This piece has been written by Pallavi Khatri (Batch of 2022).

I admit the Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’ articulated what I had failed to do for a long time now. Hence, I stole the title.

Before assuming that this is going to be another sad rant coming from a worn-out Law Schoolite, just hear me out. I believe positive manners towards others are a good thing. Whatever our parents taught us, beginning from being polite, respectful, kind and empathetic to others, is all correct. We can only expect to be treated the way we treat others. Hence, be nice to others and they will be good to you. Listen to others and your opinion shall be heard. Help others and they will help you. Sounds good till now, right? Well, yeah, because it is all true.

But hey, like the way Zomato Gold scammed us because none of us read the T&C, we never read them here either. We missed the fine print – the print that was different from the rest of the message. Unlike how we should be towards others, it mentioned caveats that indicated how we should be towards ourselves.

And now our mental health is in shambles.

From the moment we wake up in the morning till we hit the hay late at night, we are in constant effort to take the right decision on the most minor things. Consider the dilemma of deciding whether or not to acknowledge a senior who crossed you while going to class? Well, if I do acknowledge, then to what degree? Do I wave and say Hi, do I raise eyebrows, do I say ‘Sup’ and appear cool, do I give that awkward smile? Will this person be offended if I did not meet her standards of greeting? Will I need this individual’s help in the future? Will everyone else around me see how I ignored her? Will my wearing headphones piss people off? Will the earth collapse and the stars conspire to…? You get the gist.

Question after question on the most trivial things causes the cogs and wheels in our brains to work overtime until they overheat like the Samsung Note 7 and then burst into flames… or tears… or anger.

One might argue here that it’s necessary to keep this up, to monitor your every action, restrain your every human emotion to keep up that aura of happiness and niceness. Because, indeed, the world works like a Yelp for people where if you are downvoted, you’re fucked.

But I disagree. It doesn’t.

First, because people know. If you are able to understand the intentions behind a person’s manner towards you then it’s a bit rich to assume that they cannot do the same. And if they can do the same, then all your effort is wasted. All the conversations you create in your head, the way you pitch yourself, the way you stand, breathe, avoid sneezing, try to be neutral towards things you feel passionately about for the fear of being an annoyance or starting an argument. The way you pretend to act cool, when you are annoyed, offended, hurt or disturbed, it is all for nothing because humans understand each other and everyone at Law School is human (even the Saanps).

Second, because whatever one might say, trust and achievement don’t rest on your Yelp scores. A few good ‘reviews’ aren’t gonna make you the Shed at Dulwich (see VICE) and a couple of dings won’t cause a nosedive. This is because of the Law school grapevine. Word gets around. Everyone knows how you behave towards whom. And we know it isn’t possible to always be happy. The perpetually happy soul is thus an anomaly and his kept-up appearance will send alarm bells ringing for anyone who has to decide whether to work with him.

And the perpetually happy soul (or someone who aims to be one) knows that for him this is another reason to worry. To prevent nosediving he must know what A thinks of B thinks of C thinks of D, then moderate interactions accordingly. The gossip he shares with his friend circle now requires moderation because, well, he can’t really trust them completely with anything.  He must appear to be smart but not cocky or people will not like him. He must perform well to look like an achiever to his peers, but he must play it cool when it doesn’t always work out because showing emotion is for duds. He cannot call out the flaws in the system, because it would be hypocritical and what if someone gets to know about it.

All of this thinking, overthinking, stressing, and overstressing will ultimately drive you into a dark place because, deep in your heart, you know what people think of you and how much people would do for you. And that hurts because despite all your ‘effort’, things rarely change and now you are in a vicious cycle of questioning your self-esteem and valuing yourself based on what others think of you.

And so, your mental health is in shambles.

But maybe there is a better way of handling this. Better than just keeping up the appearance of being happy, all day, every day, all the time, with everyone and burning out in the process.

Perhaps, we would be able to avoid this constant nervousness that is at the root of the varied nature of mental problems just by making a few lifestyle adjustments. Starting with valuing our own opinions, and our right to express what is just human emotion. Then, separating the act from the actor, and understanding people’s aims and motives to avoid taking the cutthroat competition (or literally anything else) we face personally. Further, placing ourselves and others in context to escape faulting them for expressing themselves and changing their tone from one of eternal sweetness to one that is just a tiny bit irritated with us, but is a little more human. Lastly, forgiving ourselves and others for being true to human nature because clearly being an achievement-oriented work machine is not working out anymore.

All of this might make Law Schoolites’ life visibly imperfect. But it could make us capable of pulling ourselves and others out of the abyss of indifference and ignorance we have all fallen into. It could make Law School more bearable for everyone.

And so maybe, we should all be a bit more human now because in the long-run, we’re all dead anyway.

To the uninitiated, PESIT idli [“Pesit”] refers to a famous idli stall on the Hosakerehalli Road (try pronouncing it) that sells idlis for 30 odd bucks. It’s open only between 4 and 6 am. To your average lawschoolite, it offers the perfect culmination to a long night of slogging.

Here is what a typical Pesit plan for men looks like:

Man 1: Bro, let’s go to Pesit!

Man 2: Yeah, let’s!

Here is how women plan to go to Pesit:

Woman 1: Let’s go to Pesit?

Woman 2: Cool, with whom?

Woman 1: The 3 of us?

Woman 3: Umm… is it safe? It’s going to be dark also…

Woman 1: Fair enough, Uber or something?

Woman 2: Still dude, there have been horrible incidents with Uber/Ola also.

