It's over. The internship, vacations, fun. All over.

Back to "that place". I even look forward to it, but just a bit.

Change is good.

Monosyllables.

Less is more.

Less words, more sense. :-)

Court proceedings.

Lawyers. Lots of them.

One hot-tempered, short-tempered, cranky judge. To quote a very pissed off lawyer, "The monkey that climbed its way into the High-Court, from the lower-court."

Ass fried by cranky, deranged judge.

The law? "Vaat laa?"

Piled up cases.

AC.

Black coats (robes? The Harry Potter kind. Not at all.)

Polyester.

Smell of phenyl.

Gavel.

AIRs.

Books.

Money.

Cash.

Liquid.

Justice? No effing way.

I will NEVER work in a corporate law firm. NEVER. IPR was interesting. But Company law? Urgh. Eyuck.

To think people actually enjoy it.

Tiredness.

Sleep. Required.

Food. Required.

Sleep. Rest. Tired. Stinging eyes.

But, what do I get?

Work, more work.

I FINALLY have work to do. Some case involving Eyetex Dazzler (the cheap local brand of nail-polish and lipstick). Its to do with trademarks, which I have NO CLUE about (first year law student, remember?).

But still. Its work. Research. Work. Yaay!

The dance-show was a lot of fun. My red dress didn't fly up in the air like I anticipated, and the straps of my heels didn't snap mid-dance. My partner (though he was way, way, way older than me) didn't drop me (he only nearly did), and he twirled me just right. Salsa is fun, and if law-school and internship didn't eat up so much time, and if I could find a suave guy for a dance partner, who doesn't think that dancing is gay, and who doesn't have hygiene issues, I'd do it every damn day!

Now it's just the internship. The internship. Massive pain in the rear internship.

Why is legal drafting so boring?

WHY can't I be given "WORK" to do? Not just researching on some ridiculous pointless property dispute and the Law of Wills and the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (which is one of the most bloody archaic laws I've ever come across, but heck, I'm a first year law student. What do I know? I live in my idyllic, rosy bubble where there is uniform civil code, AND anarchy. Contradictory, right?). What is left of my legal brain is rotting and rusting from facebooking, blogging, chatting with random people from the past that I don't intend to really catch up with, and doing other pointless non-intellectual activities between the occasional bouts of research.

And I JUST found out that this is a paid internship. I'm going to get paid for sitting in this air-conditioned office everyday for a couple of hours, using their super-fast internet connection to facebook, blog and chat with random people. I hope they don't pay me. I really hope they don't. I don't deserve this. I feel like a supreme lazy bitch. But then, I'm not lazy.

THERE IS JUST NO WORK TO DO. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. No. WORK.

The stupid court is closed, and it won't open till next week. There are these super-smart fresh-out-of-law-school associates here who keep flying about the office filing writs by the second. This place is over-staffed, and there is JUST NO WORK.

GIVE ME WORK!! Make me file a writ, type out a legal-notice. Something! I'm not that stupid. What is left of my brain is functional enough to WORK, which is why I'm interning in the first place. I'm supposed to LEARN, not learn to be a SNEAKY, LAZY BITCH MISUSING OFFICE PRIVILEGES. Urgh! I'm blinking at this fat, huge, 5000 page text on the Law of Wills researching for a case that has been pending in court for the last two decades and that is probably not scheduled for hearing until next year.

Law-school. And its numerous myths.

Why is life such a paradox? Ironies confound the hell out of me, sometimes. I just don't get it.

Isn't it incredibly ironic that middle-class people who have been born and brought up in a developing country can be so terribly well-read, well-bred, well-mannered and polite despite the 'inadequate education', I quote, they have received, whereas some rich hypocrite who claims to have received a better quality of education from some fancy foreign school and university displays behaviour which is abominable and disgusting, by asking blatantly blunt questions, in a quest to prove his financial superiority over the other--an attempt to make the other person feel inferior?

