legal poet
This is a long poem and has no rhyming scheme but if you read it in a rhythm and read it for fun, things will rhyme.
Note- What the associate of the firm says is in ‘CAPS’.
Note (further) - Something on Trademarks. Trademarks are divided into various classes. For example ‘class 1’ might deal with ‘furniture’; ‘class 2’ with ‘toys’; ‘class 3’ with ‘hotels’ etc.
AND SO THEY WROTE...
It was the intern’s first day at work.
Clean shaved; he arrived at eight
And waited with a bated breath
To see what life ‘as an intern’ held.
Meanwhile he checked his formal shirt,
Formal pants and formal shoes.
‘Formal’ was an informed choice,
‘Be prepared...’ (A lawyer’s ploy).
Back when 1000 mails he did send
Querying about ‘work’, ‘stipend’, ‘dress’ and ‘time’,
Alas! No replies had come to 999,
One said ‘research’, ‘no’, ‘9-6’ and ‘formal is fine’.
[It was a new place for the intern,
In a new city he was encapsulated in.
He looked around- big buildings, dusty squalls,
And then he realised; his capsule was small].
He bade goodbye to such philosophical thoughts
And moved inside the office; “So Posh”!
And said “Good morning ma’am! I am Rohan”,
“Oh! The intern”, she replied (We are expecting your lot).
“Please come. This work station is yours”
“Be seated Rohan, till work comes”, she called.
He remained seated, and no work came
During lunch...behold! Somebody did take his name!
(Or something which sounded similar...same?)
He jumped, excited, he jumped, did not walk.
He jumped to that man, he jumped to his voice,
The voice he heard, had just called his name,
Ah! The intern (Under sun, this, his place).
“HI! I AM RANJIT, ASSOCIATE, IP DIVISION”
“WELCOME” (welcome, a little late for cohesion)
“YOU WILL WORK UNDER ME” (under my weight you’ll die)
“MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE” (here! Have some chai)
Two biscuits and three pleasantries later
He was given a bundle of documents and a letter
Containing 1,2...150 trademarks to be filed
“THE WORK IS RESEARCH” (hope you won’t mind).
The intern was happy...his purpose of life
He attacked the work like: Dogs and bones, Jaggery and flies
He learnt the work through the pre loaded files
Training for puppies (coz puppies can’t fly).
Every class had a different mark...
Trademark...he noted it religiously in a copy.
“Every religion is just the same
A bundle of thoughts, a different name...”
Ah! The musings! Were troubling him again.
He concentrated on his work! The trademark work,
Working fast, concentrated and with flair (feigned)
His clean shaven (ignore dirty pimples) face
Had now bristles of black hair...”SO FINE
YOU CAN LEAVE, IT IS ALREADY NINE”.
“All right sir. Thank you. I have filled fif...”
“RIGHT...RIGHT MOHAN! I’LL SEE THAT TOM” (miffed)
“It is Rohan Sir...” (smiling)
“OH! SORRY”! (smiling, snarling).
The next day he came at nine,
A new shirt and new shoes that shone.
Clean shaven again (from the Gillette’s store),
He started on Trademarks (razor blades, class five).
‘Toys’, ‘underwear’, ‘furniture’ and ‘perfumes’
And such daily items of daily use
Formed a part of his ‘research’
A research which did contusions produce.
(Life paralysing, brain tumour causing contusions).
‘Food’, ‘milk’, ‘clothes’ and ‘toys’,
More research... (A lawyer’s ploy)
To make the intern get rid off
All that he cares, all that he enjoys.
The internship was completed, the research was done.
“NICE JOB MOHAN. HOPE YOU HAD FUN”
(The associate remarked).
“It is Rohan, Sir”. “OH! SORRY” (the second time)
(Two times, they had talked).
But he had learnt, and so he hoped
And researched ‘on various areas of law’
And so they wrote; on his certificate which said
“MOHAN SUCCESSFULLY INTERNED...”(And returned dead).
Disclaimer: Any resemblance to anyone living, dead or in between is delusionary.
PS- To people with money: If I made you smile with this poem, you might consider giving some cash; so that we writers survive and make you smile more. Contact blogging[at]legallyindia.com
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.
Legal Poet’s story- Kaun Banega Crorepati: 1000 words of an emotive biography
Someone had inadvertently disclosed my identity in a comment on the previous ’15 CV Tips’ posts. I was a bit anxious for I had blasted a law firm here before and hope to continue giving a free rein to my pen in future. Eager to divert from the topic I replied with the ‘Bulla ki Jana main Kaun’ song.
Not remaining anonymous might harm me, I had thought. That thought has changed. Here I am. Thread-bare; bare-hearted.
