Who's going to stay on the balloon?

NSU Debating Club organises Balloon debate
By Elita Karim
29 January 2004, 18:00 PM
Around a year ago, the major debating societies and debating clubs around Dhaka City, came up with yet another new pattern of debate, entitled the Balloon Debate. The whole concept revolves around how 5-7 different people hypothetically climb on to a hot air balloon to reach their destination. At one point the balloon gets too heavy and begins to float down towards earth. Each of the passengers on the balloon fight to stay on it, until only one of them stays on, and the rest of them all fall off.

Based on this hypothetical concept, a Balloon Debate was organised by the North South University Debating Club, which was a part of the NSUDC Succession Ceremony 2004 at Star Tower, North South University. Seven young debaters coming from different debating societies of the city, played the roles of seven professionals, who were desperately trying to prove themselves the ideal individual to look after the government of Bangladesh. In the process, each of them was conceptually trying to throw the rest of the people on the balloon, by defending their professions and self-built ideas.

Well known debaters namely Shahan, Abeer (Group of Debaters Dhaka University), Proshun, Tarek (Notre Dame Debating Club) Boral, Nayeem and Nayeem (North South University Debating Club) played the roles of a communist leader, student who had gone abroad for further studies, a DV lottery winner who had left for the States, a labourer, Mafia lord, ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) and a retired police officer respectively. Each of them used their hilarious sense of humour and also a lot of sarcasm to describe the reality of the political society.

The spectators thoroughly enjoyed this very new and recent pattern of debating, and appreciated the notions reflected by the young generation.