Seminar Siesta

These days one is subjected to all kinds of seminars and conferences for reasons still unknown. Either one has to sit on the stage and speak on a subject which only remotely resembles an area of one’s interest, or one has
to sit in the audience and nod one’s head vigorously as if one has never
heard more truthful tales being told before in one’s life. Both experiences
have their own story to tell, and hilarious situations often arise.

What happens is that speakers typically blow their own trumpet with
unabashed aplomb. After a while, the high and mighty speaker gets offended
at the crowd’s obvious lack of interest, as the onlookers gossip with the
neighbour or look around at good looking targets. After receiving a chiding
from our ‘trumpeter’, people do settle down for a while, only to drift into the
realm of distraction again. Having had to put up with such unending verbosity on numerous occasions, one tries to rush through one’s own talk, for two reasons. Firstly, one has very little to say and secondly, it is often past lunch time and the
gastric juices have commenced their protest march! Post-lunch there is another story to tell, as one usually finds oneself seated in a seminar hall which is half empty. The aforementioned gastric juices have given way to somnambulant tendencies and the frequency of delegates snoozing off is quite high! In fact, except the main organiser and his accomplices, few other dedicated souls appear to be interested in goingson.

A recent event that one happened to attend highlighted these dozy trends like no other. The lunch on offer had been really sumptuous, embellished as it was with Puris and all kinds of Halwas. The audience was mostly middle-aged, and the opening speaker of the post-lunch session was not exactly India’s greatest orator. He actually managed to plunge proceedings to levels of boredom hitherto undiscovered.
This combination of factors was so compelling, and the chair which one occupied was so cushy that one couldn’t help catching some shut-eye either!

My pleasant siesta was rudely interrupted however by loud shouting from the stage. Our champion sleep- inducer had perceived finally that no one was exactly thrilled-to-bits while listening to him. He was so peeved by the fact that almost all of his audience was fast asleep, that he became quite violent with his language and he made no secret of his utmost displeasure! This unprecedented dressing-down had the desired effect, and every one including yours truly was soon perched on the edge of the aforementioned cushy seats, a position we maintained till the very end of the
session. It seemed as if we were all watching a 20-20 humdinger! That scary episode notwithstanding, one is seriously thinking of writing to organizers of seminars that they must invite item-numberspecialists to perform on stage along with the speakers, or else add siestatime to the official schedule!