THE MESS BEFORE THE MICROPHONE, THE CHAOS IN CAMERA

Vivekananda has to be effectively preached. There is a dearth of good speakers today on Vivekananda. Most of those who speak well know mighty little about the Swami and those that have a thorough knowledge about his life and works do not have pronounced powers of oratory. Other than these a third category of smooth talkers are there who suffer form the dual disease of levity and pseudo-intellectuality and these are often the worst offenders as they make a sham of such seminal personalities as Vivekananda and inadvertently reduce them to accepted standards of popular culture when the reverse raising of popular consciousness to the heights of genius even for the while would have done society much good. When important occasions call forth speakers to address the nation on Vivekananda, this lack of preparedness is visible which makes the programmes lacklustre with the age-old monotony of the retelling of the same old stories in the same stereotypical way with the accompaniment of inharmonious music to complete the picture imperfect. Surely, our heroes deserve a better deal at the hands of their descendants, else, they will conclude that their lives were lived in vain for they could not bring about any improvement in even social culture which is relatively an easier accomplishment than the complete moral and spiritual transformation of man which they had attempted.

What is needed today is an overhauling of the entire system of propagation of the Word. Meritorious monks must be selected by the Mission who must be trained sufficiently in public speaking before they are permitted to speak on the prophet who was 'an orator by divine right' as the epithet goes about him. The speakers should be well read with a certain depth of being, who will resonate through their words spirituality in their audience. They must not be inordinately slow in articulation for television time is limited and so is audience attention span. Very often too little is said about Swamiji in the allotted half hour of programme and the audience has to remain satisfied being fractionally fed the outlines of Swamiji's life. It is a pity as well that more often than not there is neither order nor direction in the discussion as the moderator is not sufficiently well-informed about the subject to deepen conversation and to guide its flow. Also, the speaker's diction is often poor and presentation rustic. Prior preparation, ideally in training institutes of the Mission through the year under the guidance of seasoned speakers and scholars, could largely improve the situation. It must always be remembered that Swami Vivekananda was a speaker of the highest order and this should inspire aspirants to public speaking to improve their oratorical skills significantly so that they do justice to the Swami's cause before the world at large.