Background: I was asked to give a talk about Sanskrit metres, for a “no knowledge of Sanskrit required” audience.

TLDR: The talk went really poorly. :-(

Based on the feedback I received from some people:

  • Those who knew nothing at all about Sanskrit metres (the audience I was trying to reach) said they didn’t understand anything. Total failure!

  • Some of those who knew a little bit about Sanskrit metres said they followed it quite a bit, and mentioned a few things they liked here and there,

  • The experts, those who knew a lot, said it was chaotic and disorganized, and I ought to have focused more on the work I actually did myself. (I omitted focusing on this, both because I wasn’t pleased with the state of the work–I simply didn’t finish it in time, defeating the purpose of much of the talk–and because I was trying to target a different audience.)

Anyway, that the talk went poorly is not my biggest regret. That’s probably that I didn’t thank people properly:

  • When I asked for suggestions, Sridatta A sent me basically an entire talk outline. This is an enormous amount of effort (he would have given a great talk), and it was very helpful, and I forgot to acknowledge it.

  • I thanked Ganesh only for encouraging me to speak in the first place, when in fact I owe much more.

The lesson from this is, when preparing a talk, to write the acknowledgement part first. Missing something there is the one that you can feel the most guilt about.

Some other lessons from the debacle:

  • Public speaking is performance. And if you’ve decided to perform something, you better commit to it. There were many places in the talk where I was planning to say or do something, but when the moment came I self-censored or did it in a half-hearted way. In fact there are many sentences where I trailed off midway.

  • Next time, find someone sympathetic in the audience and look at them; maybe even plant such a person :-) When you’re wondering whether anyone’s really interested anymore, the stuff from the previous point is more likely to happen.

  • Don’t get ambitious, only plan the talk with stuff you’re absolutely sure you’re actually going to have by the time of the talk, and actually know well. :-)

I still think there’s a germ of a good talk there in what I tried, which if I had prepared better, had devised better visual/technological accompaniments, and presented it better, might actually have been interesting or useful to someone. Oh well.

I also need to do something about my procrastination problem. :-( It’s no surprise that I was poorly prepared, but it’s a bit incredible how poorly. I was still making slides in the cab to the venue, and even off-stage when I was being introduced. I spoke with whatever I had by the time I had to start speaking.

As I type this, I see the video has already been posted online! 🤦

Sigh, I shudder to watch it, but guess I ought to sometime soon, and post corrections / clarifications.