Sherwood Quest 2014

Our Schools tryst with the Sherwood Quest!

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it; and whats debating but putting knowledge forward radically. Our excitement was infectious as our team of debaters and quizzers comprising Abdullah Malik, Anshul Roy, Arjun Singh and Pranati Haldia, along with our teacher, Ms Charu Bhatnagar, boarded the Raniket Express on 11th September 2014 to undertake the Sherwood Quest!

We were headed to the alma mater of the Late Mr. Sam Manekshaw himself- The Sherwood College, Nainital. It has given our country personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Kabir Bedi and Major Somnath Sharma. We were one of a select 17 schools that were invited.

Being nervous and yet excited, we spent the train journey testing each other on diverse facts! Soon we had arrived at Kathgodam where a taxi awaited us to take us to our destination. We reached Sherwood in the early hours of 12th September, and were given a very warm welcome. We proceeded to get ourselves ready and going for the first event.

The first event was the fabled Sherwood Quiz, in which a team of 2 was to participate. Our participants were Abdullah Malik and Pranati Haldia, who cleared the preliminary round with flying colours. They continued to emerge victorious in their attempt to reach the finals. While Abdullah took on the challenge of science, sports and politics, Pranati supported him on mythology, culture and literature. After a long drawn exchange with our competing schools like La Martiniere, Rashtriya Military Academy and Vasant Valley, The Indian School team took the overall 5th position. The next day started with a new event, the Sherwood Debate. Each team had to select 4 participants to take part in the debate, wherein in the preliminary round, only 2 speakers would speak, 1 in a turncoat debate, and the other as extempore. The turncoat topics were to be given to us 2 hours before the event with internet access, following which a 4 minute turncoat had to be presented. The extempore speakers were to be given only a minute to prepare their 2 minute speech! A parliamentary-style debate was to follow the successful completion of this round.

Our school decided to field Anshul Roy for the turncoat, for which his topic was ' Wisdom can be Derived From Good Reading Habits '. Alongside, Pranati Haldia represented our School in the extempore, wherein she was given the topic Attitude. After brainstorming for a minute, she spoke about the topic with passion. Simultaneously Anshul put his mind and soul alongside our resource person, for the debate, Abdullah, presented a poised speech which took us from John Rousseau to Buddha in less than 4 minutes! To our surprise, Pranati was one of the top three speakers in the extempore and our team was greatly lauded by all!

The next day started with a deeply serene service in the school chapel, following which the debate commenced. Arjun and Abdullah took the audience by storm by interjecting and questioning the opposition on the diverse topics that were being debated-like the Transformation of the Indian Political System and the Development that the World Wars Led to etc, to name a few. Our passion increased manifold just by listening to the debates so enthusiastically pitched.

After an enriching and enjoyable experience at Sherwood, we returned to Delhi with heavy hearts, and yet with minds sharper than ever! We would like to thank School for giving us an opportunity as memorable as this. We were truly privileged to be in the crme la crme of schools from across India, and came back with just one thought- Carpe Diem!