Taboo Topics!

19.08.2007
To day is World Photography Day because the first announcement of a photograph was made on 19, August 1839, in France at a scientific demonstration. I celebrated World Photography day by selecting some of the best shots taken by me.

Presided over the meeting of the Chennai Toastmasters Club. The meeting was moderately well attended, with a few enthusiastic guests. As the meeting drew to a conclusion with nearly fifteen minutes to spare, I decided to exercise my prerogative as presiding officer and take up an issue for constructive discussion. Three topics viz. Sex, Religion and Politics are known as taboo topics and are to be avoided by all speakers at Toastmaster meetings. I raised the issue as to what was it that was to be avoided. For example, TM H L Ratan in his speech today about the pain of parking in Chennai, mentioned the names of two well known politicians and commented on how they had misused the “perquisites” (His word not mine!) to use traffic rules for their benefit. The question is whether this amounts to speaking about politics. Similarly, TM Aditya had earlier delivered an awesome speech on the essential unity of the male and female by giving examples from Hinduism (Ardhanareeshwar), Christianity (The Blade and the Chalice) and Chinese Buddhism (Yin and Yang). Is this Religion? I also gave the example of Guruvayoor temple where in the lower tiers of the pagoda in the sanctum sanctorum, various human figures engaged in the sexual act are depicted. Is this sex or sexuality. (By mentioning this I suppose I broke two rules, mentioning sex and religion!)

But that was what I wanted the members to explore. We had comments from TM Abraham Zacharia CC, TM Pattabhiraman CC, TM Aditya Maheswaran, TM H L Ratan, TM Ravi Bhaskaran CC and finally TM Akhil Lila a visitor. The sum and substance of their collective view was:
You can use quotations from religious texts and stories etc. but should judiciously avoid making fun of another religion or putting another religion down.

Talking in general about sexuality is OK so long as this is not misused to deliver jokes and innuendos that are in bad taste or extremely gender biased or chauvinistic.

(While on that, there are a certain variety of marital jokes that have no sexual innuendo but are extremely gender biased in as much as they paint married women (that’s wives!) as being always suspicious, nagging, overbearing or spendthrifts. TM Nina John ACB CL always reacts to these types of jokes and TM Abraham and I are always in her line of fire as we constantly indulge in such jokes at the expense of our respective wives. In fact TM Nina once remarked very perceptively that people like TM Abraham and I, who crack these misogynistic jokes have two wives, the imaginary woman that we describe in our speeches who nags and argues and commands us and our real wife, the poor innocent lady who takes care of us and our children at home! I think she is right. But, these jokes come out well in speeches and have almost become an idiom of life if not a cliché.)

Politics is best avoided as it will definitely lead to controversy.

The reasoning behind the taboo was clearly brought out by TM Ravi Bhaskaran CC, when he mentioned that these three topics are also banned at the officers’ mess in the Defense Services for exactly the same reason viz. they lead to avoidable controversy and ill feeling.