Woman 3: Ya dude, better safe than sorry, we can just go sometime later with the guys.

This was the conversation I have had about half a dozen times since I came to law school and heard about Pesit. After spending an year and a half, I have gone to Pesit once, when a few guys decided to introduce this place to us. Today, after some thought, my roommate (hereinafter referred to as Ash) and I decided that it was worth a shot and we cannot just wait forever. After returning, I felt liberated and how! But wait… why was going 4.5 kms away from the campus to eat a simple breakfast so liberating? Why is it that something that is an everyday thing for men my age be an event that has prompted me to write a 1000 word article? Before I begin, it would be useful to clarify that this is not just another rant merely about how men ‘have it all’ and women don’t. It is not about how safe spaces are a rarity for women. On the contrary, it is about how privilege permeates even the most insignificant aspects of our day-to-day lives. How we have internalised the possibility of harassment to such a degree that it governs even the most fundamental of our actions.

So we finally decided that we were ballsy enough to embark upon this much-coveted journey fraught with unimaginable hurdles (sexual predators, mainly). We set out, obviously, with our wallets and Swiss knives (obviously). Once we were in the auto, we had efficiently divided our roles – I was to keep the GPS on to ensure we are on the right track and Ash was to keep an eye on the driver (our potential doom). Finally we reached, reaped the fruits of our labour and met a junior (male) who had chosen to go solo with whom we returned. And here comes an interesting twist, on our way back neither had I turned the Google maps on, nor did Ash clutch the knife in her pocket. Why? Male presence – the presence of a younger man seemed to have secured our safety more than any weapon could have.

There are only two explanations I can possibly think of – first, a general notion that we all seem to agree upon is that sexual predators refrain from acting in the presence of a man. Second, fear of being an ‘akeli ladki’ (or in this case ladkiyan) ingrained so deep into our minds that we perceive danger literally everywhere.

So why have narrated this and what is it that I want? In my opinion, it is high time we change the way we perceive ‘safety’. Because let’s face it, no matter how optimistic we are, we are not going to live to see a day when women have just the same safety considerations as men. Does that mean we restrict our movements and actions in order to ‘ensure our safety’? I do not think that’s a reasonable proposition to make.

Then there is this the ‘Better Safe than Sorry’ Syndrome. If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me, I could have sponsored the DeepVeer wedding (all those receptions included!). This again is problematic because the slippery slope argument applies here. Today if I am sceptical about going out for a bite early in the morning, tomorrow I will have inhibitions while taking a job that requires me to work late. Then again, one may argue that the former is avoidable whereas the latter is significant (cost-benefit analysis, basically). But this too is problematic because what it means is that a woman’s ability to move freely is contingent upon the general perception of how important the end goal is (after all the right to free movement was never quite meant for pointless endeavours, right?)

Recently a friend of mine said ‘No matter how feminist we all are, we have to admit that safety is an important concern’. Though I still fail to see the connection between being a feminist and being concerned about my safety, I do not completely disagree – it is most certainly important to be safe. But there are other ways of being safe than restricting yourself to the confines of this ‘safe campus’ (lol @ that too) and waiting for a guy to escort you across the city (try arming yourself with a pocket knife, really helps – seriously).

The juxtaposition of the ride with and without male company makes one thing clear – it’s all in our head. We have blown these dangers and fears way out of proportion and while we complain about society trying to control women, we have allowed our fears to control every action we undertake. If we come to think of it, we would feel a lot safer in the presence of more women in these public places. Here arises a Catch-22 situation since no woman will go to place dominated by men for safety concerns and that in turn makes a lot of public places male-dominated. This is where the idea of ‘be the change’ comes in handy. We as women need to learn to deal with the dangers without shutting ourselves from the world. In other words, we need to normalise the act of exercising our rights without fear. The entire purpose of women screaming their lungs out for equal rights is defeated if we choose to lock ourselves up and wait for a male companion to provide us with a sense of security every time we wish to step up.

So in conclusion: Ladies, there is a thin line between fear and paranoia. While the fear of facing sexual harassment is more than legitimate it becomes indistinguishable from the latter if you allow it to restrict all that you do. If you want to be safe, be alert – sure, but for the love of god do not turn your rights into distant aspirations. And to people in general – if you tell me that I shouldn’t do certain things because ‘it’s better safe than sorry’ one more time, I swear I will put your head through a wall.

NLSIU Batch of 2019 makes NYP an academic event; Call for Applications expected tomorrow

November 25, 2018 | By: Dhanush Dinesh and Aman Vasavada

(Following an anonymous tip-off, investigators from the NLS Inmates Review have gained non-exclusive access to the Batch of 2019’s WhatsApp group chat for NYP preparation, which revealed shocking information, bound to shake the dubious foundations of Law School Party Culture. Quirk is proud to bring to our readers an exclusive leak of the potential culmination of the Batch’s extraordinary idea.)

In an effort to reach out to the Modern Law Schoolite, who has turned away from music, alcohol and other unnamed debaucheries in favour of higher and greater ethical pursuits, such as BTLI (Blogging on Topical Legal Issues) and CWQM (Chetta Water Quality Monitors), the Batch of 2019 has decided to replace the traditional NYP with an all-night, superlatively educational, NYP-themed Symposium. The move is expected to salvage the now-accredited Nagarbhavi Laa School from the slanderous claims of Falling Standards which are frequently hurled against its inmates.

