Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Pulley ...

Since I am light on work nowadays; I am attending quite a few interesting and enriching training sessions that get conducted in my organization. The other day (a few weeks back) I was attending one such session on something related to business presentation skills.

After the initial introductions, expectations from the course etc, the instructor threw a sudden missile at us. She said that each one of us had to come to the podium and recite a poem. (What???? Are we here to read out poems?? Are you nuts???). Well, seemingly, this poem recital exercise would enable her to evaluate the vocal aspect of our presentation; she was trying to check the following five qualities of our voice – audibility, clarity, stability, modulation and control. (Did you ever know there were so many aspects about how the way we speak?? :))

Just as we all were staring at each other’s faces, not knowing how to react to this unexpected attack, she stated “I know all of you must be feeling weird; but trust me it will be fun.” she said with a smile, coming over to our chairs and handing each one of us print out of poems. “Take 5 minutes to read the poems, understand its message and mood and present it to rest of us.” In the following 10 minutes all of us were preparing for the recital, strategizing the pauses to be taken for emphasis, the pitch variation to be done as per the mood etc etc... and then actually reciting the poem multiple times in our heart :) it was a feeling akin to last minute revisions during the exam times.

After 10 mins, the instructor snapped, “So, who will go first? ... No volunteers? Okay, let me pick. Hiren ???.”

“Yea ... hmmmm .... yeaa ... sure...”, grrrrrrrrrr....

The other 7 people attending the course started giggling and I started my long walk towards the podium ... upon reaching there, I stood with my eyes refusing to see anywhere above the floor, for the first few seconds ... and then somehow, I managed to recite (read as narrate) the poem and there were claps all around. [That’s the benefit of a corporate crowd; you can get claps for craps too :))]

Okay, I won’t bore you all further with the session details. The intent of this post was to put up the poem that I had got to recite. It was a nice poem titled “The Pulley” by George Herbert. It has got a nice message and the simplicity of this message did strike me. Usually, I am not that much of a fan of poems, but liked this one [maybe because I had no option but to read and understand it :)]


The Pulley
by George Herbert

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all His treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.


p.s. Manallii reminded me of a quote, which describes this poem perfectly. Coincidentally, I had posted this quote around same time last year on my quotes blog.

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s Grace and
Your good days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s Grace ...”
~ Anonymous

10 comments:

Serendipity… said...

Cant imagine you reciting a poem... But this surely is a well written post...

Something to add to the gyan -
"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s Grace and…Your good days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s Grace…" :)

Hiren said...

@Manallii -> I am sure you wudnt want to be an audience to my poem recital :) I pity those who were present there and had to clap for the torture :)

I totally love and believe that quote ... i have put that up on my quotes blog too ...

Hiren said...

updated the post with this quote too ... thnks ! :)

Mysterious Mia said...

heheh....aare u didnt write abt wat was the feedback....but nice poem.....

Hiren said...

@mia -> the feedback was mind blowing :) everyone was spell bound :) okay okay ... the feedback was that I was a touch fast and need to slow down a bit. :)

Neo said...

nice poem...and its good to attend these training at others cost :)

ceedy said...

Did you record the recital?

That is also a very good way to learn what not to do....


BTW bechara HIM....to remind us of his existence he has to program someone to write such a poem ;)

Sangeetha Janachandran said...

Wow :) my blog has a namesake :) awesome to know that... kep writing.. and thanks a ton for your wishes

Keshi said...

Hiren this is an enlightening post!

I can only picture u reciting that poem...but I didnt get to HEAR it did I? u should've recorded it for us :)

Great poem btw WOW!

Keshi.

Mehul said...

Dude, no new posts nowadays?
I just ran through a few of your blogs....