The Watford Festival is a music, speech and drama festival, held annually. This year there were over 1800 entries in the speech and drama category. The competition was divided into age groups in the respective categories. Categories included: Prose reading, Verse Speaking, Sight Reading, Solo acting, Set poem, group acting etc...

There were two rounds. First of all, each age group and category was split into classes of around 12 candidates and the winner of each class was awarded a gold medal. Then, all the gold medallists competed in the Senior Final for the cup on the 29th March 2009, in that specific age group and category.

Neha Patel aged 12 took part in the “Verse Speaking – school years 7 and 8” and was against 4 other gold medallists in her group, competing for the cup in the final.

Bhavisha Patel aged 14 took part in the “Verse Speaking – school years 9 and 10” and was against 3 other gold medallists in her group, competing for the cup in the final.

With Maharaj and Swami’s grace, both BAPS Balika Mandal girls won a cup in their categories In the category of “Sight Reading – school years 7-9,” Bhavisha won the gold medal in the group. Sight Reading involves reading a passage from a book, which is given to you for the first time 2 minutes before the performance. Then you must go on stage and read the passage, with expression and correct pronunciation. However there is no cup for that in the final.