Smart Pandian

English is such an alien Language, by then, I was standing outside the corridor of an Auditorium at around 8:00 PM. In another 5 minutes, I have to give a speech on Pollution Control, the topic that just popped in the mind of the NCC Officer, a minute back.

My Name is Arun, first Year engineering Student, a NCC (Navy) Cadet.  I have been wondering what to say about  “Pollution Control”? Its not that difficult topic to speak about. But my  mind doesn’t go beyond the first line.  ” Pollution can be classified as Air  Pollution, Land Pollution and Water Pollution. And Pollution.. “. Many words are appearing in mind, but none of them falling together as a sentence.

I have heard lot of times, ” English is just a language of communication “, and I know it by heart, but somehow I believed that English is a flawless language and everything in it is facts,  scientific & perfect.  This belief is blocking my words to form a sentence with the grammatical rules. ( Anyway, now, I am breaking this paradigm, in this blog )

I was praying to God,  for the last ten days, this moment should not come. Yes,  Ten days back, We started playing this game in our NCC Camp @ Naval College Of Engineering, Lonavala, Everyday, between 8:00 PM to 8:30 PM. Our own NCC Officer will say a topic to a cadet and the cadet has to come with as speech in five minutes. The Main objective is to enable everyone to overcome the stage fear, i.e., the fear of the unknown.

Having my name starts with ‘A’, I was very lucky, because the game is started in the descending order.  So, on the first day, I made some calculations and as per my calculations, I am not going to take seminar in this camp next 10 days, as only 60 students can take seminar in ten days while i am 96th person. But my happiness doesn’t lost for long, as on some days, this game was played for more than two hours.

Finally, I am here. the last minute has already started ticking. I was trying to defrost my excitement so that I can have a clear thought on the topic, but not of any use. Now I understand, how it feels like, being under pressure.

I remember on the 3rd or 4th day,  My Friend, Guru has given the speech. While he was elaborating his topic, he has used the repetitive word ‘I Mean’ several times. And at the end of his speech, Almost everyone of us had a laughter, when the Judge announced, that he used the filler word for 94 times.

Now I realize, he is far far better than me ( Feeling guilty!! ). The clock has finally stopped at five minutes. I stepped inside the auditorium and walked straight to Chief Officer. I said ” Good Evening Sir. I am going to speak on the topic ‘Pollution Control’, Can I have your permission, Sir?’, that’s most obvious question, for which he nodded. I turned towards the audience. There I am,  looking at my friends and the girl who I wanted to impress ( In fact, Infatuation !!).  I said

‘Pollution can be classified as Air  Pollution, Land Pollution and Water Pollution. Air Pollution is the pollution that is caused on Air. Air Pollution is…..!!!!@@@@@????%%%####’.

I was staring at the audience, not knowing what to do and what to say. After a long pause, the NCC Officer helped me, and let me go to my seat, that’s a graceful exit.

On a lighter note, Just tell me, What can a Tiger do, if its available for 4 Rs ? that’s a healthy snacks. right?