Now they all know us and know Pakistan as a country with talent and potential
LAHORE: I’ve always wanted to get an opportunity to represent Pakistan internationally while doing something I was truly passionate about. I Sarem Leghari, being the only member of a team from Beaconhouse Defence Campus, was thrilled when I got selected by LACAS to be the part of the ‘Team Sondhi’, a three-member team selected to represent Pakistan at a highly competitive international debating tournament in Croatia. The debating contest hosted 96 teams, around 300 students.
We were proud to don the sondhi team blazers and displayed the Pakistan flag in every debate room we had entered but that was just the beginning. With every contest round that followed, the audience size increased and so by the time of the semi-final the room was packed with strangers who had never heard of us before and got slightly surprised by the fluency of our spoken English as second-language-speakers. The adrenaline rush that followed prior to the winning team being announced and the entire experience have been one for a life time, precisely because I love the idea of debating over cut-throat questions, giving my opinion in front of a mesmerised audience and most importantly, the opportunity to express ideas to a varying range of audience.
Debating is about so much more than winning, it’s about free speech; it’s about having the liberty to make people change their minds and believe in you. Second, is the feeling of making my country proud and having earned a name for it. When we won, all eyes were on us, comparing that to the situation three days earleir when nobody even knew who we were, I felt that I had finally made a difference. Now they all know us and know Pakistan as a country with talent and potential which, if given the opportunity, will shine through.
Sarem Leghari
Published in The Express Tribune, December 27th, 2017.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
