The Lost art of Public Speaking

 

Public speaking was one art that had the power to stoke revolutions, create nations and also transform people. Sadly, this art like many other yester year artforms is going through a disruptive phase. Disruption is the buzz word these days and those who refuse to be disrupted will fall by the way side. 

 Today public speaking is taught as a skill in schools, and by Life Coaches, Communication gurus, 100-Year-old Non-Profit Organizations etc.  But has the essence of good public speaking been diluted overtime? Content and Language were the quintessential elements that went on to do all things mentioned in the first line of this blog.

Unfortunately, today content and language has been replaced by histrionics and drama and the speeches have been diluted to glorified mono acts on stage. We were taught the importance of the stage dimensions, gesticulations, modulation of our voices and emotional expressions. But all these acts were done only when absolutely necessary and only when the content, the timing of the content and the language warranted it.  

In a good speech the emotions and the drama came from within the deliverer spontaneously, while today the emotions, voice modulation and drama are being practiced during the run up to a speech. Drama was confined only to declamations in those days where one needed to enact the Protagonist of the speech and not just deliver the passage. Growing up I was fortunate to witness some great declamations, a few gems I still remember for the quality of deliverance was a rendering of Francisco's Money is the Root of all evil from Atlas Shrugged, and Shylock addressing Antonio in the infamous Pound of Flesh court scene in Merchant of Venice by acclaimed speakers of my era. The associated drama was a pleasure to watch. Not when a 12-year-old is delivering a Speech on Gandhi on his Birthday, voice modulation yes but no histrionics please as the subject/topic does not warrant it.

We take pride in our knowledge of English and wore our vocabulary skills up our sleeves. We were taught young to pronounce words correctly and write the cursives neatly. The post Industry 3.0 and Satellite television era with exposure to western sitcoms Indians started to imitate the western accent. Children took on from Pokemon, Spiderman and the likes, Teenagers from romcoms, MTV and VTV, desperate housewives from Desperate Housewives and the working executives from Bloomberg, CNN and BBC.

The emergence of BPO’s and Call centers legalized this new found love for western accents and that rubbed on to the Gen Z and their public speaking adventures. So today if you attend a Speech competition you see histrionics, mono act delivered with a borrowed accent swallowing the Ts’ and R’s in the process, just that the native accents make its appearance frequently like the intruders from across the borders. If the topic is humor throw in some clownery too with the rest.

I am no great orator myself, but my advice to thousands of speaking coaches / gurus out there involved in creating a tribe of good speakers, please train them up as speakers who can research and write well on a topic, deliver it with passion not drama, let them pace the stage in a measured way and not run or jump around the stage and for heaven’s sake they don’t need cardboard boats, swords and other paraphernalia  as props to get their message across. Forgive them if they do not pronounce a word right, as long as they can spell it right they are all good. A well delivered speech should stay in the minds of the listener much after they leave the auditorium and the two declamations I mentioned above were heard 31 years back.

These days I get to hear the great ‘I have a Dream’ speech delivered in multiple styles, and soon after, I have Nightmares!!!