Isn't it self-explanatory that at least decency, if not aristocratic behaviour, is expected from one who receives what he considers the 'best form of education'? Nope, it isn't evidently. Because what you learn is not dependent on where you study, or even what you study. It's all about perspective, and attitude.

So even if you study in some fancy school and an even better university, and you live in a palatial house, and own a private jet, and can take a cruise in the middle of the year if you so please, at the end of the day you're a smaller person with ABSOLUTELY NO SCRUPLES WHATSOEVER, than your counterpart who is temporarily in what you consider 'a developing country'--a truth that is facaded under the veils of patriotism that suddenly emerges out of nowhere, when you crave the authentic experience of sambar-vadais and Tamil cinema.

So if you think that your financial superiority is a sanction that you are a better, and bigger person, then at least help yourself. Go read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, and learn a bit about the non-materialistic and the aesthetic ways of living sans a private jet and a million people waiting at your beck and call, whom you take for granted, as opposed to the flamboyance that you display coupled with the inflammatory statements you enjoy making and the un-required questions asked not out of concern, but only with the mala-fide intention of attempting to make people feel inferior.

:D

Oh, and now that this is out of me, I call a truce now.

This internship gives me reason to drop out of law-school and become a 'couch-potato-before-the-tv-eating take-out from cartons-and-binge-drinking myself to death'.

If the facts of the case are already typed, and is now ingrained in your brain, WHY do you need me to tabulate it? Oh, I forgot. We're non-paid over-eager first-year law students, who have no clue about the 'law' (read previous post). We have no legal brain.

As an afterthought, reading the case wasn't so bad actually. But after reading it 4 times, I felt like banging my head against a wall. Both the parties are wrong. One wrong nullifies another. So stop suing each other and get on with life. Simple? Not so much.

Every argument has a counter-argument. Everything has to be looked at from a different point of view. Every minute detail has to be harped upon.

Sigh. I chose this. It could be so much simpler if everyone stopped quantifying things.

To quote Rhett Butler, "Frankly my deal, I don't give a damn."

Frosted chocolate-covered strawberries.
And they say it's food-for-sex. Now, who would have thought?

I can't believe I studied Contracts and Constitution for one semester. I don't know a thing, and my stupidity (in the subjects in question, and hopefully not in general) has finally come to surface. So law school doesn't teach you a thing. And interning is 'the learning process'. Sure. You just go nodding your head whilst the guy you're interning under spews legal jargon. Then, when he disappears, you google everything he has said, and feel stupider by the second.
I should read more cases and legal crap, as opposed to fiction. THAT is why they don't stock fiction in the university library.

I cannot fathom how people actually allow people to affect them. It really is beyond me--how can someone as detached, carefree, wild, adventurous and commitment-phobic as me, actually feel?
Maybe I am not that unconventional after all. Maybe I've been so caught up in those soap-opera superficialities that are whittled out of social stigmas, that what is so real just slipped from my fingers. Maybe I give in too soon. Maybe I'm too blunt. And maybe the solution does not lie here.
There's a someone I miss very much. If she was here, things would be so different. She was the least judgmental person I've ever known, and very compassionate and kind. I miss our long, late-night spiritual conversations. I miss her room, which always smelled of Calvin Klein. I miss the aesthetic, instrumental music she played. I miss the dim lighting, open balcony, and her skinny, raggedy pillow. I miss the lemon Smirnoff and mess-chicken that we (I) greedily devoured in her room. I miss those conversations that went on for hours together. We'd speak about Gandhi, Buddhism, world-peace, international politics, people, spiritual stuff and anything that was non-university related. She was the least superficial and materialistic person I've known, and the most fun. She was just so real, too good to be true. She never judged anyone, including the people who were not so kind to her. She always saw the good in people, and never disliked anyone.
I miss her so much. She would have made this place so much better for a lot of people. If you ever read this post, you should know how much you've touched me, and what a big difference your absence has made to me. You should know that I've learnt so much from you, and
I wish you didn't leave. I wish you had stayed on, and your presence would have made this semester a whole lot easier for so many people. And I hope you forgive me for detaching myself, briefly. When I'm ready, I'll get back.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Screw Aristotle. Pointless, archaic, primitive philosophies.
And who knew how bloody boring the Constitution of India can be?
Screw judgments, and hoity-toity judges.
And finally. To hell with law school. And everything that goes with it.

