Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

From economy to fairness creams

The All-Island Best Speakers' Contest brought youthful talent to the fore...
By Laila Nasry
It was a large audience, 550 people to be exact, a centre stage, all eyes turned in that direction, a ticking clock, indicating every tense moment and a lone figure, holding the audience spellbound.

This was the scene at the finals of the All Island Best Speakers' Contest organised by the Colombo Toastmasters Club, held on June 1. Five participants, composed, confident and young, between the ages of 19 to 26 years and as one judge remarked, "winners already." They had surpassed 55 others at the preliminary rounds, which were held on May 25 and 26, to head for the finals.

The evening began with the prepared speeches, the participants required to make two, one prepared and the other impromptu. The topics were varied - with a young and idealistic teenager reminding the audience of the Rs. 74,000 debt hanging over each of Sri Lanka's 19 million people and our part in ridding the country of its burden. Then there was the 'man in the mirror' who didn't like what he saw, to 'this business of saving the world' articulating the irony where our hearts go out to the starving child on our television screen but often miss the stranger at our gate. From society's mind-set in an 'unfair game' that to be fair is to be successful and beautiful, a myth articulated by all fairness cream commercials, to a contemplation of a father's advice that 'when a woman says no', what she actually means is yes and when she says yes she means no. The audience was moved, encouraged and inspired...at times they laughed and most often were left thought provoked.

The impromptu speeches proved to be the real test. Given a choice between five topics and 20 minutes to prepare, the participants rose to the challenge with an exemplary performance.

'Marriage, the best of institutions' was a favoured topic with two contestants, one asking the question 'who wants to be in an institution' while the other 'waiting to be institutionalised'. The audience was also reminded that in life one ought to 'dance like no one's watching'. 'The pen is mightier than the sword' highlighted the control and manipulation of the media. In 'A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet', involving a compliment paid to an ex-girlfriend that she smelt like a stink bloom (the scientific name for a rose) which promptly made her an ex, the poignant message that in real life, colour, race, religion are of little importance, came through.

It was no doubt a tough task for the judges. The panel comprising DTM Dr. Dilip Abayasekera, the 3rd Vice President of Toastmasters International, Mohammed Adamaly, Tony O' Brien, Head of the British Council, Colombo, CTM Yusuf Jeevunje and Angela Seneviratne judged each participant on speech development, effectiveness of the speech, its value, delivery and language. In the end, there always has to be a winner.

Twenty-six-year-old Dilrukshi Fonseka, a Master's graduate from the London School of Economics was placed first, winning the Bartleet challenge trophy while Ishraq Wahab, Managing Director of a family business and Marissa Jansz currently reading for a degree in English and freelance journalist attached to TNL were placed second and third respectively. Dinal Edirisinghe and Niran Anketel ranked fourth and fifth.

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