Verbattle is now in its twenty-first year. With hundreds of competitions in these twenty years, the process of selection and winning has evolved into what has now become a standard Verbattle structure of preliminary and final selection.
The performance of each team is essentially marked based on the judges’ evaluation and audience reaction. In Verbattle, although audience reaction often influences the judges’ decisions, there have been instances where teams that scored highly with the audience failed to impress the judges and, consequently, did not make it to the finals. For three consecutive years, the most popular (with the audience) team in the Zonal Skirmish segment did not advance to the finals.
Verbattle judges are usually working professionals who often come with limited time, patience, and a sense of detachment, making them less tolerant of indiscipline, digressions from the subject, and lack of preparation. They tend to go straight to the heart of the matter—content and the appeal of the argument.
Unfortunately, sometimes arguments touch the listener or judge emotionally. Despite guidelines, judges have, on occasion, reacted emotionally to the arguments presented and marked the teams accordingly.
Once, when asked why a certain team was selected despite not understanding the statement they were arguing in favor of, the judges’ unified response was that they liked the confidence of the participants and selected the team purely on the basis of their performance.
A notable feature of Verbattle is that the children, especially the winning teams, are generally well-behaved, soft-spoken, and non-aggressive. There has been an exception, though. Of the two children in the winning team of Verbattle 2008, one spoke in a loud voice and argued emphatically, but the team won. The judges were torn between this team and another that evidently had better arguments but was less aggressive. The decision favored the former team, with the judges particularly considering the fact that the team members were much younger than the other two teams.
Contrary to the selection round, in the debates of the state-level stages, judgment is more dependent on the content than the performance. If all three teams are found to be equal, the decision becomes purely subjective and, in some cases, surprising. Still, the question remains: with all the content and substance, why do some teams fail to make it? In one case, the audience was baffled by the result, and the losing team was moved to tears. The judges explained that the team had poor body language—there was no physical expression of their conviction, no movement of the hands, nor any facial expression.
Some teams are very good, with almost flawless articulation and factually strong arguments. However, a debate is ultimately not an activity in isolation; it is an appeal to be heard, understood, believed, and reacted to. The whole process is defeated if the debater fails to appeal since this appeal must reach a very human audience that has the option to not listen to the argument. It is a tough task for the debater to hold the attention of both the judges and the audience. While judges are expected to concentrate and be patient, it is nearly impossible for them to pay undivided attention for three to four hours to arguments they may not necessarily be interested in, however committed they are to the cause of Verbattle.
The mentor and support group of a particular losing team mentioned that they had instructed the team to abide strictly by the onstage conduct rules, which led to the team performing in an understated manner. Verbattle rules state that participants cannot make loud gestures, move about the stage, draw unnecessary attention to physical actions, or scream or shout. These rules should not stop any debater from making the debate lively and the argument more expressive. Using hands to make relevant gestures that are acceptable as normal and help make the presentation interesting and delightful for the audience cannot be objected to or seen as unacceptable under any rule or standard. What is not allowed is table thumping, flailing hands, shouting, or any other action construed as loud or unruly. A good speaker is expected to know the importance of physical gestures and communication expressed through body language.
A speaker at a higher level of a Verbattle competition feels justified in their argument and its content. Caught in a debate, teams sometimes fail to monitor themselves and the track of their arguments. Even going off track once or twice in the debate can attract disdain from the panel of judges, who may lose interest in listening further, however good the subsequent performance may be. For example, when the debate is about ‘Indians lacking a sense of beauty,’ the arguments may veer toward talking about ‘how beautiful India is,’ even if the teams started by speaking about a ‘sense of beauty.’ The argument may sound good but is entirely off-topic, even though the linking word throughout the debate is ‘beauty.’
Audience reaction can be deceptive. A participating team with sufficient friends among the audience may receive more cheers and encouragement, and every line of argument by them could be accentuated by applause or acceptance by the audience. This may, unfortunately, lead the team to believe their performance was the best. One particular mentor-teacher raised objections to howling and loud cheering by a section of the audience because she was ‘scared’ that it could influence the judges. Curiously, the team that was cheered the most did not even reach the Combat stage, let alone win the competition.
Finally, Verbattle should be understood as an activity happening in a human society without too many rules to restrict the debates, the audience, or the judgment. Human beings normally understand and appreciate things by taking the sum total of all the factors that influence them in a particular situation. If one does not have the ability to understand and take advantage of these different factors, the only way to accept the judgment is by attributing it to luck. For anyone who has observed Verbattle closely, there is indeed a pattern and a science to the pattern; the only challenge lies in taking advantage of that science, which has not yet been achieved.
