My love for my native language led me to participate in hindi speaking events. After years of winning poem recitation and debate competitions, I was appointed as the Hindi Debate and Elocution Captain of my school. As the Hindi Debate Captain, I played an instrumental role in remodelling the 180 year old hindi debating system at school. Let me explain: The debating system at my school followed the Cambridge format (debating over 6 days) for English, and the Oxford format (debating over 1 day) for Hindi. Since this was a day’s affair that didn’t require large-scale selection and scheduling, the event never received enough attention, adding to students’ resistance towards the language. Someone had to take the effort and I decided to use my position as Hindi Debate Captain to change the debating system of middle schoolers to the Cambridge style. I pitched the idea to the supervising teacher and after carefully sketching a schedule for the matches and workshops the principal approved and we successfully started larger-scale preparation. Now, we pay more heed to what we’re saying, instead of the language we’re saying it in. The kind of conversations we have now instill more confidence than fear.