CHENNAI : Five incredibly talented students from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan in Chennai, The International School in Bengaluru and Neerja Modi School made the country proud at The World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC) held in Zagreb, Croatia from July 17-27. Team India beat England and won the Silver cup and entered the semi-finals and finals of the WSDC. How did they manage to debate their way to Croatia? From 12 regional tournaments and a separate online submission track, 54 of the top debaters from around the country were invited for the national trials. The students then underwent a six-day selection camp in Chennai, last January. At the bootcamp, the students had to undergo an intense coaching regimen set by debate masters from the past, who honed their skills and habits before letting their mouths do all the talking in Croatia.
We caught up with the fab five — Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy, Saranya Ravindran and Tejas Subramaniam from PSBB in Chennai, Manya Gupta from Neerja Modi School in Jaipur, Dhananjay Ashok from The International School in Bengaluru — and they had a whole lot to say.
Hemanth Chakravarthy
This 18-year-old student from PSBB is ranked the eighth best ESL speaker in the world. Now, this debater is on his way to Harvard and he hands a big chunk of the credit to his debating team. “Our coaches are doing so well professionally and academically in their own lives, which is what really inspired me to aim for the best universities. They are the ones who helped me find out about opportunities abroad, how to apply and all the admission procedures. My school has an active debating team and they really encourage us to take it seriously — even going to the extent of letting us miss exams or postponing them when tournaments come up,” he said.
Saranya Ravindran
Most children are asked to be seen and not heard. Saranya doesn’t believe that one bit. “Every debate is special and every tournament till now has been memorable. With every debate, I realise that my biases also lessen as I learn more about different issues and I’m able to correct my mistakes. Debating is a life-changing skill, and every school should have a debating society. Schools should be more encouraging of students and they should be given all the guidance required,” says the 15-year-old.
Manya Gupta
You’d think that GenX, Y, and Z are a little low on GK. Listen to Manya and you’ll revise that view real fast. “I like to debate on issues like feminism and mental health because I feel they play a role in larger issues that we deal with. Debating on these topics makes it possible for me to work towards these issues too. I want to pursue neuroscience as a career, but I never want to give up on debating especially because I get to meet so many interesting people and it pushes me to better myself,” she says.
Tejas Subramaniam
A class 11 student of PSBB Chennai, Tejas was named as the seventh best ESL speaker at the WSDC. “We had two official coaches to train us for the tournament — Dhruva Bhat, a Harvard graduate and Sayeqa Islam a veteran in the international debate circuit. We had a bunch of training sessions, which spanned two weeks in April in which we sparred with some of the international debaters before we underwent another month of training from mid-June until the date of the tournament, so that helped us to prepare for what happened,” he says.
Dhananjay Ashok
“I’m the first Indian and English Second Language Speaker to have ever won a Best Speaker award at the WSDC,” says Dhananjay. He believes that debating has improved his thought process and wants school students to participate in debating competitions to improve their vocational skills. “Debating can make a huge impact in one’s life only if you commit yourself to it. It has taught me to work hard and is the reason I perform decently well in my exams. It has given me a reason to work towards my goals,” he says.