Our whistleblowers have revealed that the midnight bacchanalia of NYP had almost been replaced by an NYPD (New Year Picnic Day) by the academically oriented and morally cautious Batch, which soon realized that the New Year actually arrives only at midnight – leading to the quick (but not silent!) death of the afternoon “delight” that was to be NYPD.

On confronting an Organizer, we were informed: “Knowing how the prurient interests of Laa School men would come alive at a midnight rave (as it is obviously the parties that are causing these incidents and not in any way a result of people’s social conditioning), we decided that a symposium would be an appropriate way to foster respectful intergender contact – and hey, they’d be learning something too! Better than anything those Angry Vocal Feminists have ever done for women.”

Undoubtedly, the intention was to redress the pervasive problems in Laa School Party Culture by focusing attention on other, more Pressing Matters, with the added benefit of having all Licentious Characters (actual and potential) enlightened by educational thoughts under the pleasant visibility of broad daylight.

Thus, the idea of the NYP Symposium was conceived. The spectacular speaker line-up already boasts some giants in the field of consumable education and enlightenment. Our whistleblower has kindly leaked the proposed schedule so our committed readers can read it here first:

8-9 PM: Keynote Address by Swami Nithyananda

The renowned preacher shall deliver his famous lesson on “How to Transcend your Addictions and Turn them to your Power”. With the text of the speech having been removed from even his own website under the orders of the CCB, the NYP Symposium shall possibly be the only place where one can hope to hear what the great man has to teach us.

9-10 PM: Session on “Inner Engineering: How to Transcend from Rationality to Meta-science” by Sadhguru

The celebrated mystic and NALSAR’s most recent Guest Lecturer shall be engaging with students on various contemporary issues such as the link between mess food poisoning and the zodiacal constellations, home remedies to prevent cancer and depression, and heretofore unexplored connections between eclipses and your grades.

10-11:50 PM: Interactive Workshop on “OMR-Coke Synthesis and other Life Skills”

This will be a panel moderated by Guru Sir (proprietor of the wholesale liquor shop near Fortis). Senior Representatives and Educational Ambassadors from Surya and Chandrashekar are also expected to grace the panel. There will be an opportunity for (Heritage) wine-tasting during the session as well.

11:50-12:10 AM: Networking Break

This window is reserved for collectively bringing in another year with more of the same. Couples (new and existing) are kindly requested to utilize the rear lawn only, and cooperate in our attempts to minimize the negative externalities of PDA. Rumour has it that Garvit Sharma (Batch of 2021) has been training pigeons to strategically defecate on the more…insatiable couples.

12:15-2 AM: Open Discussion on “Channeling Creativity at Parties: A Historical Perspective”

Finally, as the highlight of the evening, all inmate-attendees shall be given 5 minutes to share their true lived experiences of coping with various provocations over the years. This promises to be the most riveting session, given that the Batch of 2019 has displayed their eminence time and again by allegedly performing enviable feats at previous parties such as, inter alia, breaking toilet mirrors, booking impromptu cabs to Mysore Zoo to hug giraffes, punching juniors, roasting nuts on a CD and then consuming said CD, burning the Himalaya dustbin, and starting a gang war against Compton.

The program beyond 2AM is unlikely to be formally scheduled by the Batch,  but is considered to be a respite after imbibing such intoxicating and heady educational discussions, after which the inmate-attendees are likely to require a personal moment to just lie down in the bushes, cry, call their exes, and contemplate life.

The customary coke and chips (which have been upgraded to the oil-free, gluten-free, baked kind which can now be afforded after a reallocation of the Batch’s resources) will be provided. However, according to our sources, chances are that the proverbial coke will be in abundant enough supply to ensure that people are carbonated enough to forget all about the existence of the proverbial chips. The Batch has also promised Certificates of Participation, which sources claim will be covered in puke splatter from students of the Batch of 2019, in line with the nauseating customs of NYP.

Our behavioural ecologists believe that the inmates will largely respond favourably to this historic transition in the annual indulgence that is NYP.

Update: Minutes after we went to press, representatives from the Batch of 2019 have hinted that due to the logistical difficulties involved in organising this conference, chances are that the NYP will end up being the usual “lit pardayyy” in an even better location where everybody can get hammered in the manner of their informed choice, on the lush green grass by the poolside under the beautiful and starry winter night sky in a sequestered farmhouse, far far away from Nags. Come what may, the experience promises to be… educational.

[TRIGGER WARNING: Eating disorders; Bulimia]

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a successful woman in possession of all the means and materials for a fulfilling life, must still be in want of the perfect female body.”

Ms. Austen might as well have proclaimed this verity and it would have been far truer for far longer.

Scroll through your Instagram and you’ll find yourself looking at a mix of envy-inducing posts of your friends/acquaintances/don’t-remember-why-we-are-friends living their best lives looking like they walked out of a Vogue magazine cover, the Hadid sisters looking like they could walk – nay, catwalk all over your crushed soul in towering heels, influencers selling flat-tummy tea, appetite-reducing candies and ways to deal with that pesky bum cellulite, with a light sprinkling of before (sad Pooh bear) and after (female Hulk who could crush you with her glutes) pictures, and innumerable internet trolls telling random women that they’re “uGly aNd No oNe wOUld dO tHem”. And that’s just social media for you, don’t get me started on Bollywood and the perfect ‘kamariya’, or fairness creams advertisements trying to convince us that possessing melanin is a criminal offence, and the list goes on ad nauseum.

