22 September 2013

Spoken Word Events of the Literary Week by Shubhi Raghav 8B and Karan Pandanda 9B


As part of Literary Week, the English Department organised various activities, including the Middle School Elocution Competition and the Senior School Parliamentary Debate, both of which were Inter-House events. 


The Elocution Competition was a great experience.

What wonderful speeches, prose extracts and poems, with expressions and voice modulations to match!

Everybody had chosen their own topics and each one of them had made an intelligent choice. Every piece dealt with a social issue, ranging from freedom to racism to discrimination.

Being on stage is not everybody’s cup of tea, is it? So there was a bit of restlessness and nervousness in the air as well. All the pieces were very appealing but only the best could win.
The best speaker was Mehak; not because she had been declared the best speaker by the judges, but because most of us felt that there was that feeling in her eyes and that tone in her voice which could change the audience’s view.

While the results were being tabulated, one of the judges, Mr. Mowry gave us useful tips on the skills required for a performance of this kind.
And then finally, after what to us seemed an age, the results were announced - Air House had emerged the winners!

The Parliamentary Debate was the other spoken word activity of the Literary Week.  While we do keep having debates as inter-house events quite frequently, the Parliamentary form of debate was held as an inter-house event for the first time.
Parliamentary Debate is a form of debate that we are used to seeing on TV, especially when the Parliament sessions are on, or in political gatherings. However, the one we had in school was a much more civilized version. Two topics were debated on – both very relevant in the Indian context today.
‘Hindi, rather than English should be the language of instruction in schools’ and ‘Word Processors should be allowed in all school examinations’ were the two motions. Fire and Water debated on the first motion and Earth and Air debated on the second.
The ‘Government’ proposed and defended the motion whereas the ‘Opposition’ refuted and negated the motion. With both topics having equal amounts of pros and cons, the debate, as a whole, was extremely intense with strong rebuttals and confident speaking.
Air house were the winners of this event, too. The decision to declare Air House the winner was absolutely spot-on, as they had very strong rebuttals for their topic. The standout speakers were Tavishi and Advitya as they were the ones most confident about their topic.

We are looking forward to another round of these activities – SOON!