Ten teams from eight schools — Lady Andal Venkatasubba Rao MHSS, Arsha Vidya Mandir, MCTM School, Sherwood Hall SSS, St John’s SSS, PS Senior Secondary School, Good Shepherd MHSS and Chettinad Vidyashram — bagged honours at the finals of the zonal edition of Verbattle South, a State level debate competition for school children in south India, organised by TV House Network Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, at Bala Mandir German Hall, T Nagar, on Tuesday.
More than 50 teams from 15 schools participated in the preliminary round on Monday that pitted contestants against each other with an array of thought provoking topics, including ‘Animals do not have rights like human beings’, ‘Honesty is the privilege of the incompetent’, ‘Cricket is a boring sport’ and the crowd-favourite ‘Greed can be a positive emotion’. Two teams each from PS Senior Secondary and Chettinad Vidyashram and one team each from the other six schools qualified for the regionals.
The winners dwelled on what made the ‘battle of words’ unique. According to B Bharath, Class 10 student of P S Senior Secondary, the wacky topics provided the fun element. “It was an entirely different format and we got exposure to diverse topics,” confides Bharath, whose favourite topic at the event was ‘Aishwarya Rai’s baby girl will not make a difference to another girl child in India’.
For his teammate Manaswini Mukund, the new format of three teams debating against each other and the very short time granted to put forward their points was the USP of Verbattle South.” Since we had only one minute to speak for or against a topic, we had to make sure that our points were concise.”
The team from Good Shepherd couldn’t agree more. “It gave us a completely different perspective. We had to think on our toes and the topics really opened up our minds,” confessed Trishia Santhus, a Class 9 student. Her teammate Serdina Innocent noted that it also gave them the opportunity to grapple with the tough competition.
The eight winning teams will compete in the regional finals of the Verbattle South that will be held in Bangalore on January 21.