For those of you who thought this would be a meta article based on my Marquez-esque title, you’re wrong. I just had to show off a little to begin with. Although I adore the author, the only people I currently identify with are Ross and Rachel, as quarantine forces me into a slowly decaying potato state of mind (and body) in the middle of my 10th rerun of this ghisa-pita hua show. For context, Ross is a cocky weirdo who likes Rachel, and Rachel, like a true Law School girl with no options, inevitably falls for him. Then they break up and make up and break up and make up and break up and make up (yes, I have put the exact number of times).
Why do I currently feel like them? Something is oddly familiar about the way they yell “We are SO over,” “We were on a break,” “I don’t need your stupid ship” and the like, only to fall in a limbo of uncertain feelings again and again. After all, I’ve had my own love-hate, on-off, toxic, full of incredible highs (hehe) and painful lows relationship over the last 5 years. This is not a romantic expose — I speak of Law School. And much like Rachel, only now that the ship has finally sailed, do I realise how much I will miss the stupid ship.
This ship has a lovely exterior, full of green and white and red, and it draws you into its fold immediately, like a beautiful green Venus fly-trap. The exterior of course conceals the air of anxiety, the unsteady ceiling of ridiculously high expectations, and the noxious environment of gossip and judgment that surrounds the entrant. Not to mention the institutionalised structural hierarchies and stigma that shape most interactions here. The bad times here are bad to say the least — but never fear because now we have not one but TWO counsellors (*orgasm*) to get us through it.
But perhaps my ship is more than just a well of cloying bitterness.
My ship is purple-orange skies that appear on cold evenings with the warmth of the laughter of your friends around you. My ship is evenings spent at Chetta doing the one leg dance (girls you get it) discussing anything from the CAA to the fond memories from a trip to Gokarna. My ship is the hungover smile on faces when they pass the newly muddy, brown Quad on mornings after a raging party. My ship is the genuine happiness on a beloved professor’s face when an entire batch surprises him one evening with a cake. My ship is the hours spent in exertion training batchmates to dance to Bollywood songs from 2 am the night before Eastern Dance.
My ship also has these tiny corners of light that I’ve often taken for granted. The pleasure (lol) of being woken up at 12 pm by loud, giggling ammas rather than your irate family screeching your name. The hours you spend talking about everything and nothing in your neighbour’s room, that you’ve made your own. The moment a professor exclaims in excitement because of a fierce but fulfilling academic fight in class. And most importantly – Atithi’s aloo parathas that can make any horrible day okay.
And CUT. Feel nostalgic? Yes, I do too. Now imagine someone throws you off this ship into the depths of the open sea with no warning. For context, watch Shah Rukh Khan throw Shilpa Shetty off a terrace in Baazigar in slow-mo (who wouldn’t?). The sea is cold, it is uncertain and you see no direction or relief. Yet you are expected to leave your beloved ship and home of several years, and begin to swim away from it. Except due to our friend Karuna, you can’t begin swimming away, and you’re immobilized in a position where your beloved ship is right there in front of you and you could have been on it, but it is now also beyond your reach.
People tell me this is adulting and this is the way of life, but as a good friend recently told me — yeh sab capitalist construct aka mohmaya hai. So, screw being mature about leaving Law School. We are going to whine and weep and prolong our stay when we come back for our luggage (lol sorry first years). Because this is our home.
This is not to say our experiences here are not shaped by who we are. As an upper caste cis-woman from a metropolitan city, I acknowledge my experiences are positive because of my privilege and background. Law School has a long way to go to make this ship a steady and joyful ride for more than just a few. Yet, Law School is also a people, and for them I am most grateful.
A Quirk article would be incomplete without gyaan, because Quirk articles are usually gyaan/ woke movie reviews/ cool rock sing-alongs no one gets, and we love it. My gyaan is simple – channel my batchmate Adit Munshi. Go back to college and take pictures of everything. Of trees and treadmills, of food and fungus, of Chetta coffee and class. Because believe us, it is heartbreaking to have no closure and a dream of OLTs that you thought you would get and memories you thought you would make. Treasure your time on this ship, because kal ho na ho, aur agar hoga bhi, toh bohot sucky hoga.
The fifth years shall continue our bingos and binge-watching, in the faint hopes that we can return to our beloved ship before that is lost to us forever. In the meantime, keep up the academic rigour and the scholastic incrementalism y’all!