A. Hey! You write well!
I’ll leave the very early childhood part and come to that fork in the road when someone said “Hey! You write well”. It was in grade five. The teacher had asked us to write on ‘My favourite television show’. I wrote on ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’. When the teacher had corrected the essays, she asked “So who do you think has written the best essay?”
The name of the rank 1 holder was uttered loud and clear by the class. “So you all think only he can write?” the teacher asked. Now, the name of the rank 2 holder (yours truly) was murmured; a feeble murmur.
“Hey Tanuj! You write well”, she said, “I have given your essay to the class monitor of the 10th grade for the students of that class to read”! I felt honoured by the comment.
She also gave me two éclairs as a prize. Those two éclairs have been the sweetest eclairs I have had till now.
B. Poems
Poetry came pretty early to me. How? I don’t know. I was in class five, aged around nine or ten when out of the blue I wrote a poem called ‘My Dog’. I was reading a lot on breeds of dogs etc and even had two Boxers as pets, but a poem seemed a bit too far-fetched.
The poem got published in The Tribune, for which I received rupees 50/- as a token of appreciation. The poems: ‘My Cat’, ‘A Sad Monkey’, ‘My Parents’ and ‘My Grandmother’ too fetched me 50/- each.
With 250 bucks earned through poems, the 10 year old that I was, felt pretty rich.
C. Blood is thicker than water
My father made it a point to let the Principal of the school know of all of these poems; and the big hearted nuns (that my Principals were) were ever generous gifting me cheap key rings with Jesus’s photos inscribed on them. My dad also used to secretly phone the school principal and tell her about my poems. The principal used to call me in the office and discuss the poem with me:
“So Taenooj what do you mean by Alsation”? I know my Dad used to put these questions in the Principal’s ear. My dad was enthusiastic about my poems; the Principal took a feigned interest and I hated the whole exercise.
D. A lot of poems and specialisation
In grade five and six, I wrote a lot of poems. I had dreams that someday my little poems would be used for LKG and UKG classes as a part of their course just like ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ were.
I thought this was a very opportune moment, and I, all of eleven I started writing small four liners, specially catering to the toddlers and according to me, a perfect fit for the LKG texts.
Sadly, those 30 odd masterpieces were mercilessly torn up by my younger brother, in one of those fights. Ah!
E. The break and the mentor (Kian, that’s not you. You were probably in Oxford then)
In grades seven and eight and till the end of grade nine I didn’t write any poem. Why? I don’t know. But I was lucky enough to be taught, tutored and mentored by a brilliant English teacher. He allowed me to be as creative as I could be, fanned the flames of my adolescent ego and even made me research on ‘the Nobel Prize for Literature’.
As a student, I never learned any grammar, never felt the need. However, I read like a locust eats. Even when I was too young to go to school, I read through my mother, courtesy the NBT (Nehru Bal Pustakalya) books. The story of ‘Kachra’ (how a boy from the slums is taught by a nice family on how to brush his teeth and bathe his body) still is responsible for the very hygienic me.
F. Q. Career?
I was pathetic at Maths. My grade 10 mathematics score of 83% sounds good. It is bad. I worked like a donkey. With that sort of work, even a Rhesus monkey would have got an 83%. Some of the questions that I cried over were solved by my younger brother in a jiffy*.
Because I was bad in Maths, that made me bad at Physics and Chemistry too. I liked Biology and though my calculations were lightning quick, (they still are) and quicker than anybody (of my age, older and younger) maths simply was not my cuppa. English was!
So in class nine, the discussions which happen in every middle class family, happened.
Career? “No Engineering. No medicine”. I took the decision. My parents supported me wholeheartedly. In India, this happens in a very few households. I consider myself fortunate. (The expensive Brilliant Tutorials modules subscribed to were left for the insects).
G. Answer- Law.
Then my parents asked ‘Umm...So what’? They began searching for the answers too. Dad got this book called ‘Careers in Law’ by Manish Arora. Like the locust which eats everything, I read everything. By the time I could say ‘Law’, I had devoured Manish Arora.
NLSIU, entrance test 2004 was before my eyes pretty soon. I saw the paper. ‘Hey! I am game for this’, I said to myself. ‘Yes’! I said to my parents.
The NLS paper then had a lot of short notes/ essays etc. which I and my dad thought would be the perfect foil for my language skills. We both knew how good drafting skills were needed to be a good lawyer. And dad had done law, so I presumed the soundness of what he said.
But an image in the backdrop still flashes before my eyes. The image of my mother asking meekly: ‘Shouldn’t we put him in the writing line (career)?’ And meek words they remained.
That I didn’t do a BA English or a journalism course is proving to be a blessing, a very apparent blessing, without any disguise. That’s another long story...(CLAT, Law and NUJS).
*My brother: IIT-JEE rank 24 (2009), AIEEE rank 59 (2009). I am not dumb at maths. I was probably up against a genious.