A new MUNdane experience

                One mind-numbingly boring afternoon I sat with a tattered copy of Simon Haikin’s Communication Systems trying in vain to make sense of what was written in the book. My impending mid-terms and my inability to move past a single paragraph for the past one hour were getting onto my nerves. Suddenly my phone pinged, providing me a well needed diversion. It was a whatsapp text from my friend which said “Oyye are you attending the Mumbai mun??”

                           Mun..??? I wracked my brains trying a number of permutations and combinations of letters thinking that she made an autocorrect spelling error. Finally finding no option but to ask her, I texted back “What the hell is this mun??” She replied saying that mun is no spellcheck error but is an actual existing event called the Model United Nations and a pretty common occurrence in the colleges in Mumbai.

                          I was revisited by the familiar pang I feel every time I realize that I am missing out on a lot of exposure being in Nanded. After the usual mini pity party I tried to understand the basics involved in a MUN conference and promptly registered for said conference. I was super-excited and totally looking forward to this new experience. Call it fate or karma, but her calling me this way and informing me of so and so thing was life’s way of reminding me that opportunities have a way of finding you even when you are in deepest corners of the world.

                       I apologize for the philosophy lecture I gave a moment ago(I really need to try harder to repress my philosophical alter ego-Sruti Maa)so yeah, the one month leading up to the MUN were marked by a few inconsequential events like my stupid midterms and my college fest PRAGYAA(this is a subject that demands the writing of a separate blog).After which I packed my bags and set out for Mumbai. I was going home after two whole months in a slightly zombie-like state which was to be remedied the moment I set foot on Thane station’s platform no.6. I was all set to represent Argentina in the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council)

                            In a perfect world, the first day of the conference would dawn with the beautiful sun shining on the world and me waking up right on time ,being completely ready with my research and reaching the conference on time. Unfortunately there is bound to be some sort of mix-up or some kind of delay when I’m involved(It took me 20 years to finally figure that out :P).So I ended waking up late that day, had a very small amount of research done and was extremely nervous.

Thankfully inspite of being late I was lucky since the panel discussion was yet to start. We were given our ID’s and were told to wait in the conference hall. There was a mix of lawyers and engineers-both first-timers and experienced, in the conference.

                             Every MUN has a basic theme which could be a country or a region of the world (This time it was the Latin American countries) and each of the committees (UNESCO, UNHRC, SPECPOL, etc) have their own agenda. So each committee is chaired in a different room and you have students representing various countries in each committee and discussing the agenda in detail. They discuss, debate and come forward with a resolution which acts a solution for the basic problems involved in the agenda being discussed.

                             The MUNing circuit in Mumbai is very close-knit and active. So if you are an experienced MUNer you get to see a lot of familiar faces in different MUNs. The basic protocol of interpersonal communication dictates that, when you meet a new person you get acquainted with each other by knowing one another’s names first. But these   MUNers are a very weird species…….

                                                  (Cut to a mini-episode)

Me with a delegate sitting and chatting.

A fellow delegate comes up to her and says-Hey….Canada right???

She replies-Yep and you were Egypt right???Nice to meet you. Which committee and country this time???

He says-Im Syrian Arab Republic UNHRC. My foreign policy….blablabla….

She says-Blablablaabla…..

Me-Completely out of loop and thinking….Dude they actually had a conversation without even knowing each other’s names….

                                                   (End of mini-episode)

                                A session of the MUN functions essentially like a more civilized counterpart of the Indian Parliament. Instead of the speaker, we have the executive board and the role of the MPs is played by the various delegates of different countries. There is a General Speaker’s list wherein each of the delegates wishing to speak, is required to submit their names and wait for their turn to speak. And let me tell you something, some of these experienced MUNers are not to be messed with.

                                 I realized this, when the first speech by the delegate of USA prompted atleast three points of order(A point of order is raised when any delegate wishes to correct a factual inaccuracy that may have occurred in the currently speaking delegate’s speech). I mean think about it, somebody is making a speech citing various international laws and statistics  which sound pretty impressive to the inexperienced first-time MUNer(me in this case) and there are people who are actually negating what the first person said, by stating two other equally legitimate sounding laws . I have to admit their listening skills and the ability to not drift off are amazing.

                                  I’d recommend MUNing if you wished to strengthen your public speaking skills and improve your knowledge of world affairs. As a first timer in a MUN you tend to feel like someone who’s been sent to the butcher’s, because the amount of research some of these other delegates come prepared with is astounding. They can tear up each sentence you spoke, making your supposedly intellectual sounding statements sound lame. Another reason why I was mum throughout the three days of the conference ( The other reason being my wish to observe each of the proceedings so as to be able to reproduce it in this blog )

                                  Overall it was a good experience; even though it had me keeping mum for hours together (Didn’t want to make a fool out of myself). Now that I think of it, maybe the long hours of enforced silence were what brought on the bout of sleep-talking during the days of the MUN( I probably fell short of my ‘Minimum number of words to be spoken in a day to function sanely’ quota-I need some outlet for all the things going on in my head). I’ve realized MUNing is not my thing and I don’t intend to pursue it. I belong to the blab spontaneously school of thinking and honestly I can’t be bothered with so much research (too lazy….)

                                  However, I got to see a few interesting characters like the Russian Federation delegate who just wouldn’t shut up. He actually called the entire UNHRC a bunch of dogs for agreeing to a policy that the delegate of USA proposed and ended up being chucked out of the session (After a point I started imagining him speaking with the thick Russian accent to amuse myself). Then there was this delegate of New Zealand who even after being told repeatedly kept raising points of order which were invalid. Infact the delegates were going so crazy trying to outdo each other in terms of raising points of order that somebody actually asked if a point of order could be raised, in case of a grammatical error committed by another delegate. Height of attention-seeking tactics. Then again maybe its antics like these that would make them deserving of the ‘Best delegate’ award.

                                  The delegate representing USA had guts –the agenda was basically an excuse for all the other member countries to verbally attack USA (Guantanamo bay) but she held her stand pretty well. And we had random experienced MUNers coming into our session and representing DPRK (Democratic Republic of North Korea) just for the sake of having some fun. I don’t have to tell you why that would be a fun thing to do :’D

                                  Another funny thing I observed in the MUN was how these guys lobby. They were ruthless when they were lobbying for the passing of their proposed resolution or paper (Passing of any kind of document requires a majority vote, hence the lobbying). So a delegate from camp Pro-USA(Their paper named-America’s Got Talent) would come up to me and brainwash into believing that their paper, which upto 5 seconds ago, I was not planning to vote for, is God’s gift to the earth. Then someone from camp Anti-USA(Their paper named-Obuma sux Patin rocks:’D) would come and unbrainwash me. It was frustrating. They made Modi’s “Ab ki baar Modi Sarkaar” and “Janta maaf nahi karegi” look tame. But the Anti-USA paper’s name sounded awesome in the Russian accent- that’s how I decide who to vote for :D

                                  All in all it was three days of interesting debates, decent food and a lot of memories to make up the ramblings of my current blog.

So in true MUN style,

I, the delegate of Srutiland (It’s an alternate universe with elements of Wizarding England, Narnia and the Pandora) would like to take leave of my fellow readers and hope that the delegate has not conducted too many human rights violations by subjecting the reader to reading the above blog (I know..I’m hilarious:’D).