Getting a Ghosti Going

With the summer series on ghosti, we may have struggled to deal with a format that seems completely different from a traditional presentation.

Whereas in a presentation we have control, here we outsource it to our fellow audience in a ghosti. Hence, if we've put our audience to sleep, we'll know with the lack of responses garnered from them - maybe a reason why we fear a ghosti.

One tool though can put this fear to rest: curiosity. Curiosity is what gets a ghosti going naturally. People will speak up if they are genuinely interested in the topic at hand. In a ghosti, thus we need to compare each prasang to something our audience can relate. 

For example, let's say we want to depict the difference between paroksh gnan and aparoksh gnan to an audience full of gamers. Simply asking our audience about the difference will not make an impact especially since many of them won't know. Wet their appetites by contrasting a specific game, like Resident Evil, with perhaps reading a strategy guide (i.e. cheat manual). Just because we may know the full parameters of the game means nothing in the way of how our heart stopped at the sight of a bloody zombie.

To a crowd full of b-ballers, describe the crossover in the form of a step-by-step recipe. Compare that to what actual players feel when they pull off the move. Suddenly, the concept of paroksh & aparoksh becomes that much more concrete.

We can extend this idea to all of our prasangs as well, but it requires that we read over them and think about how our audience might relate to them. To butcher the prasang, read it out and ask, "What do you think?" To breathe life into the prasang, link it up to a concrete scenario, like we did with Resident Evil and the crossover.

Success or failure - let us know of other tricks of the trade to get a ghosti going.