Closer home, the ladies in my family are found discussing a new weight loss method every time I see them – from lemon and hot water, to power yoga, to eating only proteins and no carbs (= no happiness) – even though they clearly have worse issues to deal with, for instance, serving hot rotis to their husbands while they chortle over casually sexist mian-biwi jokes on WhatsApp. I have lived most of my life in morbid fear of these ladies who don’t forget to point out if my other female cousins or I have become ‘healthy’ (North Indian family code for ‘who will marry her now’) or ‘sookha hua’ or ‘beta tan ho gaye ho’ every time I meet them at family functions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging any of these women. We’re all in the same boat, after all. The boat that tirelessly sails towards the sparkling horizon of the perfect female body, powered with the fuel of self-loathing, armed with diet plans, fitness regimes and 50-step Korean skincare. I, like almost literally every woman, struggle with body image issues. Dressing rooms make me cry, cameras give me anxiety and my relationship with food is still ‘complicated’, to say the least. I’ve been through eating disorders. In school, I starved myself – lying to friends that I ate at home and lying to my parents that I ate at school – while acid eroded my empty stomach. For months, I went through the carefully practiced ritual of excusing myself after a meal, going to the washroom, washing two fingers, sticking them far down my mouth, feeling my guilt and my last meal rise in my throat, retching into the toilet bowl, repeating this about a dozen times, flushing and then panting as mucus, tears and shame ran down my face. I did this enough times in a day for my parents to worry I had loose motions. I don’t do that anymore. Not because I’m at complete peace with my body now, but simply because my bulimia took time and energy that I didn’t have after a point of time. I was tired of my throat tasting of regurgitated food, of looking at meals and wondering what they would taste like on their way out and tired of the tell-tale bruise at the back of my fingers. I was lucky to not go further down that vortex. Not everyone is.[1] But still, no matter how much I try and inundate myself in messages of body positivity and telling myself that I must do better than fall prey to these silly patriarchal and capitalistic notions, that feeling of never being good enough never goes away. So, what’s the point of writing this? Is it just a pity party? No.

The point is that we in law school, or generally in life, don’t talk about body image issues and body positivity anywhere nearly as much as we should. The importance of talking about it needn’t be explained if you just read through the above few paragraphs. That was just one story. And it doesn’t have to be as bad as having a disorder for this to be considered a crisis – a crisis of self-esteem, hiding in plain sight in the minutiae of everyday life. Naomi Wolf puts it better than anyone when she says that “…women’s identity must be premised upon our ‘beauty’ so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to air.”[2] Everywhere we look, women are being told that their life amounts to nothing and their success is hollow till they haven’t appeased the male gaze through the ultimate sacrifice of their bodies. Lest someone should complain about the inordinate focus on women: yes, body image is an issue for all genders and sexes but the pressure exerted on women in our patriarchal world to look and behave a certain way is different from, and undeniably more onerous than what men are subjected to. And the most destructive aspect of all this? That you can never ‘get it right’. The perfect female body is always a mirage, a race to the bottom.

It’s no secret that we as a community in law school choose to maintain silence on a lot of important issues. Body image is one such pernicious issue and it is sapping the mental, physical and emotional health of innumerable women, yes, including the Woke Women ^TM of law school. Our toxic hookup culture, where you’re considered prudish and uncool for not having casual sexual encounters, means that there is a constant pressure to be considered conventionally desirable, lest you be marked with disapproval by the male gaze. Every other person you talk to will casually mention how much weight they need to lose, and we resultantly throng to the gym every evening, mostly for all the wrong reasons. Bad dietary patterns are the norm (one meal and five double coffees a day sound familiar?), providing a great cover for the eating disorders of which we don’t speak. And no change in appearance ever goes unnoticed by the constantly scrutinizing eyes of the law school gossip network of which are all guilty participants. The stigma attached to issues of body image, in our little community and outside, is also perhaps evident from the fact that I write this anonymously, afraid of being thought of as the crazy girl who used to throw up her food. The simple point is that no one should have to feel worthless because they don’t look a certain way. We shouldn’t be telling each other and ourselves that we need to achieve certain physical attributes to be happy, successful and desirable or just comfortable in our own skins. Having this conversation, like many others, requires active effort because we have to force ourselves to question and militate against lifelong pervasive social conditioning.

It’s not about being in love with our bodies; it’s simply about accepting them for what they are. And this acceptance is not easy to achieve unless we, as a community, become more accepting of each other. So maybe next time you’re cracking that fat joke or ranking female acquaintances on their physical assets, stop for a minute and think about the toxic culture to which you’re contributing. Maybe the next time your friend whines to you about how much weight they’ve put on, tell them they’re so much more than their bodies and that amidst all the crazy things that life and law school throw at us, that’s the last thing they should be worried about. If you have thin privilege, realize that your socially acceptable body type doesn’t place you on a pedestal – it is not an accomplishment. Acknowledge and accept the struggles of larger persons and persons with disabilities and be strong allies.

It’s not impossible to unlearn this toxicity, to challenge these standards and falsities that are thrown at us, and to break out of this ‘beauty myth’.[3] But we’ve got to try hard as hell. Let’s not walk around loathing the skin and bones that hold us together.

[1] Over 25% of teenage Indian girls suffer from eating disorders, Scroll, January 5, 2018, https://scroll.in/magazine/863540/over-25-of-teenage-indian-girls-suffer-from-eating-disorders-this-art-project-shows-how-they-feel.

[2] Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (1990).

[3] “The beauty myth tells a story: The quality called ‘beauty’ objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it.” – Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (1990).

Exactly one year and two months ago, I had started writing this article. But at that time, the story was incomplete.

