Communication is the key

We had a reading hour in school wherein all the students were expected to read stories form the novels available in the school library. I was in 8th grade then. As the reading hour was about to get over our professor asked all of us that who all read times of India newspaper.
I could not raise my hand unlike the other students as only a gujarati newspaper was read at my house. Almost all my friends had their hands up and so my sir started discussing in detail the sports section and the headlines etc. I was patiently hearing everything and the conversation between my friends and my sir. Then the sir asked all of them to tell their favorite section and my class sounded like a zoo where monkeys were screaming and yelling and jumping from here and there. Sir said in a loud voice-pin drop silence kids...and it was finger on your lips for all of us . Then a girl told sir that her favorite section was the Speaking tree column which was accompanied by the sacred space. Sir was too impressed and said that it was indeed a good piece of writng and all of us should read it. I thought that there was some tree which could actually speak and there's some news about it. As the bell rang, reading hour was over and I just forgot about the whole thing.

Next day I was sick and was on a leave. When I went to school the other day I went to my class teacher and showed her the leave note in my calendar signed by my father, she asked as to what went wrong and was I feeling well now. It was such a simple question but somehow I struggled for words and didn't reply anything. The teacher didn't say anything to me . Probably she felt I was still feeling sick.

But my problem was completely different . I knew what I wanted to say but I could not say that in English. I started fumbling and somehow felt blank. It was an big eye opener for me . The whole day I was upset. I thought to myself that being a girl who is studying in an English medium school and already in Secondary section can't speak english. What a shame!I just made up my mind that I will make my command over the english language nad even my mother tongue so strong that never ever in my life I should fumble or struggle for words.

I told my mom to start taking the Times of India(TOI) newspaper. When I read the TOI for the first time I came across this section called the speaking tree which had lovely stories about life, humanity, emotions, and a sacred space which had spiritual quotes. I realized that what happened back in school was that everybody in the class was discussing about this column which I thought of as an actual tree which could really speak. How foolish was I!

I started reading newspaper everyday, reading the wren and martin grammar books, solving exercises, I just spoke in English all day, there were times I was teased by my friends that I am trying to show off and be different than others but it all fell on my deaf ears. I was determined enough to learn and also let others learn. But my friends didn't understand my motive. I read essays ,novels and even bought an english dictionary. Whenever I came across a new word I used to note it down and then look back to refer in the dictionary. I didn't know when I fell into the habit of reading the dictionary itself. A year passed by and then I decided to participate in an english essay writng competition. I still remeber the topic given to us was "Importance of Value Education". I just wrote it and was very satisfied with the way I had written. When the result was announced on the mike by my principal and we had speakers in every classroom in the school. It was the last lecture and the bell rang and so there was a lot of noise and I could not hear that who won the prize. I was not even expecting my name as there were more scholars in the class. But when I went out of the school all my friends congratulated me and then I realized that it was me. I was so happy. It meantt hat whatever hardwork I was putting in was showing results. By the time I stepped in tenth grade my teacher asked me to write essays and make grammar asignments which she then gave to the whole class. I was now spreading the knowledge gained.

My clasmates who teased me for always speaking in english now came and asked me for advice. The situation had turned around. When I entered college I continued to get awards for writing essays and there were compliments written on my answer papers that " I wanted to give you a 11 on 10 " , "you write very well" and the " keep it up" notes. I almost started taking tutions for my cousins and kids in my neighborhood. When I entered into engineering , we had a subject called presentation and communication skills which we called as PCT and I was asked to give an impromptu speech and I chose to talk on smoking.The audiences loved it and my professor was happy too. Since that day my professor always read my case studies and took interst in my group discussions and then I went on to conduct a presentation called Fashionista which we as a team of 10 people performed very well and audiences were all praises.

I never stopped learning. I then started reading the GRE word list and the barron's and books like "Word power made easy" and what all people do to prepare for a toefel exam and then I appeared for the CAT MBA examination where the verbal ability, reasoning and the rc's i.e the reading comprehensions have a lot of weightage. Not only I concentrated on enhancing my vocabulary and the way I speak but also increased my reading speed to almost 1000 words a minute.

Even today I am learning and finding out ways to put my skills to test everytime because communication is really important in every walk of life , be it making friends, in the professional life, to be able to talk to the world in face and feeling confident.

I wrote this article in an effort to share that it's only we who can make a difference in our lives. If we think we can , we will !

else as the saying goes " Either you make the choice or the choice will make you "