Transatlanticism

There is something wonderful about a debate that makes me all shivery, afraid, tense, anticipatory and joyful all at one go. It must the idea of verbal warfare, the idea of spoken skirmishes, the idea of vocal battle – the adrenaline in your system that makes you tense up, your mouth go dry and your limbs sluggish when the speaker just before you is finishing their speech and you know you’re next. The three-ish minutes of your speech that you will never remember once you’re done with, the three minutes on which everything depends, the three minutes where nothing makes sense, not even the words you say. In those minutes the audience becomes a sea of faces that all look the same – skin colored and unrecognizable. The cold in your fingertips, the numb toes. The flood of heat through your system when you’re done with your speech and the audience claps and snaps you out of the reverie that you were in while at the podium and instantly the world comes back into focus and you can process the faces again, remember the names and remember whether you hate them or like them, and whether they were better or worse than you.

Although, this whole debating thing is made even better because of my debate-buddy and general-buddy, Aanooshka Seyn. And as one of the advisors said – we’re very different, but we’re pretty much like peas in a pod. She is sober, I am not. She is sarcastic, I am over the top. She never forgets her speeches, and sometimes I do. She claps for me and I clap for her. Together we point and laugh at the people who flub up, and then she yells at me for being uncouth. She talks of poetry and calls me a macho science geek. I talk of almost everything nonsensical under the sun, and I call her Humanities. She makes references out of people and things I hate, and cock eyebrows at all the things I say, and register them for later blackmail. When a speaker talks of the audiences’ wives, all the girls in the audience go “Whaaa?”, but I turn to her and say – “Oh crap, they found out about us?” Yes, Tiny, thank you for being my debate partner. Your secrets are safe with me, although I don’t think that assurance is mutual, I still love you.

I’ve been missing classes and hanging around the LN Birla debates the last couple of days, and among other things, the debates made me realize how much I love debating (and missing school). Much thanks to the teams who sat behind us and had a tiny talking party – I think I might have died of boredom and/or eating my arm out of sheer ennui if it wasn’t for you. Thank you Girls One and Two, for not being vapid but pretty good conversation, and even though one of you kept talking poetry at a point in time, you were still pretty normal. (Shut up, Aanooshka Seyn. ) Both of you. Thank you also those other two in the back. One of you was pretty much err.. okay as always. The other was a <> as always. Which was expected. (Again, shut up, Aanooshka Seyn) Aaaand, we qualified for the next round. So, that went off pretty great for us, that first day.

The next day, me and Aanoshka Seyn acted like a couple of over-confident, underprepared b!t(#e$ and therefore we got pwned. Even so, she missed a test, and I missed Double Math, so all in all it was quite a fruitful day. Despite that odd girl who I still think does not look like me. Despite the fact that we didn’t win. Despite the fact that I was extremely bored on stage. Despite all the unnecessary sports and games. Despite all of that and more stuff, I still count my blessings.