KEDS 16th All Pakistan Declamation Championship - Official Event Review

AYESHA SAEED MALIK

SHAJEE-UD-DIN

MBBS 1st YEAR

They call themselves 'THE HOME OF THE FEARLESS'. A very intimidating title indeed. Awe inspiring too. So when they present to you an event and call it "16TH ALL PAK DECLAMMATION CHAMPIONSHIP' you're bound to mark the date on your calender and wait in anticipation for the day of battle of words and minds. 

Behold! The day when the gates to the arena of fearless swing open.

King Edward Medical University cordially welcomed speakers from all walks of life. The new auditorium was teeming with people, who were categorized into speakers ,adjudicators, organizers and the worthy audience without whose enthusiastic participation the event might not have been as colorful as it was.

The topics were classified as humorous and serious for both the Urdu and English speakers.

Some of the serious speakers were remarkably good. Their depiction on grave topics such as; 'blind are led by blind' and 'i am the people, the mob,the mass' were splendid. Hence, the crowd behaved well and actually bothered to listen.

Let's shed some light on the KE crowd while we are at it. It is notorious for being savage and brutal to many of the orators who aren't upto their mark. They do not spare 'not being impressed'. Every speaker that steps onto the stage is given two options:

   1. be marvelous

   2. be mocked

The serious declamatory round was very moving. the orators swayed the audience with their power of logic. It came to a graceful end with some golden words of wisdom that imprinted on our minds.

'18 crore, yes are. we are just people by number, selfish and unconscious.'
'We, today need a Quaid who gathered Punjabis, Sindhis, Balochis and Pathans into one Pakistan.'

'With the fact of victory, we will neither stagger nor will we ever stumble. We will be the people -the human beings.'

Meanwhile we gathered the ORGANIZERS' view on the event:

Ahmed Rafay; by far the greatest competition.
Tabish Javed; receptive audience. harsh and competitive environment.
Minahil Saifullah; the speakers should've managed to enchant the audience, which was a rare sight today.
Maham Khan; KEDS has proved it again that we are the best!

Alas! The Humorous Speeches - A murder to humor indeed. 
The situation was bizarrely reversed since the orators were being laughed at, rather than inspiring laughter in the audience. Their own poor jokes being used against them. A unanimous verdict besmeared the humorous speakers as 'being an utter disappointment.' A few however, managed to be somewhat hilarious but not as entertaining as the crowd of KEMCOLIANS. 

We managed to interact with some of the SPEAKERS as well

When asked about his views, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, an urdu serious speaker from Nust, said ' The crowd has always been a challenge. Let's not blame them. It is all about the speaker if he's good the crowd's good. The secret recipe is to learn the art of captivating your audience.'

Hassan-ur-Rasheed from fast said, ' I haven't been to KE before but i heard a lot about it, about the crowd. They say its the most challenging audience, they won't let you speak if you meet their standards, which are pretty high, as i have witnessed. In front of the KE audience, you just know that you better not mess it up or they'll eat you alive'

When we asked Junaid,a humorous speaker, about who he thought would take the trophy home, he promptly replied, 'The audience, obviously, the audience. Who else?'

It seems that we, the Kemcolians, have been quite successful at breaking the age old impression that doctors lack funny bones. Quite a feat on our front, don't you think?

Hamza Abbas yet another urdu orator and amongst the best ,undoubtedly, was kind enough to give us ample of time to interview him where he said 'Though it's been the biggest platform I've spoken on, I wasn't unnerved by the crowd because we, Ravians are pretty good at what we do, that is winning. i am confident of my victory.' 
In the end he left a message for the crowd saying ' Challenging as you may be, but give them a chance to speak. there will always be beginners, you must welcome them, give them confidence because none of us were made good orators without being given a chance. Be kind.'

Termination of the event was marked by two speeches given by kemcolians themselves; one being English Humorous 'My way or the highway' by Ahmed Rafay Afzal which brought out fits of laughter from the audience and won a lot of applause and appraise. The other being Urdu Serious 'Rahzanon ki rahbari raah dikha chuki buhat' delivered magnificently by Khwaja Hassan Akhtar .

After the final word from PRO VC professor dr. Qazi Saeed, the results of the declammation were announced.

the WINNERS being:

• ENGLISH SPEAKERS

1. Jadhaun Aslam
2. Tajmeer Shah
3. Raja Hayat

• CONSELLATION PRIZE; Wajeeha 

• URDU SPEAKERS

1. Hamza Abbas
2. Hassan-ur-Rasheed
3. Hamza Mustafa

• CONSELLATION PRIZE; Makhdoom Shahab-ud-din

• PUNJABI SPEAKER: Umar Wazmir

• TEAM TROPHY: University of Central Punjab, lahore

 Word from the PRESIDENT of KEDS Sharif Bashir;

"APDC was a huge success. Our efforts paid off well. Many had reservations regarding the crowd but it is the most responsive crowd anyone will ever come across and we pride on that. We are looking forward to more of such events. Let's hope they turn up as wonderfully as APDC did.'

Bloggers critique;
It was quite an experience, covering this event. Rightly said 'Home Of the Fearless'; for the courage of your words breaks our fears, the power of your logic cracks our suspicions and the confidence of your gait fixes our stumble. Because when in the home of the fearless, we are fearless.
We hope KEDS continues to amaze us as it has, with hopefully better 'air conditioning' next time. We are overtly looking forward to hearing from the President and the Vice presidents on the stage, curious at how good they are, at what they best do. 
Three cheers from us on your success! ADIOS'