Who said debates are boring? :D

24th January, 2014
**Probably one of the most important days of the year for Shreyans Singhvi, Secretary of the Editorial board of MPSTME. It was the day when the flagship event of the editorial board was going to be held in the college: ‘Crossfire Debate 2014’ .
Having reached the college early morning dressed in formals, He knew there was a busy day ahead of him. He also knew that any glitch in the event and he will be destined to be doomed.** I, On the other hand underestimated the magnanimity of the occasion and arrived a bit late, Even though I was early than the few, I was immediately pulled into the thick of things. Starting with taking the box of water bottles to the 4th floor, Shifting the benches and sticking the posters. Time was the biggest constraint, Contestants started coming in 30 minutes before the prescribed time.Despite us being assigned our duties and instructed to be on time there was madness all around Phones ringing, Contestants confirming and the guests arriving. Drenched with sweat, The secretary geared up for the event to start.
After all the hard work by the members which takes me back to 2 weeks ago when the actual work started, Putting up the posters everywhere, Calling the participants for their confirmation, Sending the topics which were taken care of by Hiteeksha and co to the contestants, Taking care of the logistics part, Arranging for food for 2 days and also the making the posters. The event began. The debates itself started late in both the rooms where the debate was to be held. I was assigned to be the timekeeper with Uthara, A duty which I exchanged with Shreyas :p.The calm had returned in the 4th floor corridor, The event was going well, Time was flowing by and the debates were brilliant. I, for one was amazed to see how good an orator these contestants were. Owning their opponents with the point made by the opponent themselves was a sight to behold in most of the debates. Whilst keeping the track of time I did not realized that it was 12.30 pm and it was almost lunch time for the contestants. I being the in-charge of food was notified by the secretary and I rushed to the Girl’s Lounge where the lunch was to happen. Luckily, The food had arrived in time with help from the members and AGM people the lunch began, The food was good and the contestants as well as the members had their food. The secretary still busy with the judges, The winners of the elimination round were announced. **The secretary got a rare moment of free time, He stared at the people in the seminar hall and was partly relieved to see the event going well but he knew that it was only the Half day of the first day.**
Post lunch, Things went on with real ease. Members knowing what to do and what not to do went about with their duties. The chief guests were some elite personalities from different strata of the society. One of them being an advocate of the supreme court, another being a Critic and so on reflected how tough it was for the contestants to impress the jury with their viewpoints. All the seriousness of the event did not stop us from having some fun :p. There was betting on the winners organized by the scam-guy of our board, Sajal :D. Then of course we had dibs on someone but we backed out because of Vishnu, the reason being he had dibs on it already (Thanks to Ananya for spreading the word :p) Also not to forget some slept off during the debates (Pranav and Harshet 😀 ) Also Sree, I feel for you for being outside the seminar hall all the time and missing the debates  The pre-quarters were over in a jiffy, Results were announced and the contestants were dispersed off with the ones not making it through receiving the participation certificate and us being told to wait back by the secretary, All the first timers including me anticipated a pat on the back for that day’s work, The experienced folks knew better than that.
Shreyansh,after appreciating the efforts of the AGM team, Blasted us about not being on time and then everyone being asked of what they thought went wrong and then the long lecture by him criticizing us on what went wrong and all that stuff with the meeting concluding by deciding the topic for the finale.
**The secretary then dismissed the members and took off whilst thinking on his way home ‘What lays ahead for tomorrow?’**

25th January, 2014

**The second day was as important as the but still in the secretary’s mind this one was the day that mattered.**
I left my home early and reached Mithibai college at 8.15 am where the event was scheduled in the ‘Juhu Jagruti hall’
It was only a matter of time before everyone arrived well ahead of time. Things started falling in place like clockwork. The hall was decorated within 15-20 minutes of every member’s arrival. The arrangements for the judges and the contestants were going on in full swing. There was a feeling of optimism and enthusiasm among us. By 9.15 am first of the contestants arrived and by 9.45 am the judges arrived. The stage was set for the event.
The quarter finals started off with a bang with some very intriguing topics being debated upon. *The secretary was delighted seeing everything going very well* I being in-charge of food was worried about the lunch being on time. I had to watch all the debates from the back-stage which was a bit annoying but I had to do my duty. ( The responsible one :D) I kept on calling the restaurant from which the lunch was ordered from. It was 12.30 pm and still the status of the delivery was that the guy was still packing the thalis. This thing worried me because if the lunch did not arrive on time or arrived very late then I’ll be screwed. 12.35 pm still the same status, I was getting anxious and then all of a sudden I decided to go to that restaurant myself in order to urge the guy to deliver soon. I caught hold of Pranav and then we raced off to the restaurant near Juhu circle. The guy was still packing stuff but it was almost done. It was 12.50 pm we needed to get the lunch before 1.15 tops as we raced through the road in an auto with the auto consisting of the thalis behind us we managed to reach Mithibai by 1.05 and soon I was helped out by Ananya and co. with serving it to the contestants but then another minor crisis emerged no tissues, no paper bowls and spoons for serving Gulab Jamun but thankfully it was sorted out and the lunch was over.

Now to the closing stages of the debate, The one of the chief guests was Mr Saurabh Shukla, The famous actor who had 88 films under his belt. The debate started with a mouth- watering semi- final clash which was supposed to be the final of the debate took place, And boy, It did lived up to it’s billing. Some brilliant points raised by both the sides and a fine example for the people who think a debate is a boring thing. The final too was a great one too. The winners were Malcolm Kartak and Vivek Patel. Prizes were distributed to the winners and during the closing stages who can forget the song sung by Ananya 😀 

The end was as good as one can think off. Everything fell into it’s place, everything ended well. One extremely good thing happened during these due course of events was that it brought the entire Editorial board together. The bond grew stronger. I, for one opened up and many others did that too. It was definitely one of the high points of this event. It was a pleasure working with all of you : Moneel, Rahul, Nivedita, Sree, Sanchi, Ananya, Avani, Sajal ,Tiwari, Saumya( I hope my punctuation in this blog is alright :p), Hiteeksha, Pratha, Shikha, Keyur, Chinmay, Pranav, Ratna, Gautam, Uthara, Sindhya, Samriddhi, Chaitanya, Pragti, Hem, Shreya,  Alolika, Abbas and Animesh.

**The Secretary lauded the effort of each and every member of the Editorial board and He had nothing but good words for everyone of them because they had put in everything for this event even their attendance :p He ended his speech by saying three cheers to the editorial board. He was a proud man**

P.S. There was also this after party which we thoroughly enjoyed 😀

The mention of secretary’s vantage point is because I tried a new writing style of including a vantage point of another person in the mix of events, Next time there’ll be more vantage points included 🙂