“Class, the five best schools in our city will compete in an inter-quiz competition. As our school is one of the five, I am going to selecting the top five students from your class for this competition,” announced Miss Sadia.

Miss Sadia chose Ali, Ahmed, Adnan, Sana and Sara for this competition. They were given resource material to practice and learn all they could within a month as the competition was next month. A group of teachers was assigned the task to prepare them for this prestigious competition. They used to practice after school each day.

One day Sana complained to Adnan, “Adnan, I don’t think you are serious about this competition.”

“I am working as hard as I can. I think you should say this to Sara, as she did not answer most of the questions asked by our teacher,” reasoned Adnan.

“No need to pinpoint me. My questions were tougher than yours. Would you have been able to answer those, if Miss Sadia had asked you,” argued Sara?

“Well, she didn’t ask me. She asked you, and you were not able to answer it,” replied Adnan.

Before Sara could say anything, Ali interjected, “No need to argue like this. We are a team, and we will only win this competition if we work as a team.”

No one said anything further and they all went their home.

Each day they would practice after school, but would be quarrelling as well. None of them was happy with one another’s performance, nor they were helping each other to overcome their individual shortcomings.

Ali and Ahmed tried their best to make the rest of the three understand the importance of a team, but none of them budge to work as one.

Finally, the day of the competition came. They were prepared, but were nervous as well. Everyone had tried their best to prepare for this competition. There were three rounds in the competition, and after each round, the lowest-scoring team would be eliminated. In the last round, three teams would compete and the best one would be declared the winner. Everyone wished them the best of luck.

During their first round, due to their difference, they were barely able to save themselves from being eliminated. Instead of a quick discussion when an answer was put to them, they would end up arguing or refusing to listen to what the other was saying.

Ahmad warned them, “If we want to win this, you have to set aside your differences and work as a team.” But none of them was prepared to do so.

Finally, they were in their last round. Now the competition was between their team and two other teams, Team A and Team B. The presenter explained to them that it was a group buzzer round. If a group thinks that they can answer the questions regarding a particular topic, they should press the buzzer.

Then the presenter will ask each group member one question regarding that topic. Only the team whose members answered all questions correctly would get a mark. There were five topics, but each team had two chances to press the buzzer.

For the first topic, Team A pressed the buzzer and was able to secure the point. The presenter’s next topic was astronomy, and Sara pressed the buzzer, despite knowing that Adnan’s astronomy was weak. They were unable to achieve the point.

Team B was also able to achieve a point by pressing the buzzer on the third topic. Adnan pressed the buzzer on the fourth question, and they were again unsuccessful in getting the point. With that, Team C lost their chance to win. On the last question, Team B pressed the buzzer, and they won.

Team B was celebrating and basking in their moment of success, and so was Team A for playing their best. Whereas Sara, Sana, Adnan, Ahmed and Ali were sad because they realised that they didn’t play as a team. They not only let themself down, but also their school. They now understood that being in a team means working together and not individually, but it was too late to save them from their loss.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 9th, 2021