The semester is over. It's been terribly weird in a lot of ways, and there has been an unexpected turn of events. I guess people eventually surprise you (good or bad). This semester has left me with fewer regrets, fewer emotional attachments, more fond memories, and more hurt than one can imagine. But I liked it, at some level. It brought me towards people, and taught me how to feel despite cold numbness and amidst so much hostility and suffocating superficiality. At the end of the day, I guess I've learnt to be more patient, less impulsive and very, very tolerant. It has been good and non-controversial in so many ways, almost peaceful. At the risk of sounding sappy and saccharine, I shall say that maybe this could grow in on me, eventually. Over time.
I wish it could be easier to permeate through walls, though. Through thick, hard, cold stone walls that block you out and freeze you, much as you try to grope your away in the darkness and find a door, to let in the light. It's not like I wanted to. I felt I had to. I still feel, and I wish it could stop, because I know that I'm just scooping sand on my own head. It's pointless. How can compassion, kindness, and softness melt a stone? We're hardly in the world of Grimms Fairy Tales, and Hans Christian Anderson. If it was this easy, I'm sure we'd all be more peaceful and less in a state of war. This, being applicable to fundamentalists (the kind that indulge in moral policing), with all due respect to their regard for the requirement of religious demarcation, a.k.a quest for power.
I'm sure I finally sounded like a terrible imitation (mockery, even) of Wordsworth, the comparison not being intended to flatter myself, (far from it, in fact), with the excessive use of metaphors. I shall stop now.
If only these bloody exams can be evaded. And if only swearing was acceptable, and I could use the F word umpteen times, without sounding disrespectful, to vent out frustrations. If only scruples and principles were not shaped so much by social norms. If only.

Unpredictability can be a turn off sometimes. Such things grown in on you over a long span of time.
You know what else can be a turn off? Gossip. Yes, oodles and ooldes of gossip. Somehow, one of the many cliches that we hear seems to deem fit the situations we encounter. But gossip never dies. Hail, all gossip-mongers. Somehow, privacy is non-existent. As is the ability to exercise the brain in judgment. And a lot of other things, but in judgment, mainly. The brain is used to mug, and only mug. When it comes to decisions? We'd rather go with the majority, wouldn't we? And we're in a law school? One of the million ironies of life.

I read my first ever blog-post and laughed. It was in January 2008. Can you believe, I actually fretted about leaving home, going to college? A while before that, I used to fret over balance sheets. Mine never used to tally, probably due to my abysmal mathematical skills (I can't even add or subtract without making a gazillion errors). I think my balance sheet tallied for the first time in the boards, and even then, the amount was wrong. And it turned out ok. Tallied/untallied balance sheets. Big deal.
It sounds so ludicrous now. Who knows, maybe ten years from now, I'll read these blog posts and laugh. It's always good to find humour out of things you don't expect you will.
I miss New Year Celebrations. The 2004-2005 New Year was by far, the best ever. I can't believe that it's been 5 years since then.
4 years isn't that long, after all. Much as I want 4 years to get over soon, I want to stay eighteen forever. I dont wan't to leave this place, counting years before a gray hair sprouts in my head.
Sigh. To memories.

The person who says that happiness comes from within, should be shot. It does not come from within. It just does not. It is not a state of mind. It does not come from observing nature's beauty. Philosophy is for idealist thinkers.
As for us soon-to-be-lawyers, we thrive on practicality. We need to be grounded, all the time, sardonic as it sounds. In the light of practicality, happiness is love, family, feeling of contentment, money, wealth. Happiness is finding home.