]]>They are at home, they are managing their families, they are planning their finances and supplies, yet they are also helping run the college efficiently. Quirk reached out to Madhu Sir, our Assistant Librarian, Padma Ma’am, Supervisor of the UG Course at the Academic Administration Department, and Usha Ma’am and Beena Ma’am, Administrative Staff at the Vice-Chancellor’s Office.
Quirk also wanted to interview other members who may not officially be a part of the University but are a beloved part of the NLSIU Community. Quirk reached out to Chetta, owner of Aishwarya Bakery, and Jayaram Sir, owner of the printing shop at the Library. These are people who are non-salaried and who get by on account of the business that the NLSIU community gives them. Quirk felt that it would be important to understand the disproportionate impact that the lockdown has had on different members of NLSIU.
These interviews were carried out by the Quirk Team, with help from Karthik Rai (Batch of 2023).
This article is the first of a series, Quarantining with Quirk.
Madhu Sir
Assistant Librarian at NLSIU
I am home alone, so I am trying new recipes. My routine includes cleaning the house, washing clothes, listening to lots of music using apps like Spotify, SoundCloud and Amazon Music and downloading new movies through Telegram. I am watching movies and series on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar. I am a huge fan of Manchester United, so I watch old matches on YouTube. I have gained weight so I work out daily. I also video call my friends who are abroad. I am making videos about the quarantine and sharing them on Whatsapp with my friends.
With respect to work, I am working from home. So you can call me ‘Home Librarian’. I am constantly in touch with my colleagues – without their help and cooperation, I can’t fulfill any of the requests sent by the faculty and the students. We are online 24/7. My colleagues and I have compiled the list of open source websites which will be very useful for the user community during this lockdown period. We are supporting our users through Digital Reference Service everyday.
The greatest difficulty which I am facing right now with respect to doing my job is the frustration that I feel because of working from home. It’s very hard to find materials and fulfill the users’ requirements while sitting at home. It’s hard to not be able to order new books and receive them quickly to help out our faculty and my students.
I miss my library so much. I miss playing football with my students, helping them find materials, receiving new books and ordering new books. I also miss my colleagues and having tea and lunch with them. I am worried about campus dogs – since no one is there on campus, I don’t know who is feeding them?
Praying for everyone’s safety during this crisis and looking forward to getting back to normal life ASAP.
Chetta
Owner of Aishwarya Bakery at NLSIU
I’m right now at my friend’s place in Bangalore. I couldn’t travel home because of the lockdown. The other chettas are home, but I am stuck here since only I arrived first for the reopening in March. I had planned to leave on Monday (23rd March), but there was unsold ice-cream. Before I could sell all of it and make travel plans, they announced a lockdown. I can still go home by going to Mysore and taking a bus from there. But I heard they mandatorily admit everyone to the hospital and only discharge us after a 15-day quarantine.
What do I to spend time? Nothing much, just sitting in my room (laughs). Those back at home also don’t have much to do. My friend has a grocery store here which opens at 12pm. Sometimes I sit there for a while. Sometimes I watch TV. If they do lift the lockdown restrictions on April 15th, I’ll try boarding a bus and getting home, so let’s see what the government decides. Of course, even if they do lift the restrictions, people would be travelling around and crowding again.
As of now, I don’t face any financial problem as such. But obviously, isn’t everyone affected financially? People employed by the college might still be receiving their salaries. But it’s been a while since we’ve been on campus: February, March, April – it’s been three months. That’s the problem. We can’t do anything about it either, except sit in our rooms. Thankfully, there’s no problem with availability of food and other essentials here. The main problem is not being able to go home. I can somehow manage here. Even if I send money home, they can’t go to an ATM to collect it because they’re only allowing people to go out for essential goods and services. So at home, they might be facing a few problems financially. Kannur (my hometown) is really affected as there are a lot of people who returned from the Gulf, so it’s understandable. They don’t realise how harmful it is (to wander around). In Kasargod, one man gave the disease to everyone, right? If he had been careful, the spread could’ve been mitigated. Similarly, in Delhi, a lot of people gathered together. That’s the problem. I don’t think the situation will be alright even after this month. The number of cases is only increasing.
The biggest thing I miss about NLS is the fact that I don’t have anything else to do now. I’m stuck on my own. I watched movies for the first week, but now I’m fed up of movies. How many films can someone watch? (laughs) I switched to a six month post-paid plan so I could make maximum use of it.
