649. The Speaker Who Asked For More Time

"We don't give more than forty five minutes to guest speakers, speaking in our events. How can we give two hours to Mr. Alagarsamy?" asked Thangadurai, Secretary of the club.

"Sir! Mr. Alagarsamy is a renowned Tamil scholar. Normally, he speaks for three hours in the meetings of literary associations. People listen to him spellbound. This being our club meeting, he says that he would cut his time to two hours" said Sitaraman. He was the one who took the initiative of inviting Alagarsamy to address their club meeting.

"Our club members won't sit for two hors listening to a speech. Moreover, before the speaker arrives to address us, we will be spending about one hour, discussing our club's affairs. That is the reason we allocate only 45 minutes to the guest speaker. As a special case, we can allocate one hour to this person. If he agrees to that, you can fix him up" said the Secretary, firmly.

"What do our members think of Mr. Alagirisamy's speech?" Sitaraman asked Thangadurai.

"What do you think?" countered Thangadurai. 

"It was not up to my expectation" said Sitaraman, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Not up to your expectation! Why are you reluctant to admit that it was disastrous?"

"I won't say it was disastrous. He is definitely a very good speaker. But I think his speech was a bit long. If he had made it shorter, it would have been good."

"That is the point, precisely. He asked for two hours. We gave him one hour. But he had not enough substance to speak for one hour. What he covered in one hour could have been spoken in twenty minutes. Needlessly elaborating on a point, repeating the same points in different words, inappropriate humour, adding fillers like stale age-old stories etc. made his speech dull and irritating. He could have avoided these elements in his speech" said Thangadurai.

"But, he has a reputation as a good speaker!"

"I don't want to question his reputation. But, in my opinion, he lacks the skill to convey a message directly and precisely. He tries to expatiate even on minor points. That is why he takes unduly long time to convey his points. Fortunately, we gave him only one hour. If we had given him two hours, he would have bored us to death!" said Thangadurai.

Thirukkural
Section 2

Materialism

Chapter 65
The Power of Speech

Verse 649 (in Tamil):
pala sollak kAmuRuvar manRa mAsaRRa
sila sollal thERRAdhavar.

Meaning:  

Those who do not know how to speak in brief, using a few faultless (appropriate) words, will desire to speak at length, using a large number of words.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'pEchchALar kEtta nEram' by the same author.) 

Verse 650 (Soon)
Verse 648