“This is our drawing room; this is the balcony and these are the wall-to -wall wardrobes.” Shantanu, a software engineer in his early 30s was explaining to his guests as I was ushered into his new 3-Bed room apartment. The Rs. 2 Cr+ plus apartment in an upmarket gated community was fitted with Italian marble, top end interiors and Alexa activated controls. As the show-around during the house-warming ceremony was taking place, I got lost in my thoughts recollecting of a person who lived a simple life in a single toom laden with books in National College, Bengaluru. H Narasimhaiah, affectionately called as HN, was a physicist, educator, writer, freedom fighter and a rationalist from Bengaluru.

Circa 2010, I was attending a training program on Effective Presentation Skills in Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in Bengaluru. There were eminent speakers and motivators which included Toastmasters who demonstrated the various facets of presentations and the techniques in using PowerPoint. There were around eleven speakers. By the time the last speaker’s name was announced; the auditorium was almost empty. It was around 5:15 PM and the last speaker was Ashis Dutta, the CEO of CCE Software Private Limited who was to speak on Developing Business in Europe. CCE Software had a good presence in Germany then. Ashish was talking in a simple conversational manner without any histrionics, voice modulation or an attempt of playing to the gallery. (There were a few listeners even otherwise in the auditorium.)  and I still recollect the last slide which said, There is no Europe. The presentation though simple to the core, conveyed a powerful message that Europe should not be taken as an entity without factoring the differences among its member countries. For exploring business opportunities, a one-size-fits-all approach may not be appropriate. Even after a decade, I still remember that presentation which was given at the fag end of the day without any fancy bells-and-whistles of PowerPoint. I do not recollect the previous speakers who were flamboyant and more eloquent vis-à-vis Ashis.

Subsequently Ashis and I became good friends. On 5^th September, Ashis sent me a message about the speech which made a lasting impact on him. Thirty years back when he came to Bangalore, he heard H Narasimhaiah (HN) at the Rotary club. It was a speech straight from the heart delivered in a soft tone without any rhetoric or flamboyance. What touched him the most was HN’s simplicity, ethics and the values he lived by.  

HN, when he was 15 and being from a poor family, had to walk around 85 kms for two days from Gauribidnur to Bengaluru to take admission to National School in 1935. The next year, Mahatma Gandhi was to deliver a talk in Bangalore. The school principal selected HN to serve as an interpreter for Mahatma Gandhi to translate his talk from Hindi to Kannada. That one speech served as an inspiration for HN to adopt the Gandhian way of life.

After doing his MSc in Physics, he went to the USA and earned his Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics, came back to India and was the principal of National college from 1961 to 1972. Later on, he was the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University. He was also known for starting the Bangalore Science Forum in 1962. He was a rationalist to the core and with Abraham Kovoor, challenged the godmen like Sathya Sai Baba, Sai Krishna and exposed their ‘miracles’. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1984.

What is the difference between good communication and great communication?  Normally good communication includes techniques like defining a proper structure with powerful opening, meaningful content and a memorable end to factor for the primacy and the recency effect of the human mind. The speaker also needs to have energetic voice with clear articulation, modulation, speaking rate and the right pause in emphasising a point. The body language also plays a critical role. Power Point presentation with the right font size, key points without cluttering with good contrast, animations etc are also relevant. The purpose of good communication in short is to impress the target audience and achieve the desired results; be it the closing of an order or attract funding for your business venture.  A great communication on the other hand does not have any such rules; its purpose is to express your being. Good communication is goal-based. Great communication is beyond goals and may help you find a purpose.

Good communicator knows that people forget 50% of the contents after a day and 80% after a week and thus need to use mnemonics like AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) PPF (Past, present, Future) etc. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi after addressing a rally in Bengal was asked about his message. He said, “my life is my message.”

Circa 1985, after watching Attenborough’s Gandhi four Australians, quit their jobs and decided to work in the Chennai slums.

Post the training program, my participants may not remember what I said a day before. But I remember what Ashis said a decade back; he recollects what HN conveyed three decades and for HN, his one meeting with Mahatma Gandhi made all the difference for his life!

HN said, “a mediocre teacher confuses, an average teacher explains; a good teacher teaches and a great teacher inspires. “

Image Source: https://www.neskarnataka.edu.in/narasimhaiah/