law school life
Dear tennie weenie Law Student,
Welcome to a National Law University. Whichever NLU it is; some things will apply; things which are perennial and all embracing. Things like laws(?) And you’ll have to adjust to these things. I call it puppy training. What I say here is not the gospel truth. I don’t say that you necessarily follow it. But it will help you some bit. It will give you a perspective. It will give you time to ruminate; ruminate slowly, digest and grow stronger.
Another thing: The five years will change you, for good. Why I am writing this is to help you gain a head-start, to warn you of the pit falls so that the good becomes better (hopefully).
Let me start with 'adjustment'. You are nearing adulthood. You have arrived at a college. You are in a new city. You will meet people from all parts of the country. You will have no parents around. A different room. A roommate. Law. Law books. Research papers. Roommate. Food. Air. Water. Friends. Roommate. Enemies. Teachers. Seniors. Roommate. Hostel. Drinks. Money. Roommate.
So you’ll have to adjust. Especially with your roommate. J
OK. Now, let me begin. I’ll sound preachy. Excuse me for that.
Firstly, this is not your home. Your cosy home is gone. Your flavoured, tailor-made milk which your mom brought to the bedside is gone. The home made food is gone. Even the water will taste different. You will wash your own plates. The TV viewing will be democratic. You might miss a Chelsea match. You might miss the India-Australia cricket match; depending on the way the vote sways. This is not your home.
It will soon become, though. Give it a year. With time you will love it more than your home. Give that another four years. Till then, be strong. Don’t cry. Don’t cry on the phone especially.
Lower your expectations. Expect less. The size of your room will surprise you. Expect it to be small. The habits of your roommate will surprise you. Expect less from him. Among the five teachers you’ll get; two will be trolls, two will be average. Expect less from them.
But that one teacher is why you are here in an NLU. He’ll be brilliant. You’ll also come in contact with some friend, brilliant chaps. You’ll also take some forks in the road which require hard work to tread upon them successfully till the destination. And then, your dreams will know no bounds. Expect a lot.
Learn yogic penance. It aids slogging. If you want to do well here and get that Amarchand offer; prepare to slog. Sitting for five lectures in a day will require great yogic penance. Doing the readings for the next day, again yogic penance. Yogic penance for researching for the upcoming moot; an essay etc. Learn yoga. Learn how superman works. Combine that. Practice that.
Don’t worry. You’ll have a lots of time to chill. When you are a master, yoga assists in that too.
Opportunities will fly like birds. Be vigilant like a hunter. Keep the bow strings attached, taut and ready to hit. Aim for the target. Hit. Aim. Hit. Keep doing that. The birds will make a good meal.
Well this is what generally happens. When you’ll enter the law school you’ll be flooded with opportunities. You’ll be awed. Mesmerised. You’ll close your eyes trying to imbibe it all and by the time you’ll open your eyes, it is gone. Be on your toes. Aim and hit. Don’t wait.
Don’t worry. You will have a lots of time to chill. Soon hunting becomes an art and the hunter becomes a Zen expert. That will happen too. But till then, keep hitting.
The principle of pain and pleasure. Bunking a class will give you pleasure. It is fun. Bunking classes will be a bigger pleasure. But it will soon turn to pain. You’ll be debarred from a paper. Learnt to differentiate between the two; pain and pleasure. It will hold you in good stead.
Finally, let me tell you: first year is the toughest year. Because you have to adjust to myriad things. On days when the clouds are heavy and dark you might also consider leaving the law school. But wait. Wait for the lightning to strike your brain and return you to your sane self. By being a reasonable chap you will do well. By the time you start your second year; you’ll realise why this was the best thing that happened to you.
Yours preachingly,
Legal Poet
ps- please tell me what topic should I write on in the next part of this series
Q. I have made it to a national law school. What should I expect? How should I prepare for a life at an NLU?
Ans. 1. Prepare to be crushed and subdued in everything you think you are great at. If you are great at debating, you might not be in the debating team. Prepare for that.
