(I'm typing this at 1.00 p.m. on Saturday, 14 April. But it will be dated 13 April because this is about something that happened on 13 April, three years ago.)
So we made it to the Quarter Finals of the Wira Debate, going up against SMK Bandar Menjalara at SMK Bandar Tun Razak (in Cheras; whee!). Danial knew some of the people on the team, as he lives in the vicinity of Bandar Menjalara.
In the previous episode, I forgot to mention that we did our preparation at Dinesh's. Some memorable things that happened on that day include:
-two debaters dropping by KLCC during lunchtime to catch the free organ recital
-two debaters listening to U2's 'Beautiful Day' towards the end of the day
-one debater making a fool of himself by asking for the bill at an Indian curry house
-one debater accessing certain scenes in the movie 8 Mile
This time around, we set up base at Kishan's house. It's a huge house and we kick-started the day with breakfast at Burger King in Bangsar Baru, then walked to his place. His mother is an excellent host and cook!
The motion was 'Child Rapists Should be Sentenced to Death' and we were the Opposition. (By the way, this trend continued such that we alternated between Government and Opposition each round.) It was something that had very strong legal and moral connotations about it, and for that reason, I asked my uncle (who is a lawyer) for some resources.
He gave me a whole stack of books but in the end, we only used a line or two from the Law. But I must say, it was probably that line that won us the debate, not so much because it was a good point, but because it threw our opponents a little off the trail. And in debates, a little is a lot.
This time, Dinesh returned to his comfort zone as First Speaker and, probably determined to redeem himself, delivered his best speech yet. I remained Second. The wild card this time was Danial, who took on the mantle of Third Speaker quite against his will. Nonetheless, we had some confidence in that decision, probably because of his experience working with children- and youth-related NGOs.
On that day, there was barely an audience, save for the reserve debaters and teachers of both teams. We did much practice on vocal projection during the quarantine; even as I write this, I am reminded of the time we lost to Seri Hartamas, and how we frantically pasted random snippets of facts on paper for Dinesh (or was it Danial?) and scribbled away... just because we didn't prepare for both sides. We were Government, but we only prepared for Opposition. We never made this mistake again.
It will always be remembered as part of comic debate history, that Pn Jaya kept pacing up and down the library (the venue for the round) towards the end of the debate. She was so worried and couldn't keep still; we told her it worried us, so she promised she'd never do it again. And she never did.
But this was, all things considered, truly our most difficult round. Although Dinesh nailed the first 'bout', I wasn't entirely up to form and the atmosphere was more tense than the previous round. Danial started off fine, but then got stuck at some point and stared at his notes for a few moments. Thankfully, he recollected himself and went on to deliver the best 'comeback' rebuttal of all. Indeed, he focused more on his knowledge of the context (and less on the content) of the motion, drawing from his NGO knowledge and experience.
Although my Reply Speech wandered somewhat with perhaps a little too much emphasis on a metaphor of dealing with a tree from the roots upwards, we won the round (Best Speaker went to Menjalara's Third Speaker). And we knew we finally had the right speaker line-up, although Danial and I had a long way to go if we still wanted to win the tournament!
The present VI team won their first round today (13 April). Technically, it's the Second Round, but they got a 'bye' due to last year's finish as Runners-Up. They were up against Desa Perdana on the motion 'Malaysian Teenagers Ape the West Rather than Follow Their Own Culture'. Kok Kin said the motion made him cringe.
Thankfully, the motions to come are much more debatable as they are centred on issues of comtemporary and national significance, with much emphasis on areas of proposed policy change.
Adli spoke first, followed by Edward and Avinash, who was voted Best Speaker. Andrew and Aqram stayed in the reserves.
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