December had started and everyone in the school was discussing about the upcoming student’s week, in which we had so many competition to take part in. I was interested in speech competition, where the theme was to give a tribute to our national personalities.

My classmate Sameer was paying a tribute to Allama Iqbal and Shiza was giving a tribute to Liaquat Ali Khan. When it was my turn to decide whom my tribute would be for, the decision was not difficult for me, as I choose my favourite personality, Quaid-i-Azam. But the problem was that along with me, there were so many other students who also wanted to talk about him. Some were more eligible than me and I was intimidated by so much competition.

We had to write the speech and give a demonstration, and if selected, we could take part in the final completion. I realised that if I won’t be selected, then I would be demoralised. So I encouraged myself and rehearsed a lot before the audition. To begin with the task at hand, I collected information about him to make my speech worthy and presentable.

Finally, my presentation was good enough. So, I showed it to my parents and teachers before I finalised it. All of them liked it a lot. And when I gave the speech before the teacher making the final selection of the participants for the speech competition, I was a little nervous but I managed to deliver it smoothly. I was very excited when I got selected and that boosted my confidence. But the toughest stage was still to come, when I had to deliver my speech in front of the whole school.

On the morning of the speech competition, I was feeling very nervous, and had no confidence and faith in myself. But going through the speech on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid-i-Azam, the words of my speech had an impact on me and I realised that I was going to talk about the person whose faith and confidence was so exemplary that he was able to overcome all obstacles to achieve his aim. It made me want to give my best so as to honour the Quaid by making my speech about him one of the best of the day.

When my name was called, I went to the stage and started with “Bismillah”, and went to give my speech. My speech went great and there was no error. At the end of the competition, our principal distributed certificates to those who performed well and I was awarded with the certificate too. I was very happy because I never thought I can even win a competition, that too a speech competition. The experience increased by self-confidence and from that day onwards I always participated in such events.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 23rd, 2023