in Qatar and me in India continuing his legacy of
grooming youngsters.
