confessions.

A month has passed since semester ended. I think it's time to sit down and figure out what I've learnt over the semester and, no, I'm not talking Tort Law.

I spent this semester being pretty darned scared. Scared about what people thought of me. Scared whether what I thought of people was right or not. Scared of being judged for everything I did, or didn't do. Just, simply, scared.

And the weird bit is, I don't know why. After NPS, I thought I was pretty comfortable around people. Was pretty decent at getting to know and befriending people. I thought I was a generally sunny soul. Some cloudy weather is inevitable, as heat causes evaporation, but sunny in general. Certainly not all clouds with no silver lining in sight.

On introspection, I find that I've been rather scared of being myself. Maybe because the initial situation seemed to suggest that being my tongue in cheek self would be suicidal. Perhaps because being myself involves trusting completely, and I wasn't sure whom to trust. Or, sometimes I'm led to believe, it's 'cause I thought I just wasn't good enough. As though all that I really liked about myself is of no consequence in law school, and what is of any importance isn't my cup of tea. I haven't read enough, haven't watched enough movies/shows to make for fun conversation, am not spontaneous or quick enough, am simply not smart enough.
And at some level, I actually believed that.

Law school has left me bewildered on some grounds. Lots of questions and no answers. It has made me afraid to not conform, but desire to be myself. And those are irreconcilable options. Or are they?

I'm afraid, now, to make overtures of friendship. I'm uncertain when in conversation with a senior. Heck! I'm simply uncertain. About every darned thing I do. And that's not how things used to be. There was a time when I'd decide to do something and go ahead with a single minded focus to do it. Then again, those things I decided to do would probably not serve me in the future. How is some video made against the will of every authority in school expected to compare to decisions that are supposed to shape my life? Do they shape my life?

Just the other day, someone told me that I was living my life in bokeh because I was studying law and aiming to be a journalist. Perhaps it was in jest, but it hit hard. Is my focus all wrong? I've always wanted one thing out of my life and have withstood all that was fired at it. Why is a random statement, today, unsettling me?

I don't think I can handle another 9 semesters' worth of trying to be something I'm not, or hiding the person that I am. If building walls to protect oneself is this painful, I'd rather trust blindly and be hurt. If my 'hello' is such an abhorrent thing, I shall not say it again. But I'm going to be me; I don't know whom else to be.

Back to Bangalore.

That sounds like I was out for the last 5 months on some kind of world tour. 

I did better.

I survived four months of law school instead. As for why it's better: world tours are fun (if they  are not, don't burst my happy bubble), law school isn't necessarily so.

When I last blogged I'd just finished CLAT. I was scared stiff about my results. I stood firmly convinced that I had blown my only chance to gain admission to the colleges of my dreams. I ranted. 

Then, on the 29th of May, when the results came out, I found out that I had managed something that I was aiming for but the pet grouch against that terrible terrible paper remained. So I wrote a facebook note that very night that ranted some more. Then I wrote a legallyindia blog about it and a huge debate ensued. The next month was spent in a flurry; being ticked off about the CLAT paper was my pet hobby. There was a little birdie that brought to my notice, every now and then, the fact that I was going to live in Hyderabad; I was going to shift out of the accepted comfort of my house into an unknown room somewhere in the middle of nowhere (that's where the NALSAR group on facebook places it). 

And then the farewell parties began. And the birdie reminded me, more often than ever, that it was getting closer to departure date. The lists began coming up (on one of which my friends sweetly mentioned the requirement of a brain to be carried as luggage) and the fantasising about college began. As did conversations with seniors and to be classmates. Facebook. Ah the horrors of excessive facebook-ing. Ask me: I know only too well. 

Right. So we all know how bad I am with dates. I forget when I first walked into the NALSAR campus (no wait, we drove in but walk sounds so much better) but my first impression was: "Hey! This looks pretty, well, pretty!" 

Then we went to the exam hall (Oh joy! What a nice place to enter first.) to get done with the technicalities and then down to the ante-chamber to the VC's room (or that's what I thought it was) where I was struck by the fact that even this loo didn't have a health kit. Shock number one. 