Padma Ma’am
Supervisor of the UG Course in the Academic Administration Department
I couldn’t spend quality time with my two daughters earlier, but now I am finally spending time with them. My day includes cooking a variety of dishes, playing indoor games with my children, taking care of my mother who is 86 years old and watching Maha Bharath.
Apart from that, I am working from home and giving as much time as I would have if I was working in the office. The only difference is that I don’t have physical files to refer to and work. Therefore, I am finding it difficult to address all the students’ queries and attend to faculty needs satisfactorily while working from home.
I miss our students a lot. I am extremely attached to the NLS campus, office and students as I have been completely involved in work and committed to NLS since 1989. I miss everything at NLS.
Jayaram Sir
Owner of the printing shop at the NLSIU Library
I am not in Bangalore as of now. I have gone back to my hometown, which is about 20 kms from Tumkur. My life during the quarantine is very boring. There is nothing that we can do, we are jobless (laughs). My network is also really bad so it’s difficult to speak to people. I only watch movies on TV, which also becomes boring after some time. We own a plantation, but there is no work going on. Since we aren’t supposed to go outside, and with the increasing uncertainty, the 7 people in our home just spend time with each other. We play board games, like Chowka Bara (chuckles) or chess at times. That’s is my only time pass strategy.
My finances are the biggest problem in this lockdown. Sure, we have been asked to return to campus on the 14th of April, but with the recent spike in the number of cases, who knows what is going to happen? Unless something is found or something is done about it, we do not know anything for sure. We have suffered a lot due to this lockdown. No one is working from our family, and it’s a complete loss now. All we can do is subsist on savings, and we don’t even know how long that will last. I don’t know how I will be able to manage. It is very difficult to stay away from business for a long time.
What can I miss in NLS apart from my printing/photocopying business? Since my only job in NLS is my business, which is what earns me money, it’s the only thing that I really miss right now (sighs).
Usha Ma’am and Beena Ma’am
Administrative Staff at the Vice-Chancellor’s Office
We are taking all possible precautions and are spending our entire time in the house. Indeed, sometimes it is very difficult to spend the whole day in the house. But we don’t have a choice because it is an issue of the health of the entire country which cannot be compromised at any cost. We are spending time by reading books, getting in touch with our relatives, meditating, exercising, and taking good care of our health.
We are working from home. However, as we are non-teaching staff, we are not in a position during this lockdown period to do all the work that we used to do while being in the office. The University authorities were very quick in taking the decision to start online classes so as to see that the loss to the student community was minimised to all possible extents. Even the non-teaching staff are attending Zoom meetings which is a new learning experience for all of us and we are happy that we can contribute in some way under these extreme circumstances. As staff of the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, we are arranging and attending meetings, coordinating with different departments, getting in touch with concerned officials via the phone and through mail and are doing our part to the best of our abilities under the prevailing circumstances.
What we miss most is interacting with students. We also know as parents, how difficult it is for the students to cope under these circumstances. However, we expect all of you to make the best use of the facilities made available to you by the University at a very short notice and continue your academic pursuit. At the same time, do take care of your health, have fun and we would like to see the same confident, smiling, and active students back in the University at the earliest.
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October 30, 2018 | Smriti Kalra and Aman Vasavada
In what has been touted as a landmark transition from bureaucracy to technocracy, the ED has joined hands with the Edchemy, an online ERP system propelling Nagarbhavi Law School and the nation towards Superpower 2020 status. While Digital India campaigners have hailed this move towards transparency, concerns have been raised that it is nothing but collusion with a new partner-in-crime.
After a rocky start where Edchemy was questioned by appropriate adjudicating authorities regarding who commissioned its very existence in Nagarbhavi Laa School, the ostensibly illegitimate merger has left no stone unturned in disrupting the student environment even before the trimester has begun.
Its first step has been the historic digitization of attendance records. But with great transparency comes great legal positivism. ED-Edchemy has started following attendance rules strictly – a turn of events that has shocked the conscience of the nation’s finest (self-proclaimed) lawyers-in-the-making. This has proved to be the final straw for the students who are already experiencing their seasonal depression spike as reported by us last week.
While some have valid complaints about incorrect totalling of marks, others have dug out their Admin Law notes (photocopied from someone else, of course) to invoke the Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation. The fact that earlier a 95% might have gotten them 5 marks of attendance despite the rules prescribing 96% for this has ruffled many feathers. A team is also exploring electronic evidence principles to figure out the burden and onus of proving discrepancy in attendance in this era of e-MakeUps.
