A city of youngsters, Vada Pav, Dabeli and the BEST Cold Coffee.

Last year, standing right outside the gates of Hindu college trying to get in, to attend Mecca, their annual fest, I saw an old acquaintance from school walking out and handing me a chit with "Participant - Premchand, PD" written on it. Thanks to her and that chit we got in the campus. After entering we called her up and thanked her after which I looked at the chit and tried to make sense out of what was written on it. I saw pamphlets of Premchand were stuck around and that was when I got to know that "PD" stood for Parliamentary Debate. I wondered to myself what exactly a PD was. Little did I know that within a year, I'd be PD-ing myself and enjoying it so bloody much.

So, Last year November, I did my first PD. A brilliant experience. Mostly because I had nothing at stake. I watched some of the best teams debate and pick up the best things from their styles. I made amazing friends over the break-night party and somehow as crappy a place Bhopal was, it was an amazing experience to meet new people, to make friends and to eat tasty food all day long. Of course a lot of credit goes to the people at NLIU, they were amazing hosts and a lot friendlier than expected.

But in the NLIU debate, I was a trainee. My opinion didn't matter much even though I was marked high by my chair and she thought I did deserve to be promoted, there was nothing much that could be done. So probably it was the competitive spirit that I missed out on. But this time, my second PD at ILS, Pune, I was going as a speaker. Tagged as the good-but-not-so-good team, my two friends and I were teamed up together. That is when the competitive spirit took over and I protested against it and I was made the bitch of our contingent. But that didn't bother me. Three good but unorganised people together when none of them was sure about their own performance irked us a bit. But maybe it all worked out. We worked rather well together in our brain storming 20 minutes of prep time, we worked more as a team than expected. So, as a speaker, you have a completely different type of rush in you. The adrenaline rush it something to experience.

On the first day in Pune, I met a friend at MG road. Roaming around there, eating Quiche in a tiny bakery followed by Mac and Cheese at Marz-o-rin and eating chocolate at 11 East Street Cafe, I was in love with the city. The number of youngsters and the hustle-bustle of the city made me fall for it the first day itself. Sitting in a 100 year old building, looking out at the MG road sipping Butterscotch shake with the nice cool wind blowing my in face and talking, it was pure bliss. A much needed break from the extreme Delhi winters and one month of exams.

The second day, the day when the debates were to start, we had a couple of hours before the rounds so we went to the ILS canteen and ate there. We all went for the safe stuff and ordered Cold Coffee, I mean how much can someone mess with cold coffee, right? So we ordered our Cold Coffees and this and that and then finally when we drank those coffees and all we went was like "F*ck!! This is the best coffee we've had, ever!!" and I swear I am not exaggerating, it really was the best Cold Coffee. Then after drinking almost 3 of them we left for FC road. Oh, FC road, lined up with food joints, malls and tiny shops I fell in love with the place even more. From walking the complete length of that road to Raushan buying her awesome bright pink watch to the fake Zarra, it was an amazing start to the day that we all were nervous about. We all knew that in a couple of hours we'd be debating for the first or the second time in our lives.

We got back at the campus around 2 in the afternoon. waiting for the rounds to start. Getting nervous our of our wits, the rounds started. Nervous about if we could work together or not, Aman, Vrinda and I found the stairs empty and we sat there brain storming. Luckily enough, we worked with immense understanding and somehow bonded over the nervousness.  we didn't realise when the 20 minutes went by and we had out runner coming and telling us that time's up. We walked in to see that one of the scariest debaters (this opinion was given by a lot of people who watched the mock match up) was adjudicating us. We lost the round, by a very close margin and we knew we could get better. We took all the advice that our adj gave us and till date, Partha, I'd like to thank you for being SO nice and patient with our feed back in both the rounds.

The second round started. The round in which I was the best speaker (Woohoo!!). I swear I wanted to kill our Adj then because we were good, but then his feedback probably even better than the round before but still losing that round with a margin of 0.5 almost got tears in my eyes and thankfully that day was over. To make myself feel better I met up with the friend I had met the day before and we went for South Indian food which apparently was the best place to get South Indian food but trust me, when Dosa is as crisp as a Papad, it can not be the place serving the best South Indian food. :P

The next day also went by. We were just so absolutely unhappy with the way things were going. Its very annoying when the Adjs are snobs and will give the stupidest of reasons to make you lose. That was when we just thought of having fun and practicing our skills like we didn't care anymore. That was the best day for debating, I swear, That was when we tried all that we could without any pressure and the last round was the best one ever, def chal when it wasn't needed and the speeches of the Symbi guys, absolutely brilliant. :D

The third day we had nothing to do. We slept till late, went to ILS canteen hogged on Vada Pav and Cold Coffee (best breakfast!) and trekked on the ILS hill. The ILS hill had one of the best views of the city. And since I was free, again I met my friend at his college, AFMC, in the evening. Followed by the extremely pretty campus tour of AFMC, I had Dabeli at Fatima Nagar market. Oh what awesome-ness Dabeli was. Its funny how when you bite it, its sweet and as you chew it, it becomes all spicy. The next time, I go to Pune, I shall have one whole meal of just Dabeli. That's decided. After the Dabeli, eating melted chocolate with hazelnut, blueberry cheesecake, buying shrewsberry and shopping for Oshos, we ended up having dinner at a place called Sheesha. Oh, Sheesha was one of the nicest places. There we sat talking about everything under the sun until it was time to leave.         

After returning to the acco, we met our friends, finally Namit, (a friend from ILS) decided to visit us. everyone was going crazy looking for their stuff and packing it because there was no way in hell that we'd wake up early and pack. Talking about random things, laughing at anything anyone said, to Raushan's shoe hanging on the hook, all in all the trip was one of the best ever. And to be the best speaker in 3 out of 5 rounds, just made it better.

If anything that this trip did for me was make me realise just how much I loved debating and how much of a break it was from any other kind of ECA in a law school. PD was one thing that gave you the on-the-spot adrenaline rush and just how the 20 minutes brain storming sessions can be relaxing from other activities. I shall never forget my first time as a speaker and right now, I am looking forward to many more tournaments coming up that I can participate in. :)

Ps, ILS people, you and your canteen is thoroughly missed. It was awesome to meet you guys finally and hope to see you guys soon. :)