2. Prepare for great opportunities to come your way. Prepare for people snatching the opportunities from you because it is they who deserve and not you. Prepare to be stronger to catch some of the goodies yourself.
3. If you want to do well in academics, prepare to slog. There is no other way out.
4. If you want to enjoy to the fullest, you can enjoy to the fullest. But then, you won’t get a high paying job easily. Prepare for that.
5. Prepare for some great lectures by great faculties. Prepare to be handled some really good sleeping pills by many a ‘doctors’. It could be anyone: ‘Dr. ABC’.
6. Prepare for your initiation into a free, adult world.
7. Prepare for food which sucks, water that makes you ill and air which is foreign. Don’t worry. You will like it soon. Everything is hateable before it becomes lovely.
8. Prepare to say a 'yes' or 'no' to the opposite sex and cigarettes and other maya jaals if you haven't yet said so.
9. Main Samaya Hoon (I am time. Remember Mahabharta?) Prepare to see time fly by, like a bird. It will also drop shit on you. It will also sing wonderful songs for you. It will be as ugly as a vulture, as beautiful as a peacock. Sometimes you will ponder: what animal is this? Don’t ponder. Work. Word hard.
10. Prepare to get bored one year down the line.
11. Prepare to get excited two years down the line.
12. Prepare to be called a 'failure' , 'a real loser'; a 'tremendous success' by your ego depending on what path you choose.
13. Prepare for missing your parents and at 20, crying.
14. Prepare for enjoying your friends' company so much so that you forget to call your parents.
15. Prepare for politics. Prepare for smite. Prepare for love. Prepare for hate. Prepare for pride.
16. Prepare for wasting a month doing nothing. Prepare for slogging for a month, 14 hours a day for a Jessup, for the Harvard law review article.
17. Prepare to read tomes. Piles of tomes. Prepare to write 15,000 words of ‘well researched papers of publishable quality’ in 4 months. When you have done it successfully prepare to say a ‘wow’ to yourself. If you do it well, tell me how.
Welcome sire. Your preparations have just begun.
PS- This is an enlarged and edited version of a forum post earlier. Thought, a blog post will make more sense.
Law Schools can be stifling, stultifying and discouraging at times. People look down upon the ‘other’; sometimes very disparagingly. A mooter thinks mooting is ‘the’ thing. The cool guy thinks that ‘mooting’ is for nerds etc etc.
I believe we should respect choices. Here is a simple piece on that belief.
The many DREAMS In A Law School: Nothing BIG Or SMALL About It
In law school many people live,
People of many colours.
Colourful dreams they do have,
Dreams of many flavours.
Look! There is the GPA chap!
His wish is to be the class’s cream.
Don’t look down upon him. Clap.
Because he does have a dream.
There is the big mooter, supreme:
Vienna, Jessup and places alike,
In his dreams do they chime.
You’ll go places, I know....
But I hope, you won’t chide,
These places he wants to go.
This is the sportsman, all pumped
With all skills his body does,
Look at the sweat and the pumping blood...
Berating him ‘an unserious student’ would be lame
Because he too is a student of the game.
There is the portly rotund guy:
He eats, drinks and gets high
And plays video games all night.
Ah! He is happy in his eye....
Then why do you have this in your mind
That he is a loser in his life?
We all have dreams, dreams big,
Have your dream; a thing to achieve.
Never think that your dream is bigger...
Bigger than, others conceive.
Because dreams like love, like ethics
Cannot be ever relative;
They can only be; dreams,
Keeping the man up from his deathly sleep;
Nothing big or small about it.
THE FIFTH YEARS ARE LEAVING
The fifth years are leaving:
The mooters are leaving, the debaters are leaving,
Their trophies, proudly in the library sit,
Smiling at the newer faces.
The researchers are leaving, the writers are leaving.
Their books and papers in the glass cupboard
Tell us of the words they wrote...
Their words tell us of the lives they lived.
The cricketers are leaving, the footballers are leaving.
That hundred is remembered, that goal is remembered.
That ovation is remembered...
An ovation they will always receive.
