46th session

What a session!

Apart from the usual rounds of project speech and table topics, we were educated and entertained by a demo session conducted by the Debate Club, meant to motivate us and catapult us into those rarefied heights.

But first things first.

In the absence of SAA TM Ramalingam, the session was kicked off by Ex-AD GK. Change is constant, he said, and tomorrow an SAA can be an Area Director as well. We live on hopes, GK, we live on hopes...

Our President Aji Bhaskar, the king of stories, took us to ancient China, where a tea master, wrongly dressed as a samurai, was challenged by another samurai. However, our tea master, on the advice of his warrior master, could exhibit such composure and confidence in his opening stance at the fight (borrowed from his tea-making), that the challenging samurai was out of countenance and conceded the fight without a fight. Victory comes from attitude, Aji advised us, not just from ability, and we as incipient leaders and influencers would do well to remember the same. Thank you Aji, for this lesson.

TMOD MTM Kavita had chosen as her theme MOVIES. A well-worn subject, one would have thought. But she provided imaginative connects between the roleplayers' favourite movie-star and the role-players' own characteristics, and we enjoyed the extravagant accolades that she heaped on the speakers, much to their delighted embarrassment.

Timekeeper TM Karthik was introduced and he in turn introduced the rules of the game to us. The only twist in the proceedings was that the coloured cards were not available and he had to invoke the imagination of the audience by writing Green in blue on a yellow sheet, writing Yellow in blue on a yellow sheet and writing Red in blue on a white sheet. Role players welcomed the challenge and paid proper heed to the scribbles.

Wordmaster TM Pramod introduced the word INCIPIENT to the group, a word not frequently used by any of us, so it was indeed a nice addition. The round robin showed varied applications. Many role-players included the word in their speeches and were duly applauded.

Joke master TM Nagesh tickled us with various marriage-related jokes.

Table topics were led by TM Mathen and he totally woke us up with five excellent topics, which could very well have been regular debate topics. Our guest debators were mainly called upon to respond and we saw a number of splendid 2-minute vignettes being delivered.

There was a P4 level speech scheduled today and TM Ananth spoke about the evaluation criteria, in his usual easy manner.

TM Venkat delivered his P4 speech next, in an even easier manner. The story of his travel over the western ghats in the rain was quite engrossing and he ended with some appropriate take-aways that always accompany a harrowing travel journey. 

We took a break from our regular program for a DEBATE SESSION, demonstrated by the Debate Club. We were honoured by 6 members of the club, who would be speaking For and Against a topic assigned earlier, in two teams of three each. GK acted as moderator. The topic given was "Reservation does little to empower and enable". Robin's team spoke For and Ramki's team spoke Against. Arguments ran rampant, from caste-based reservations, to reserved parking for disabled, to chocolates for the second child, to sports quota for Usain Bolt ... and so on. The audience were engrossed by the linear introductions supported by statistics, the specific rebuttals and the comprehensive conclusions carried out. It was educative and it was entertaining and it served the purpose of the demo, which was to get us interested in the debating process. I am sure many in Ruwi club would now start attending the fortnightly sessions (Thursdays at MMTC hall).

TM Ananth carried out his evaluation of TM Venkat's P4 speech. He appreciated TM Venkat's descriptive abilities and declared the purpose of the speech met.

Harkmaster TM Saleem introduced a new dimension by addressing his questions to specific rows or benches. He wanted to test the hypothesis that back-benchers are generally inattentive and ended up proving it.

Grammarian TM Rajat ran through minor misdemeanors conducted by various people, expressing happiness that major gaffs were on the wane, indicating increasing linguistic abilities of the team.

Ah-counter MTM Panna also was pretty happy with  verbal exactitude of the speakers. In very few instances did they hesitate or fumble or scratch their chins with an "Ummm..." Good going folks!

General Evaluator TM Chaitanya, who always calls a spade a spade, gave exact feedback on what he liked and did not like about each role-player. Great going TM Chaitanya, and we appreciate the candour and advise to team-members.

President Aji wrapped up the session with a big thank you to the Debate Club for their efforts. We are all grateful, in fact, and would surely dive in.

The day's awards were:

• Best Table Speaker:   DTM Robin/TM Ramki/TM Vignesh (it was that close)
• Best Debate Team:     Ramki Team (against)
• There were no awards for Project speech or evaluator as there was only one speech.

See you all on 10.9.16 (hopefully)