In what were the most difficult 6 months of my life so far, I had faced several things – the death of a grandmother, the death of a close friend, an abusive relationship. And rape. Yes, rape. No, I did not slap him immediately after the act. No, I did not go to the police. To all those who wonder why I didn’t, please consider that the Law School community has, time and again, discouraged survivors from even filing SHARIC complaints. In such a scenario, imagine being a 19 year old, yet to come to terms with the emotional trauma she was experiencing. Imagine standing in front of a group of men and narrating the ordeal in detail, over and over again. Difficult to imagine? Even more difficult to do.

Filing a complaint before the Sexual Harassment Inquiry Committee was an incredibly difficult task for me, considering that the perpetrator was once a friend. It did not help that I was feeling guilty for having been drunk at the party or for being unable to fight back during the incident. My guilt was added on to by those who messaged me asking me to let the matter be, to think of his career. My parents, who were more disappointed than angered, shook my confidence even more. Looking back, I would never have been able to file the complaint had a group of my friends not come to my room and given me the confidence to take the step forward.

I used to think that filing a complaint would mean that I would no longer have to interact with the perpetrator. I was wrong. That is when the mind games began. Emotional blackmail, constant messaging, fake threats of suicide, gaslighting and humiliation. While some ridiculous attempts did provide comic relief (going to each MHOR hostel room and faking a heart attack, seriously?), others tore at my self-worth (before this I did not know that only pretty girls can get assaulted). It became all the more difficult when his mother came to campus to meet me. I refused to meet her. But clearly, neither the college administration nor his mother understood consent well.

In the long months before any proceedings commenced, the perpetrator continued to attend classes, seek attendance condonations and project extensions for having been “traumatised”. These months were the starting point of the conversation revolving around condonation of the acts of sexual harassers on campus. Many batchmates took the stance that they could not take any decision about my reality until the SHIC had decided on the same. They  chose to place their trust in an unknown body rather than a batchmate they had known for 3 years. We, in Law School, often forget that we are not bound by judicial principles when we do not possess judicial authority. Neutrality is not a virtue when you know the reality of oppression. Regardless, it was saddening to see these people change their stance when their own friends were harassed (consistency is also a judicial principle, if we really want to go there).

It took almost one year, one bold professor, and one committee change to finally commence the proceedings. I will not lie – the proceedings drained me completely. However, for once, in the entire journey, I felt closer to justice than I ever did before. It was also the time where I found support in seniors and friends who selflessly devoted their time to the cause. Help is indeed always given in Law School to those who seek it.

A few months later, the decision of the SHIC came out. Ecstasy was my first emotion, grief was my second. Over the year, I had pinned my entire mental health on that one decision and expected it to solve all my problems. The grief struck when I realised that I was not magically cured. The day of the decision was the first time I felt suicidal. It’s surprising how little is said about mental health issues in Law School considering how many people suffer from them, day in and day out. I realised after a long time (and constant pushing from my roommates) that seeking help would not make me “weak” and I did deserve to be happy.

On the 15th of September, 2018, my struggle was vindicated. Securing justice gives you the closure that “what if” never does. Yes, the struggle was long and there is still a long way to go. But now I know I have the strength for it, since it is no longer my fight alone. It is the fight of the senior who guided me when I was filing a complaint, of those witnesses who poured many hours into the proceedings, of those alumni who came out in support, of those friends who consoled me when I lost hope, of those parents who would have died to get their old daughter back, of all those women who told me they went through similar experiences, of that bold professor who took on the college administration to ensure the proceedings continued, of those SHIC members who worked tirelessly to complete the proceedings, of the partner who taught me how to recognise my worth – and lastly, it is the fight of all those who came out and stood in solidarity on that momentous Saturday afternoon in the pouring rain.

I could fight because it was not a lone woman’s fight. It was a community’s fight.

(Advisory: Don’t do PDA. Nor let anyone do.)

There are probably only 2 things I like to do in college:

1. Sleeping
2. Taking my routine walk(s) to Chetta 5 times a day.

However, both of these activities have been defiled for me (as they have been for several others). NLS has been infested with things which are considered by many to be extremely annoying and revolting. I’m talking about 3 things here:

1. Pigeons
2. PDA
3. Pigeon PDA

More on PDA later. But first let’s discuss sleeping. The most enjoyable part of day, ruined completely by pigeons. Goddamn these furry assholes (furry assholes sounds weird, I know). There probably are scores of bird species on our campus. And pigeons are the most attention seeking of them all. They are like that one annoying batch mate of yours who cracks stupid jokes all the time to seek validation from everyone (did I just sum up my life in one sentence?) Pigeons are the musical.ly users of the bird-verse. Annoying. Repugnant. Noisy. Even the much-maligned crows are better than pigeons. You know why? Because when crows are being noisy and you use earplugs, the earplugs actually work. But that’s not the case with pigeons. Pigeons don’t care if you pour concrete in your ears. They will make sure that they are heard. Who needs alarms when you have pigeons?

But pigeons are even more annoying in another aspect. PDA. Pigeons engage in PDA on the window sill when you are nonchalantly taking a shower. (Are they not aware that other birds are looking? Are they not aware that I am looking? Dumb birds.) As if we do not have enough pigeons on the campus already. Let’s let these pigeons make some more pigeons! (Sorry about hating on pigeons, SNHP. But wait, you only care about the cute animals, right? I guess dissing on pigeons is alright then.) Pigeon PDA. Oh the joy I derive when I throw water at copulating pigeons. Human induced coitus interruptus. Pigeons don’t have condoms. Pigeons have me (A very naked me angrily throwing water and spoiling their sexy time).

