-Samiha Raisa
Silence around the zoom meeting. All of the participants' hearts seem to drop a beat when the judge announces “And the winner is…Team G!” I was in Team G and I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought I was day dreaming until I saw my teammates’ reaction. That was not it for me. I was absolutely astonished to know that I was announced the best speaker of the whole competition. Alright, now let’s rewind and see how it all happened. I was always a kid who did not really like the idea of public speaking. Yes I could prepare for it well but the moment I saw everyone’s eyes staring at me, my mind went blank. My mom always insisted me to join a debate club as she excelled at them when she was young. The idea of debate scared me, so I delayed it as much as I could. Well guess what, quarantine got me bored enough to challenge myself.
Being as naive as I possibly could be about debate, I decided to sign up for the Inter House Debate Competition (VIII-XI). The debate was scheduled for March 6th to March 9th. But on 4th March we had a workshop where we learned how the parliamentary debate works. In a nutshell, there are 3 speakers in a team, and one is the leader. There were 24 of us, and 8 teams. 2 teams compete against each other. Each speaker gets 7 minutes to talk and a rebuttle round at the end to once again prove their points. Only one of the first two speakers can go from the rebuttle round. One is the Government side and they agree to the motion and the other is the Opposition side who disagree to the motion. My team consisted of Sadman Sami bhaiya as 2nd speaker, Faiaz Mohtasim bhaiya as 3rd speaker and me as the leader. With 20 hours in our hand we were provided with the notion “Do brands rule our lives?” Even though we were quite nervous, we were lucky enough to be on the Government side. Watching all the other groups present with confidence really got us worried but somehow we passed the qualifiers round! We were beyond happy to say the least and we quickly jumped on a call. Then came the semi- finals.
The routine for these 3 days went like: wake up, skip classes, research and practice. The motion for the second day was “Social Media does more harm than good”. This time around we were in opposing side. Therefore, we debated for social media does more good than harm. Unbelievably we ended up winning this one as well! It was getting easier for us as we got more familiar to the debate terms and rules. But not anymore, as the finals were going to be as tough as it possibly could be. New Judges and the motion being “E learning a substitute of classroom learning” really brought upon a lot of tension on us. Supporting the opposing side seemed pretty intriguing to all of us as we had to point out why the government side is wrong along with proving our point. Debating for classroom learning was easy as we had various points to add. For example, under privileged kids will find it difficult to find access to laptops and quiet room. Importance of education does not sustain in E-learning as much as it would in classroom learning.
Debating did turn around my communication skills. I am always aware of people questioning what I have to say. Stick to your point whether it is right or wrong and do not get aggressive. Team work is also very important but it comes along with leadership. Last but not least, Confidence is what got me through!
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