Many fear public speaking
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Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary was celebrated in January as National Youth Day. This brought to mind an incident in my childhood.

Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. I experienced this early in my life, in Class 6. I was studying in Tamil medium but was prepared by my class teacher to speak in English about Swami Vivekananda. This was in 1963-64, when the birth centenary of Swami Vivekananda was celebrated. I was the first to speak, and standing in front of the microphone for the first time, I rather very proudly commenced the speech with the address “Honourable chief guest”. The headmaster corrected my pronunciation of “honourable” saying ‘h’ silent. I thought I had to remain silent. I stood on the stage with folded hands like Swami Vivekananda without continuing my speech. He prompted me to continue. I started again but this time I stressed even more on ‘h’ without understanding what he corrected. As I began to address for the third time mustering courage, I had forgotten the memorised speech and I mumbled and fumbled.

The headmaster little angrily signalled to my class teacher to bring the next student. I retreated quite crestfallen but my genial class teacher pacified me, gave me a pep talk, made me very quickly rehearse once more and took me to the stage again. She whispered something to the frowning headmaster, probably convincing him I deserved another chance. This time my delivery of speech was impeccable. I could not believe the overwhelming applause when I finished.

The stern-looking headmaster patted me on my back and even complimented me saying that I was better than Addison who conceived thrice to bring forth nothing, evoking a hearty laugh from the chief guest.

Later, when I was in Class 11, the then headmaster who was teaching us English explained on my request the anecdote about Addison. Addison, who was a British MP, started off his maiden speech in the House of Commons by repeating “I conceive” thrice, but could not proceed any further owing to extreme nervousness.

For most people, the fear of going to a dentist is worse than the thought of public speaking. I have somehow overcome the fear of sitting in the dental clinic, having gone through a couple of root canal treatments, but am yet to get over the fear of holding the microphone in front of an audience.

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