I sometimes wish it were acceptable to throw water at humans engaging in public display of sexy time too. Trust me, there is no right-wing orthodox mentality behind this. Do whatever you want as long as I don’t have to watch you do it. I’m already dealing with pigeons and their PDA and their poop. I don’t want to deal with yours. You want your girlfriend to sit on your lap and play with your hair? Well, guess what – we have a Learning Centre. Go and play with each other’s hair all you want. And please, don’t limit yourself to playing with hair. Play with everything that can be played with. I have absolutely no right to complain about what you do within the confines of four walls. But if you engage in PDA in the library park in broad daylight when I am enjoying my 3^rd cold bournvita of the day, I’m gonna flip. We get it, you are in a relationship! I’m sure your saccha pyaar will last forever. I just don’t want to see you snogging each other at Chetta, or in the Lib Park, or at the BB Court, or in the acad. Couples reading this are probably thinking: yeah Garvit you are complaining only because you never get any sexy time. 2 rebuttals:

1. I have sexy time with myself all the time.
2. I do enjoy watching couples displaying affection towards each other. It’s called porn. And porn, unlike PDA, is aesthetically pleasing.

But this is where this gets tricky. Is PDA totally unacceptable? Can there be any exceptions? I’m sure we are all aware that there are different degrees of PDA:

1. Hanging out with each other all the time: How. Can. You. Bear. To. Be. With. The. Same. Person. 24×7. Just how?
2. Holding hands and walking: Are you using your partner as a crutch?
3. Hugging each other in the middle of the pathway right after class gets over so that everyone can look at you: What do you think people say when they look at you hugging at 2 pm: “Waah! Kitne hot lag rahe hain?” Nope. They say: “Vo dekho kitne chutiye lag rahe hain!”
4. Kissing in the acad.
5. Kissing at the BB Court.
6. Kissing at Chetta at midnight: Kissing. At Chetta. At midnight. That time of the night when the entire college walks to Chetta to get its nightly dose of caffeine. That is when you decide to kiss each other? Bravo. You know what? You might as well ask us to shut our eyes. Maybe it’s too much work finding keys to a room in the LC. We’ll all just walk around college blindfolded. Go the full distance and fuck each other right there at Chetta. We won’t look. Pinky promise.
7. Making out at Navalgund Park: This is the last straw. PDA at Navalgund is a blatant violation of the harm principle. You are harming me, guys. Making the walk from MHOR to Chetta is not very easy to begin with. Add to this the constant danger of pigeons pooping on the top of your head. Add to this the fear of spotting overly-competitive batch mates walking to the library to do some moot or some other studly activity. And as if all this trauma is not enough, add to it the fear of spotting couples making out in the park. Geniuses, you are. Or to use the term in vogue these days, bokachodas. Remember how the college has “Thanks for not smoking” boards installed everywhere? We need to have “Thanks for not engaging in PDA” boards too. And four of those need to be installed right at that intersection near Gate 2.

Bottom line: You are not invisible. We can see you doing things to each other. No, we are not impressed. No, you don’t look cool. No, you don’t look hot. Yes, you look very chutiya. Yes, it’s time to stop. Put some interruptus in that PDA. The skies won’t fall.

Thanks for reading. May you never be traumatized by ungodly creatures such as pigeons and couples again. May you never have to witness PDA again. And may you have lots and lots of (private) sexy time.

]]> http://www.nlsquirks.in/pigeons-and-pda/feed/ 0 http://www.nlsquirks.in/a-fetish-for-excellence/ http://www.nlsquirks.in/a-fetish-for-excellence/#respond Tue, 18 Sep 2018 12:58:10 +0000 http://www.nlsquirks.in/?p=2257 Continue readingA Fetish for Excellence]]> This piece has been written by Parv Kaushik (Batch of 2021).

With the last of the Univs behind us, it is important for us to reassess what we’ve taken these Univs to symbolise.

As an institution that has, over the years, churned out a plethora of people whom one would term “studly”, the bar was set pretty high. At some level, their achievements became more of a metric for self-evaluation. Being in the top 10 of your batch didn’t feel  like so much of an objectively great achievement (something worth praising and working towards), as it did a necessary prerequisite for your academic record to be of any value. Winning a moot became the only culmination of a 5 month long process to have any value. It is important to stress here, that the idea isn’t that winning an international moot or being in the top 10 of your batch isn’t great and the result of a lot of hard work. The idea is that we as a community attach an inordinate amount of value to these achievements. More importantly, when we start projecting these achievements onto others, we’re playing a dangerous game.

The necessary consequence of continuously highlighting and showcasing these achievements is self deprecation. Because it doesn’t matter that you loved the 5 month mooting experience, learnt a lot and got genuinely hooked onto the area of law. In the eyes of most people, these are mere by-products, things you tell yourself to feel good. For you, none of it makes sense unless you win. How we treat people who win tournaments or the like, is a quintessential case of “sar par chadhana“. As I said, the achievements of our peers and alumni, have become a metric of self evaluation. Getting a top 20 rank in Univs has been given such a stature, that anything below that is perceived as a necessary indicator of your ineptitude and incompetence.

