Humour and Gurglese

• November 10, 2022
• ramgi@user
• no comments

It was in 2012, that I discovered the best way to conducting a meeting where everyone is engaged and enjoying the session.

It was then that my whacky, science fiction, Oops the Mighty Gurgle was published. From a Malayalam-medium educated, villager kid who had never spoken a sentence in English, I had become a published author in English. Becoming a published author transforms one’s life. Suddenly people start believing you have pearls of wisdom to impart and start inviting you to talks.

Since ‘Oops the Mighty Gurgle’ got published as a children’s book, it is actually a book that appeals to the mad sense of humour in anyone, any age, I started being invited to schools and children’s book festivals to give book readings. At first, that is exactly what I did. Read the book aloud to the kids.

Luckily, a friend who attended a session gave it to me straight. “RamG, the way you are doing the reading, you are destroying the whole fun element in the book.”

Tough feedback. But one that transformed my life. I applied my creative brain and came up with an amazing plan. I invented a language called ‘Gurglese’ that is spoken by the protagonist in my book — Oops. Oops was a Gurgle, a species of evolved pumpkins.

My book reading sessions turned into crash course sessions on learning ‘Gurglese’. It helped tremendously that gurglese was spoken in a duck-voice, and full of squeals and grunts.

The children loved these sessions. Imagine a middle aged guy standing on stage and squealing and grunting and speaking utter bulls**t in a singsong duck voice. And imagine a hall full of middle school children being given the license to squeal, grunt and scream to their heart’s content with their teachers cheering them on.

The icing on the cake for the kids is when I call all the teachers on to the stage and make them repeat ‘gurglese’ after me! The kids just love the embarrassed giggles and laughter of their teachers before they gamely launch into squeals and grunts.

These sessions were so popular and engaging that I have held sessions for as many as 800 children at a time, packed like sardines into one large hall. And the only sound one could hear is my booming voice in duck voice followed by roars of laughter from the kids and their own collective duck-voice squeals.

I also used the storyline of my sci-fi book to teach the kids astrophysics. Imagine being taught what is a neutron star while you are rolling on the floor laughing! They would never forget the lessons. This experience taught me a huge lesson — make people laugh. They will forever remember you and your message.

Today, every meeting I attend, whether with children or with CEOs, I make sure that I crack some silly jokes and make people laugh. I can immediately sense the mood lighten and engagement level going zooming up. We all need to keep our inner child alive. Do you agree?

P.S. you can listen to more of my stories on YouTube at Boundless With RamG.

#Humour #BoundlessWithRamG #motivationalspeaker #happiness