I have not found home here. Does this mean I am not happy?

You learn a lot of things in this place. And law is NOT one of them...
Things that i've learnt in this terribly short span of time, which has felt like eternity:
1. Diplomacy is the best. Don't have an opinion. If you do have an opinion, keep it stuffed between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.
2. People will judge you, no matter what. You can't really change that, or do anything about that.
3. Most people are pretty screwed up. Since it's impossible to judge who is normal without getting in the middle of a rut, it's best to stay away.
4. Hardwork does not pay. Sucking up does.
5. Trivialities prevail. Stay away, again.
6. Seniors are right, no matter what. Even if they are wrong, don't say it. Seniors are messengers of God. They can do no wrong. Courtesy, Divine Origin Theory of Political Obligation. Obligation owed to seniors is unlimited.
7. When called, don't ignore.
8. Don't eat. The food is disgusting, unhealthy and fattening.
9. The whole North-Indian/South-Indian thing cannot be done away with. Accept that you're a dark-skinned (black), non-Hindi Speaking avaracious, over-ambitioous, over-competitive, unfeeling mugger similar to the grossly exaggerated potrayal in 3 Idiots and be proud about it.
10. Regionalism prevails. Live with it, don't deal with it.
11. Plagiarise projects.
12. Self-studying is the only studying you can get done here. Classroom learning is a utopian concept. Plato has 'education as a method of learning' in his ideal state.
13. There is a thin line between stupidity and smartness. It takes one to know one.
14. Keep to yourself. i think this one tops the list. Keeping to yourself.
15. Suddenly, Linkin Park seems like good music. Loud, crazy metal with lyrics that spew frustration and anger. A good way to give vent to feelings. Linkin Park on full-volume. And you need to sing along for the full effect.
16. You can never go to class even once looking the least bit disillusioned without being the butt of someone's jokes. In fact, you are always the butt of someone's joke.
17. Keep to yourself. I find the need to reiterate.


And there is more to this list. Right now, a Scotch and a doobey sound tempting. But I think I'll have to make do with a TV sitcom with slapstick humour and cereal. Damn. Screw morality.

And the list could go on forever.

Where did all that enthusiasm go?
I remember my first day at law school, when I was all geared up for what I had believed would be the most exhilerating years of my liffe. Lost as I was in the sea of unfamiliar faces, I tried to find a place amidst the hostililty and coldness that had not yet percolated to my veins, and that just wafted about in the air like a wisp of smoke that didn't obscure your vision quite so much. Classes were fun. Notes were taken down. Doubts raised. I was a front-bencher. Yes, me. The library was a frequent haunt. Committee-meetings were much awaited. Debate sessions were fun. The experience of mooting was exhalting, despite the volume of research that went with it. Outings were frequent. Dressing up to class was fun. Smiling was fun. Talking to people was common--and a necessity, even.
And then, everything just changes. The enthusiasm is gone. Dead. Smiling is forced, sometimes, not even an option. Classes are exclusively attended for attendance. I'm a back-bencher, paperback in hand, i-pod plugged in ears. People are a turn-off, for the obvious reasons of lack of synchronicity and a whole lot of other things that just cannot be penned down here. Committee meetings are not awaited anymore. Debating seems dry. Mooting is arbitrary, as is the grading system. Studying is an ordeal. Sanity is stretched. Insane people seem to mottle the campus. Bleary-eyed, stoned, half-drunk people constitute a major chunk of what is left of the sane people.
It's not the same. Was never meant to be. All the same, the thought that it could have is good enought.

Shoot me.