Shock number two: meeting the VC. Details of this conversation (Or, should I say monologue?) are the same for all my batchmates.

Rhodes, Jessups, Moot, Rhodes, Number 1, Rhodes, Isports facilities, Today's generation = lazy fat buggers, Rhodes, Why Law? (He didn't really wait for an answer.), Number 1, Placements, Money, Discipline, No Peer Pressure, Rhodes, Don't listen to the Big Bad Seniors who'll tell you smoking is cool, Yah-Di-Dah.

In between somewhere, I met my roomie. Manasi Gandhi. Hell! I room with M. Gandhi! How cool is that? We started off talking a dozen to a dime and I could hear my dad telling my mother that we'd never be able to get any work accomplished if we were to be left together in a room. That probably explains why we never do study in the same room unless it's imperative that we talk.

Cool. So now I'm a NALSAR-ite. Manasi and I shifted into the hostel on the same day. Room 205, GH4. I knew no one on campus except her. Apparently a large part of the population living on campus knew of me. Not in a manner that is flattering. =/ Yes, well. The less said of the evils of excessive facebook-ing, the better. 

The next four months passed in a whirlwind of the most varied experiences. Law school was nothing that I had dreamed of and everything that I’d dreamed of, all rolled in one. It would be futile to even try to pen down all that I’ve experienced at Nalsar for it simply isn’t something you describe. It’s what one internalizes, attempts to learn from and, sometimes, tries to forget.

Classes are what you make of them. Romance, comedy, serious education or just sleep – it’s all possible in those hours, with (so far) just one exception. English, in law school, had close to nothing to do with English. It was language and the law with an overwhelming stress on law on language. It was made ambudantly (Yes, it’s a word. No kidding.) clear to us that we needed to learn things off by heart to pass our English course. My brain took some time to deal with that. History was what history classes normally are like, except a sudden interest shown by my classmates in terra-cotta horses and their riders. Political science was a whole new experience and tort law was a generally bad experience. Legal methods, on the other hand, was more of what I’d dreamt of when I told my parents that I want to study law and really understand how society works and how people think the way they think and just about where the law comes in…

If this were school, then classes would’ve been a major part of this blog post. The addition of ‘law’ before the ‘school’ changes all of that. These four months were more to do with what happened outside of class: on the lawns that adorn the campus, in the mess, in the library (apart from the usual swotting), in hostels, on the batch google group (don’t raise your eyebrows, it is the medium for much drama) and, well, elsewhere.

What happens when you have 400-odd people (I’m talking of only the LL. B. students) stuck together in an isolated campus? You have the most detailed knowledge about everyone around. So you sneeze and people begin asking you if you’re ill. Is this a good thing? Well, in the sense that you know most people around, it is. From the point of view that one has close to zero privacy, it isn’t. But then, with people who see you at your worst and at your best, is there any question of privacy in the first place?

Of course, there is a sudden routine that you’re thrust into and over a period it becomes natural. For me, wake up at 0840 and realize (with a yelp) that it’s so late! Get dressed and scoot to class. On the way grab a little breakfast if possible. Sleep through classes, wake up for the break and walk out and take a breath of fresh air, get coffee or food from ‘Needz’ during the long break and then continue sleeping through classes. Run for lunch, except on Mondays when you drag your feet to the dining hall because lunch is that bad. Go back to the hostel, dump your bag, sleep or gossip. 1630 hours – tea/coffee.

Till the above paragraph, I knew what I wanted to write about. Then I gave it a month long break. So now I no longer know. Law school’s like that, a day and everything changes. Or, from another angle, nothing ever changes. I have 9 semesters more to go. By then, I’ll cover as much of law school as I can. Promise. Before that, I shall have to master the art of using vtunnel and not losing my mind because it’s so frustratingly slow. Ah, yes. I forgot. Blogspot is blocked in college. As are most other websites that one would want to visit for entertainment. They’re very serious about keeping us studying, these folk. Poor deluded souls.

<Note: It has been brought to my notice that blogspot is no longer blocked in college. If so, I couldn't be happier.>

Also, ambudantly isn't a word. Obviously. =P