People shouldn’t have to cry in self loathing and devastation because they won’t be stamping their passports on college money. Juniors shouldn’t have to come up to seniors saying that they feel like they aren’t doing well enough in law school because they aren’t acing moots or debates like their batchmate X.  The burden of winning that we have created is immense. It makes people think lesser of themselves if they don’t. Seniors need to start being more responsible in terms of  setting the right tone. We need to stop, in jest or otherwise, calling first years lame for not doing moot univs. We need to stop sending in teams with the burden of winning. It is nerve racking to go into competitions with the burden of performing as well as the teams before you. We need to break this fetish for excellence. We need to start telling juniors that putting their best possible foot forward  has inherent value.

To assuage any triggered mooters or debaters, the point here isn’t that there isn’t skill involved in what you do and that it’s merely a matter of you getting lucky. There is value to the skills you possess and effort required in what you have achieved. The point is, those skills aren’t the only thing that have value, nor are they necessarily more important than others. This isn’t a personal call-out of you for having personally contributed to this fetishism (at least not for the vast majority of you :P). This is a call-out of a culture that makes students feel that there are only a fixed number of avenues to make their law school life be of value. It is a call-out of a culture which, to some extent, might even make people participate in activities simply so that other people think that they’re worth something. Our obsession with having our names plastered on a board (*cough* *cough* SDGM), makes having your name on the board the pinnacle of any achievement.

Finally, we need to stop selling ourselves as “studs”. The moment we do that, we will remove the perverse incentive that pushes juniors into doing “studly” things. Let us create an environment where people wouldn’t want to hide in their rooms because it took other people three whole scrolls on their phones to get to their rank. Be appreciative and proud of all the mooters, debaters and ADRers (?) who’ve done brilliantly, but also have some appreciation for the people who gave it the best they could. Their best is of value too. It is about time we recognised it.

This past week has been a confusing time for many of us – shocking and disheartening for some, reassuring and empowering for others. I’ve heard the phrase “law school is having its #metoo moment” more than once, and many of us (myself included) have felt like we’ve been caught in quicksand, at times – struggling with questions that we’re unable to escape or ignore. This is natural, of course; everyone takes their own time on the learning curve. But the problem with taking too long when it comes to something like practicing feminism is that the collateral damage caused by missteps taken by those who are still on this learning curve can be devastating to those who are already been left vulnerable.

Why should we dissociate ourselves from men who we know have sexually harassed? This question was thrown open during the run up to the SBA elections this year, and naturally turned into a shitfest of gargantuan proportions. Is this not a form of mob justice? Do we not believe in the ability of a perpetrator to reform? Is it not inconsistent with mainstream law school opinion on the death penalty? In a nutshell, the need for social sanction, or dissociation, is precisely this: when men commit sexual harassment, which is an abuse of power and privilege, it is their social capital which allows them to not only commit the act in the first place, but to silence the victim after the act has taken place. While this silencing may not be active or even intentional, it functions in latent ways – by instilling fear and self-doubt (not to mention a constant feeling of dread) in the mind of the victim, which intensifies when she eventually comes to the realization that the perpetrator will never be held accountable.

In law school, in addition to the social power structures that naturally exist, additional forms of privilege act as shields – studliness, mooting achievements, sporting stardom, and committee convenership, to name a few. The higher up you are on the law school ladder, the more quickly you are likely to be forgiven for your abuse of this status. Does a class bias not exist in how we’ve seen social sanction pan out over the past couple of years? Of course it does, and it shouldn’t. But the logical extension of this ought to be that we take all victims of sexual harassment seriously, and sanction their perpetrators equally, regardless of their law school status – and not that nobody should receive any sanction at all.

With regard to reformative justice and forgiveness, I believe that nobody has the right to forgive a perpetrator for violating someone else. But obviously, expecting someone to remain a friendless outcast is not viable forever. Focusing on the consequences of ostracization (but what about his job? what about his mental health?) could not be further from the point, though. When trying to devise a practical solution to deal with a practical problem, we cannot ignore the fact that we still very much live in a world, and in a law school where, as much as we’d like to believe otherwise, sexual violence is not taken seriously. A perpetrator is never going to be rendered an absolute pariah, unless maybe the victim manages somehow to go through a gruelling SHARIC trial and secure a conviction (and maybe not even then). What we must keep in mind though, is that the best (and only genuine) apology is changed behaviour. Until we are unequivocally certain of that, ensuring that we do not continue to reward perpetrators with the same social capital they have abused is one small but necessary step we can take to see to it that we are, in fact, taking sexual violence as seriously as we think we are.

As a fifth year student, I’ve spent four years now living with a deep sense of regret for not having spoken up (and other times, not having spoken up forcefully enough) about the sexual violence I’ve experienced during my time in law school. And I know I’m not the only one. Perhaps if the community had reassured me, as a first year, that each experience amounted to something more than just minor infractions that I should get over and let go, I wouldn’t have struggled for so long with feelings of distrust and hopelessness. I think we’re further along the learning curve now. And I think we owe it to those still struggling with these feelings (and those who haven’t had to, yet) to let them know we’ve got their back.

Unlike most other college campuses, NLSIU is “lucky” to not have its hostel life intimately interfered with by the administration. The price we pay for not having a warden live amongst us is the DISCOs (Disciplinary Committees) in both the Mens’ and Womens’ hostels. Members of these bodies are appointed by the wardens and act as their student representatives, doing their job of ensuring that hostel occupants comply with Hostel Rules and Regulations. From the first year on, we’ve been told that we should be “thankful” for the extensive power given to the DISCOs, since the alternative is the tyrannical rule of wardens who will enter hostels regularly.

What is the Problem?

