SPEECHLESS

 We are speechless when Dr Sashi Tharoor speaks. Yesterday I remained speechless in the Great Hall, CMS College, all the while Tharoor was speaking. He was delivering the inaugural lecture of the "Bishop M C Mani Foundation". I need not make any comment on a speech by Tharoor. Like anyone in the audience I too was delighted  listening to him and seeing him too from such close quarters. The well attended function went off very well. The 'tornado' left and the campus almost instantly settled down to its serene, soothing romantic self.

The principal Dr Varghese C Joshua had invited me to his bungalow for coffee after the programme. I was walking alone towards the bungalow when two ladies joined me. One was my friend Dr Reenu Jacob, the Vice-Principal and she introduced to me the other as Dr Jeena who is with the dept of communicative English. Reenu also told me that Jeena was the compere of the programme. I expressed my sincere appreciation for her sterling performance during the function. Things would have ended there. But my mind kept telling me that this lady is no ordinary, she has some real talent shrouded. Talents often speak through the eyes. I was very sure, but how can I ask her, who was a total stranger to me till a short while ago. At this moment of confusion Reenu, almost out of the blue, said, "Sir she is a highly talented person. She is a dancer, a researcher and she has produced documentaries etc. I felt happy for two reasons. First, my intuition was true. Then, I feel happy talking to talented people even as I myself am not one. See, listening to talented people, in fact, you are listening to ideas. During our talk she wanted my opinion of Tharoor's speech. For two reasons I was reluctant to answer her. One how can I comment on a Tharoor speech? The second was more inhibiting. Yet I told her the following. "I should not be mistaken. Most often I do not get anything new from the speeches I listen to. Yet I religiously attend speeches by people like Tharoor for a certain reason. I may have some opinion regarding a certain issue in my mind but I may not be able to conclude that my beliefs are right. When people like Tharoor too have the same opinion I can feel assured of the correctness of my thinking. This is no mean thing".

The three of us talked for half an hour. It was very interesting and a little enriching too.

Note: Listening to Tharoor I felt happy when I found that some of my ideas were in agreement with his. One was regarding the government's decision to allow foreign universities to have campuses in India. Another was regarding training students to acquire a certain skill with total disconnect with the rest of the world. I think I will write about these in another post.