KEDS Trip to PMC

Ayesha Mushtaq

Class of 2019

Take a bunch of people from the most prestigious society in the oldest medical school of the country, give them the courage to speak, the desire to prove themselves, the power to move the masses, the fervor to scale new heights and the passion to conquer new grounds; what do you get? The recipe for glory!

King Edward Debating Society (KEDS) embarked on one such journey of glory when a dozen of its members undertook a trip to Punjab Medical College (PMC) Faisalabad to participate in the inaugural edition of the college’s parliamentary debating championship, held from the 13^th to the 15^th of May 2016.

KEMU was represented at the competition by a total of four teams, one in English and three in Urdu category.

The English team comprised Hamid Ali, Maryam Fatima, and Hamza Shahab.

The Urdu teams were:
KEMU-A: Ruhma Ihsan, Tabish Javaid, Jamal Awan

KEMU-B: Anas Tahir, Ahsan Khan, Zara Zahid

KEMU-C: Taimoor Bajwa, Mahrukh Safdar, Ayesha Mushtaq

En route!

The teams left for Faisalabad near noon on the hot summer day of 13^th May, making their journey via motorway, stopping midway for Jumma prayers. Many jumps and jerks later, we arrived at PMC in the afternoon. After getting with the registration, we set about to explore PMC and its attached teaching hospital, Allied Hospital Faisalabad, as the event was nowhere near commencement yet.

Slowly, the auditorium filled up as the teams from Punjab University, University of Lahore, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Government College University Faisalabad, FAST Faisalabad and University of Agriculture Faisalabad arrived.

Sometime later, the match-ups and the motion for the first preliminary round was announced. This round had us debating about whether it should be made compulsory upon government officials and their families to use state-run facilities such as public hospitals and public schools. It was undoubtedly an interesting topic to debate upon, especially in the context of Pakistan. As the round finished, the weather also became pleasant and winds blew over PMC. A good end indeed to a good day!

DAY 2:

This was a day of great activity. It saw us get up early in the morning and get ready, and fuel ourselves up with a nice breakfast, the Lahori way.

The matches on this day were going to be crucial if anyone wanted to qualify past the preliminary rounds.

Two rounds were scheduled on this day, and my team had both its matches against PU-B :P

We debated about whether the foreign development funds should be made conditional to the subsidies provided to foreign investors; and if sentenced criminals should be accepted for police employment or not.

The second match was a particularly intense one, with refutations and counter refutations coming from both sides, and then the judges taking a particularly long time to come up with the decision. But in the end, winning the match (and earning a guaranteed spot in the semi finals ) made the wait for the result totally worth it.

Teams qualifying into the Urdu semifinals were announced soon afterwards, KEMU-A and KEMU-C broke through, along with PU-A and UOL.

It was a particularly proud moment to break at 3 wins from 3 matches, and more so because it was my debut Urdu tournament. A word here for my immensely talented and co-operative teammates, Mahrukh and Taimoor, who tolerated the inherent english speaker within me :D and put up a brilliant show which enabled us to qualify for the semi finals. 

Later that night in the PMC hostels, we spent our time chilling with the PMC and the PU girls ( - mainly the PU girls). It was the night when I met some very cheerful twins, chirpy bio-technologists, and beautiful lawyers-to-be :D

The night I made new friends, played (dumb-charades) together and chatted for hours, discussing the studies at KE and PU, their VC, our exam system, and much more. It was a long night too, and we didn’t sleep until 4 am :D

DAY 3:

The big day!

In the semifinals, KEMU-A was pitched against UOL and KEMU-C against PU-A. The motion for the semis being:
“Ye aiwaan wiraasat ke haq ko khatam karne ki himayat karta hai”

[This house supports abolishing the right to inheritance]

The semi final was a nail biting encounter, with beautifully crafted arguments and equally well constructed rebuttals coming up from both sides, in both the matches.

After a close match and a very lengthy critique, KEMU-A won their match and advanced to the Finals.  As for us, we were defeated by a split decision of 2-1, but went down like warriors. As one of the judges put it,

“The better team lost today” .

PU-A vs KEMU-C semi final

UOL vs KEMU-A semi final

Meanwhile in the finals of english parliamentary, girls’ power prevailed as PU-B defeated the boys of PU-A and seized the trophy.

The urdu finals saw a debate on whether or not the dual nationality holders should be allowed to contest elections. The scales of balance kept tilting till the very last speeches of the match, an in the end KEMU-A was declared runners up of PMC’s 1^st All Pakistan Bilingual Parliamentary Debating Championship.

during the final

The prize distribution ceremony was followed by a formal dinner, following which we embarked on the return journey, which commenced with an emotional speech by Ruhma baji, for whom it was the last trip and presumably the last tournament.

As we neared Lahore, quite a few of us plunged into a state of denial, willing to go anywhere but back to the monotonous university routine – lectures, labs, wards – or the dreary hostels.

As all good things come to an end, so did this trip; but it gave us its fair share of memories which shall definitely be cherished for a lifetime, but more importantly in the approaching prof season!

Thank you PMC for hosting us! ^_^