An LPO owner will get cracking at his work,
Associates at Amarchand will descend to various cities,
Clerks in the Supreme Court will all start anew...
They all did their jobs brilliantly.
Boyfriends are leaving, girlfriends are leaving.
Some together (would-be husband and wives),
Some broken! Ah! An exile...
Their kisses are leaving; the affection still has after effects.
Trying to capture five years
In a measly, mawkish, FB statuses...
Boys are crying, coz they are leaving
Five years of memories, in a building, six storied.
A flight is cancelled,
“I’ll go a day later”
Girls are leaving; days are fleeting...
Fifth years are leaving.
-Legal Poet
Crib means ‘to bicker’, says my dictionary.
NLS cribs about its hectic schedule: the trimester system which doesn’t allow them to lead a sane college life. NUJS cribs how claustrophobic the 4-5 acre campus can get. NALSAR cribs how the college is in a village, far from the city and gets mundane at times.
This cribbing has been going on for ages when LST’s forum used to be a battle-field. Many a time law aspirants are misled by such debates. I pity them and detest the anonymous posters of false, advertorial comments.
The two biggest cribs are: ‘my NLU stronger than thou’ and ‘Non-NLU students are given a biased treatment’. I humbly ask, why? I suggest you hit your heads against a bric(k). It even sounds anti-semantical to crib. Or maybe heed to this advice, as you should to Bahz Luhrman’s ‘Wear Sunscreen’.
Advice no. 1: There are no right decisions. You have to make your decisions right.
Advice no. 2: Don’t say ‘NO’ to ‘what is’.
In NLS ‘there is’ the trimester system. The academic rigour is what makes NLS, the law school. At NUJS ‘there is’ a small campus. But then the entire posh and happening Salt Lake is your home. And ‘NALSAR is’ far from the city. But with 400 college kids at one beautiful place how can it ever get boring?
Now let me take care of the two biggest cribs through a poem and multiple post scripts. See what God has to say on ‘who is the strongest’. (BTW the bolden part in the poem is by God; the holy man whose advice you can’t ignore).
Who is the strongest of all the beings?
One day I just tried to see
As to who is the strongest
Of all the beings?
I called the Elephant and thus spake he
“Oh! Not me! The Lion! The Lion!
He is my King!”
Off he went and the Lion came
With his foot long claws
And a big, bushy mane.
“Of course not me! Though I’m the King
The Elephant I fear.
His trunk, his tusks! Oh my dear”
Bewildered and confused I sat in my room,
“Ummm...Perhaps the snake
Big and Cruel”!?
The big black snake, his voice he lent
“Oh! The Mongoose thanks he is in Kent
Or he in the bushes, means my death”.
Over my life I pondered and pondered
Reached God and there I thundered
“Oh! God tell me! Who is the strongest of all the beings”?
In a voice so unearthly.
In an ambience so heavenly.
The lord began to answer:
(Now, the part below
Do slowly you read.
Here is where God
His message he reveals).
Where are you son?
"Heaven", I answered.
What’s the time son?
"Seven", I answered.
The sun had gone down,
The clouds were yellow.
The Lord had gotten up,
And I turned mellow.
See this map here...
Where does it lead?
Where? I asked, Your lordship
Where you walk towards, he answered.
(Read the above para. I am trying to sound profound J).
PS 1- Where you walk towards. Yeah! It doesn’t matter in which law school you are, but what you end up being once you have completed your college that does. I know students in ‘weak’ law schools emerge strong coz they walk on the right paths and vice versa.
2- Here is another useful analogy- There is a 25 floored building. The terrace signifies the highest point a lawyer can reach. All of us begin from the floor. Students of the top NLUs start on a lift. Others have to take the stairs.
If you take the stairs leisurely you will be left behind. If you are aggressive about the ascend you will be as quick as the NLU guys. And well, law schools can only take you up to a certain floor; say the 5th floor. After that, it depends on how good you are at your work.
3- My animals are humble. Law students, especially when anonymous are arrogant. Otherwise there is a nice healthy rivalry among these colleges.