While a facially beneficial arrangement for hostel residents, the exact scope of the DISCO’s powers and functions are not codified. With the threat of an absolute doomsday situation (the wardens enforcing hostel rules themselves) looming, this has allowed the DISCOs to usurp increasing amounts of power to themselves – as long as they remain slightly more benevolent than the “horrible wardens”, the student body will logically be okay with ceding more power to them. In addition, the DISCOs remain answerable to no one – since they derive their authority from the wardens and not the students, no hostel resident can question the manner in which they choose to exercise their increasingly large power. This has meant that the DISCOs can act as arbitrarily as they want. The acts that they punish, the procedure they follow and the final punishment that they accord to a “delinquent student” cannot be questioned at all.

Let me explain this with an example. In the boys’ hostel, groundings used to be a rare punishment, accorded only to those who had repeated an offence multiple times, had refused to cooperate with DISCO MH (SDGM, as it was called then) and, most importantly, had caused serious discomfort to fellow hostel residents. Now, however, quite literally every offence, from smoking a cigarette in the corridor to being “caught” consuming any other intoxicating substance in your room carries a punishment of grounding. Furthermore, because the DISCO’s power to give groundings as a punishment is entirely uncodified, the length of these grounding sentences has risen in an alarming and unchecked fashion. 4-5 years ago, the maximum conceivable grounding punishment was 10 days but nowadays, many boys’ hostel residents spend entire trimesters grounded for offences. If this is not a raging mental health problem breeding on our own campus, I don’t know what is – how “mentally healthy” can you expect someone who is forced to spend all their time past 4 PM locked up in their hostels for an entire trimester at the hands of one of their batchmates to be? What’s even worse is the targeted nature of these punishments – once the DISCO Boys’ committee members have latched on to a “habitual offender”, they just “catch” this person again and again to ensure that they spend increasing amounts of time under “grounding” sentences. Groundings have become the new normal – first year students have been handed month long groundings for the simple offence of missing room check a couple of times!

Why are we purportedly okay with this? Because the alternative is the warden catching these people and DARICing them, leading to a possible expulsion or year losses. The question, however, is whether that is enough of a justification – should the power vacuum between the warden and the DISCOs mean that we sit back and allow a few students to wreak havoc on the lives of others? Even if we believe the University’s rhetoric of “substance abuse” being a problem on campus, is giving arbitrary power to a few students to lock up such “delinquent students” for an entire trimester going to solve the problem? Quite obviously, the answer is no.

What can we do about this?

In its ideal form, a student-run mediator between the administration and the students should perform two functions. First, it should preserve as much autonomy as it can for students and only curb those actions that may harm or cause discomfort to others. Thus, smoking a cigarette (or anything else) in your room (as long as your roommates are okay with it) should not be DISCO’s concern, but throwing alcohol bottles from the terrace into the quad should. Second, it should shield students from the administration in order to preserve this autonomy. This would require a re-configuration of where the DISCOs source their power, so as to ensure that they become answerable, at least in part, to the student body.

Not all DISCOs have operated in as arbitrary and unfair a manner as the present one in the boys’ hostel. Past DISCOs have recognised this twin role and acted to actively shield students from the Hostel Rules’ moral impositions (don’t drink, don’t smoke, is this what your parents sent you here to do?). Unfortunately, because the DISCO’s powers are unchecked, the character of those who lead and are members of the DISCO in any year can change the way it operates. Thus, the DISCO of 2018-19 is fundamentally different from past DISCOs/SDGMs, with the present one merely enforcing the Hostel Rules’ moral impositions on students in a tyrannical fashion instead of shielding students from them.

The only way to ensure that DISCOs uniformly act in accordance with the aforementioned twin principles is raising our voices. Four years ago (in the AY 2014-15), a General Body Meeting called by the student body to challenge some obnoxious moral impositions proposed by the SDGM co-convenors of the time during Strawberry Fields forced them to moderate their stance and recognise that they cannot act contrary to student interests. Quite similarly, the time has come to recognise that the unchecked exercise of power by the DISCO has caused serious problems in the lives of many hostel residents. What we need, therefore, is a similar GBM, where we frame and agree upon a set of broad principles that will govern the manner in which the DISCO functions. As a united student front, it is then possible to engage directly with the administration and have the vast, unchecked powers of the DISCO moderated. Some indicative areas of interest are:

1. Ensuring that the DISCO operates in a manner that protects student autonomy instead of curbing it
2. Ensuring that the student body has some elected representatives on the DISCO/gets a say in the appointment of DISCO members.
3. Ensuring that a proper process is followed by the DISCO in “raiding” rooms and collective evidence of “misdemeanours” by students.
4. Framing guidelines on the quantum of punishment to be accorded by the DISCO for different kinds of offences.
5. Ensuring that the DISCO follows natural justice principles and, most importantly, records its reasoning for according a particular punishment in writing.

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, and I honestly don’t have a concrete plan for how we will go about curbing this problem. My primary aim, through this piece, has been to expose the concern to the student body at large and start a conversation about the physical and mental effects the DISCO can have on many hostel residents. Sadly, the DISCOs have a history of simply refusing to engage with Facebook and mail threads on their actions, so it seems that a GBM and a united student front before the administration is the only option. As a final note, I want to address the fact that I am writing this anonymously. Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice. I occasionally choose to engage in some “fun” activities and I don’t want to invite the wrath of the DISCO overlords by identifying myself. My hope is that in the future, we have a system where people like me don’t need to hide behind anonymity to challenge the actions of the DISCO and live in a hostel environment that is free for all and conducive to healthy, personal choices.