The Debating Society

Yearbook Report 2008-2009

    While we are steadily losing our monopoly in arguing, time-wasting and politicking to several pretenders in College, the one thing that has always been ours (and will continue to do so) is Debating. In 2008-09, the Debating Society continued to provide a window to the world outside the cocoon of Main Corr (to those who wished to use it) and a glimpse at the chaos within (to those who believed that their pedigree could not venture beyond our four walls).

     We went beyond "a Mukmem organizing society" this year (as eloquently put by former president and resident sardar, Tavleen). The Debsoc managed to pull off the "Delhi University Debating League," an event which saw 3 months of Debates between 8 DU Colleges and was the first taste of Parliamentary Debating for our Freshers. A test of our mettle, with eight of our debaters busy debating, DUDL was handled admirably and single-handedly by Kriti with great help from Karan, Sarah, Namrita and the others (so much so that we still get compliments for its success). Ramjas won, narrowly brushing past St. Stephen's in the Finale.

     Our first years created ripples in the Circuit beyond those from any other college! (NLS included). Shikhar, Shaman, Arushi, Rajiv, Vedant and Ilma won themselves a handful of fresher's debates. Shikhar made it to the Semi-Finals of People Speak (with a little help!) and Shaman and Rajiv made it to the Semi-Finals of FTD at KMC (themselves!). Arushi came a close second (to Harsh!) at Tantra - the extemporary debate at Hindu and Ilma made it a habit to win any and every debate in IP, Gargi, Lady Hardinge and Miranda House! We're sure if Sarah debates more, she'd win more than a few as well.

     Ajitesh continued to strike gold (and TVs and Laptops) with a win at the IIPM Debate. Kriti and Shrey won the 9th LN Birla Debate. Kriti inherited the mantle of the resident SSC adjudicator on the National Circuit (from dear Shaoli!) winning best adjudicator in whatever debate she entered, and winning personal invitations to those she didn’t. And we finally won a National Parliamentary (after five long years!) at Tashi - LSR, with Shrey bringing the trophy home. He was also best speaker at DUDL and Tania was 2nd best speaker at the NLS Debate (among more than 150 other speakers).

     Mukmem saw the first utterance of the words, "Who the hell is Krittika!" (Blasphemy?) and rightly so. In the chaos of 40 teams from 25 colleges and a mammoth 70 adjudicators, D'Souza finally turned up, Sukrit turned his knee, Sanjay Raj Singh chaired a debate (!) and we distributed 40 crates of Coke, Sprite and Kinley! Bhatta and Bhatti (a name coined by Kalrav from NLS! And frankly that's better than being known as Tania's brother and Tania!) made it to the quarters, again and Ramjas lost for the third year running in the Final! This time NLS won and Suhel Seth far overshadowed any unanimity in the judges’ decision! So with a few minor hiccups, bumps and scratches, we managed the 61st edition of India's oldest and most prestigious debate."

    In the melee, we also organized the Young Visionary Award with the India Habitat Centre, which saw Vishes handing over his title to a student from IIT - Delhi (who's all set for Summer School in Cambridge). We also organized Vinod Dikshit (just about!) with Karan, Geetanjali and Sukhvir handling the show. We did not, however, manage the celebrity debate thanks to frequent cancellations by our celebrities.

     And at the end of the year, thanks are in due. Thanks to Arushi, who turned out to be the most able administrator we've had for a long time. Thanks to Karan running HYV impeccably. Thanks to Shaman, for finding Harsh's bag (and what was inside) at the right moment and thanks to Vedant for the moments after ("Shut Uppp!!!"). Thanks to Ilma for buying a phone! Thanks to the Left and the Right for a bunch of well worded and thoroughly engaging emails! And thanks to Kuthiala, for being missing long enough that people finally thought that I was the President of this Society (without Joint, Executive or Working replacing the Vice in my post!). God bless Debsoc.

- Shrey

PS: We're still struggling to find Vivaan Shah. If anybody does, please tell him there's a reason as to why he's not mentioned in this write-up!