Yesterday was Shakespeare’s birthday and celebrated as World English Day, I was invited as chief guest to an international school in Mumbai and went prepared to speak about literature, language, and perhaps throw in a quote or two from the Bard.
There were songs, skits, speeches, confidence, discipline, and very talented children.
Since it was an international school and it certainly had international standards. Except in one tiny international crisis.
The microphone.
Ah, the poor microphone. Those children attacked it as if it were a stubborn enemy fort. Some shouted into it as though trying to warn aircraft overhead. Some practically swallowed it whole. Some spoke so close to it one feared the poor instrument would need counselling after the programme.
And suddenly it struck me. These children had probably rehearsed in classrooms without microphones and then come on stage delivering with the same volume and the same force. Nobody had taught them the mystery of the mic.
We teach children coding before cursive. We give them tablets before multiplication tables. Some schools may soon have artificial intelligence correcting essays before students learn to correct their own grammar. But the microphone, that magical invention which can make a whisper command a hall, is ignored.
It is like teaching somebody to drive a Ferrari and never explaining the brake.
I have seen this everywhere. School annual days, college festivals, church events, political rallies.
Especially political rallies. My goodness. There are leaders who do not speak into a microphone. They wrestle it. They shriek, squeal, thunder, explode and occasionally seem to threaten the sound system itself. I sometimes feel microphones used in politics should be given combat allowance.
All because nobody taught them that a microphone is not a rival to overpower. It is an ally. Speak softly into it and it carries you. Fight it and it exposes you.
There is art in using a mic. Pause. Tone. Pitch. Silence. A whisper at the right moment can hold a thousand people more than a scream.
Imagine if children were actually trained in this.
How to let the microphone do the work. How to lower the voice instead of raise it. How meaning often lives in modulation. We might produce better speakers, better actors, perhaps even better politicians, though I may be overreaching.
The school, let me say again, put up a marvellous show. Wonderful children. Dedicated teachers. A joyful celebration. But as I watched those gifted youngsters assault innocent microphones, I thought perhaps one extra lesson could be added to the curriculum. Not just English speaking. Microphone speaking. Teach children to whisper into a mic. Teach them tone. Teach them pause. Teach them that communication is not noise, but music.
And who knows, the next great orator may emerge. Or at the very least, one political rally in this country may become bearable…!
