Senior Shreyas Chakravarty takes a deep breath, steps forward under the bright lights and begins to speak: “I’ve been searching through books and magazine articles to answer one simple question: why I, at 17 years of age, still don’t have a girlfriend. I finally have the answer: I’m just too hot. And just like that, the war in the Middle East is way too hot, and it’s time to cool it down if they want to find their love.” 

This is just one example of the jokes Shreyas incorporates in his speeches to draw the audience in. He started in middle school, learning about and competing in various events before settling on Extemporaneous Speech. 

“I first decided to do speech and debate because for a long part of my childhood, I had a problem with my stutter,” Shreyas said. “I really wanted to find a way to express myself, because that was one of the gigantic challenges that I was going through. I thought speech and debate was a great way to do it, and I’ve been continuing it because it really is a wonderful avenue for persuasion.”

Although speech requires a lot of dedication and time — at one point Shreyas subscribed to fifteen political newsletters at the height of his Extemporaneous speech season — it is also full of levity and joy. Competitions are an opportunity for bonding, with teammates often commiserating or celebrating with each other. 

“The level of camaraderie on our team is really amazing,” Shreyas said. “We’re always with each other at tournaments, joking around about our rounds and a judge that looked at us strangely. We usually eat together, we’ll get DoorDash at the hotel. This year we watched a 2000s rom com. It was so quintessential.” 

Close friend senior Hannah Levanon first met Shreyas in frosh year when she noticed him reading the Iliad during lunch and struck up a conversation. A deep discussion followed on the book and their moral and personal values. His ability to engage in deep dialogue stands out to Hannah as an important factor in their friendship. 

“He’s a very intelligent debater,” Hannah said. “He speaks very intelligently when you discuss something with him. He goes all the way into a discussion. He will find a way to disagree with you and push your views, even if he internally has aligned opinions with you. We were able to have these really insightful conversations very quickly.”

Shreyas also took interest in environmental issues and later decided to join the Green Team. He enjoys talking to people about sustainability and learning more about their unique perspectives. 

“People who believe in environmentalism believe in it for different reasons, and they believe in different parts,” Shreyas said. “For example, I was doing some phone banking, and I called a woman in West Virginia who’s a mother of three. She is really concerned about climate change, but her husband’s a coal miner, and she can’t support these proposals that’ll harm her present for a future that she doesn’t know.” 

Spanish teacher Diana Moss, Green Team’s faculty adviser, felt impressed by Shreyas’s level of commitment to Green Team. She can always count on him to take a project to the next level or put in extra effort, such as urging students to dispose of their trash in the correct bin during the Green Team’s food audit. 

“Throughout the entirety of the lunch period, he reminded students in the most pleasant way possible, because it’s hard to get called out when you’re throwing your trash,” Moss said. “He stayed late, and he helped us weigh everything. It was Mr. Irvine, Gary, me and Shreyas, who basically ran that food audit, and that was where he stood out to me. He was always the careful one to look around and make sure things were picked up.”

Shreyas also enjoys helping others through his passion for biology. He became interested in the subject after taking a class in eighth grade, and his fascination grew as he began reading research articles and sifting through the abundance of information available online. He plans to become a doctor and volunteers at Salinas Valley Health’s emergency department, where he puts his Spanish skills to use. 

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be there to talk to people who are in a great amount of distress,” Shreyas said “One thing that’s really unique about that area is it’s 80 percent Hispanic, and about half of the people who come into the hospital speak little to no English and only Spanish. It’s a great opportunity for me to use my Spanish and connect with a population that I haven’t had a lot of exposure to here in the Bay Area.” 

Junior Anoushka Chakravarty, Shreyas’s younger sibling, adds that while others may initially only see his passion for environmental activism or speech, she believes his kindness and compassion are the most important — both traits Shreyas embodies alongside his confidence and humor that make him approachable to everyone, in hospitals, speech competitions or Green Team meetings.

“He’s the person that everybody goes to when they need advice about something,” Anoushka said. “He’s always thinking about other people. He’ll be having the worst day of his life and he’ll still walk up to me and ask me how I’m doing.”