Books. I miss reading. The library is one of the most depressing places. Dingy and small, with dull tubelights, long tables and chairs squished in. Racks and racks of shelves, which comprise books that cannot be issued, but only referred to. A smirking librarian, picking on people for whispering. Serious-faced people hammering away at laptops or consulting fat books that they cannot issue and read in the comfort of their rooms. The silence is overwhelming, save a few stray whispers. And the best part is, fiction is denied to law-students, apparently, since the only books available in the library are law books, and a few cliched classics that are supposed to represent the entire class of fiction books. Heck, they don't even have legal-fiction.
It's just fat law textbooks, tattered and dog-eared, wedged between fatter books, on the ugly metal rack. This is testimony to the fact that learning is imposed on us in the most terrible ways. Mental growth is discouraged, and we're made to swallow everything that is dished out to us.
Maybe if there was some creativity and imagination around here,things would be different in every way. For one, I wouldn't have to stare at the black head in front of me in class, and nod earnestly at the gibberish spouted by the teacher, whilst I slip into a reverie far away from here. Secondly, eccentricity wouldn't be considered ludicrous, and idiosyncrasies would not be scorned upon with disgust.
Happy places can be found in books. But they don't realize that.
After all, we're just 21st century kids. The era of technology has transformed us into machines. Data is fed into us, and we process it. This, they call knowledge, education. Hypocrisy is omnipresent, they say. But to this extent?
And they call us sassy, not outspoken. Since when? One of the many ironies of life.

Nostalgia is possibly one of the worst form of emotional wierdness that a person can experience. It often comes in the form of a song that reminds of you of childhood days, when life seemed so simple. Of long car-drives with family, cruising down traffic-laden roads, of swimming lessons, of mangoes, of softy-ice-creams, of art-classes, of salsa, of Harry Potter, of video-games, of summer-vacations during school, of 9th-grade crushes, of going through the 'pink-phase', followed by the 'goth-phase', of unrealistic and unfulfilled dreams and ambitions, of conversations, of chocolate, of VH1, of MTV Most Wanted, of Aqua, and Britney Speares. It reminds you of black nail-polish, hair-streaking, of ankle-socks, of short-skirts, of school-bus rides, of school-bus friends, of canteen food, of school-bus food, of tiffin-boxes, of tupperware, of sharing lunch, of corn-puffs, of orange-ice cream, of sleeping in class, of bunking, of school assemblies, of school prayers, of drill, of the mall, of Javagreen, of granitas, of surprise cell-phone raids, of copying in exams, of cheat-sheets, of sports day, of annual day, of culturals, of debates, of ad-zap.
Life then, was so terribly simple. However did things get complicated. School was the one place where things were secure, at least for the time-being. Tensions included completing homework and wearing polished shoes. And then, things become complicated. There's more to it that pressed uniform and completed homework.
It's not that simple.
Which is why when you listen to a song that reminds you of Dexter's Laboratory and powerpuff girls an popeye, and the Little Lulu show, you wish you hadn't grown up so fast. You wish you'd stuck on as a kid, and ate candy for lunch, without counting calories. You wish you could read Enid Blyton unabashedly, and you could bunk school to watch cartoons. You wish you hadn't thrown such a big fuss over third-grade mathematics. if only you did those stupid sums then without the lamenting and the fuss.
And now, we're stuck. We miss growing up. We won't grow up again. We can't just bunk college and watch cartoons. We can't eat candy four times a day without getting fat. We can't watch Wizard of Oz. We can, maybe, but it's not the same. We can never understand the Wizard of Oz the way we did when we were kids. Now, it's just not the same. I can never watch Heidi (which used to be my most favorite cartoon back then), without distorting the childish memory I have, of dancing goats and a cute, chubby girl.
Life is unfair. Growing up should be slow. I think of all the times I'd hoped to be 'grown-up' as a kid. I'd hoped to wear high-heels and a suit, and carry a brief-case and look serious and important. And now, when it comes to doing that, I'd rather wear a smock and eat Twinkies and Doritos and watch Heidi on Cartoon Network.