A certain student who wishes to be identified as Nancy Drew revealed to us that this 96% requirement may have been a top-secret amendment to the AER rules, executed covertly by ED-Edchemy, while distracting the student body through diversions such as elective offerings, unwarranted personal delivery of exam results, and privacy-breaching student profiling. As we speak, our informant continues her search for truth by comparing the forgotten texts of the pink, bound rule-book that first years received this year with the ones circulated in previous years. The NLS Inmates Review can neither confirm nor deny her claim.
But this age of voices calling for due process and responsible reporting coupled with our quest for investigative journalism has taken us to Edchemy’s HQ in Wakanda, where we were duly informed that Edchemy’s scientists are using Laa School to test their algorithmic prowess. If they manage to improve efficiency in our lazy society that abides by the delayed NLS Standard Time, it will sell its algorithm to larger applications that require more efficiency, such as the Vijay Mallya probe and South East Asian airline regulators. Our tech editors shall continue to follow-up on Edchemy’s cutting-edge endeavours.
]]>One job that I have faithfully performed for the last four years is being my batch’s class representative. As college designations go, it isn’t the fanciest, the most prestigious or even the one that receives the most hate. (The last one will always be reserved for MessComm). It does, however, keep me occupied and every once in a while it makes me feel like I am doing more in college than playing Age of Empires every day. But the one time every trimester where every class representative’s phone is flooded is the week leading up to project submissions.
To understand what exactly my job is, one needs to understand how project submissions exactly work. In my opinion, every project submission has three phases: the one where you think of working, the one where you try to work and the one where work actually gets done. The duration of these phases vary depending on the kind of person that you are. I am truly jealous of my friends who manage, time and again, to begin phase three a whole week and a half before submissions. But I’d like to think their lives are more boring than mine. I, on the other hand, begin phase three 36 hours before the date of the submission. This is less than ideal. But at this point I am still better off than those who have texted me asking me how likely it is that I will be able to convince the UG Chairperson that the internet has, once again, had the life sucked out of it at the exact moment when we finally thought we could stop using it to stream Westworld and use it for what it was meant for. Everyone has picked up their phones and registered their voice on the batch WhatsApp group – “Can we please ask for an extension? We’ve had no time at all to make our project”. The vendor at Wholesale Wines will beg to differ.
Thus, I write to the UG Chairperson. As always, we’re given fewer days than we had asked for. The batch laments that there has been a travesty of justice and we have been robbed of our due. We’re left with only one authority to approach – Vice, of House Chancellor, first of his name, king of the LLMs, LLBs, and all the animals in between.
I draft the application asking for an extension with more loathing and self-hate than a catholic teen playing with himself while watching ‘Schoolboy makes gardener trim his bush’.
Soon I have my application drafted and I take it to the vice chancellor’s office. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ reads the noticeboard outside his door; motivating me as always to ask for more. I’m lying, the noticeboard had today’s thought for the day, pinned there faithfully as always. But I ask for an extension anyway and the extension is granted. I have now destroyed the next few days of my life along with that of the rest of college.
“Why do you say ‘destroyed’? Why all the loathing?” you’re sure to ask. Here’s why –
The problem with asking for an extension is that it eats away time that you would otherwise use for more meaningful pursuits – watching a movie, reading a book or trying to build your capacity for old monk. There is that odd time in every person’s life, one that would fall in phase two of the aforementioned three phases, when you really want to begin your project but 9Gag seems to be more vibrant than it ever was. You begin to browse the most obscure corners of the World Wide Web and maybe even indulge in a bit of NRAP (Non-Recreational Academic Pot: the kind you need to get yourself to focus just the right amount…or so we tell ourselves). Our distractions may be varied, but I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this phase is one that everyone experiences. What an extension does is extend this phase. After the general extension comes through, it gets extended by two days. It gets extended by two more days when the Moot Court Society comes out with theirs, and goes on getting extended when each committee, board, club, council, and association rolls out one of their own.
This time is not an enjoyable time for anyone. You shy away from any activity that would take more than an hour and a half because you need to get back to making your project. You don’t want to go on a holiday because you’re going to use the weekend to “just sit and write”. You have multiple tabs open on your browser and you convince yourself that you will get to them right after you finish this one last YouTube video. One last Chetta run before you get work. Nothing gets done.
All of you who know what I’m talking about here (and I’m certain that 90% of you do) should realize that you have had very little time to do what you really want to do in college because of phase two. Ever wonder why most of us have managed less than four or five trips to somewhere other than Nandi hills? (It’s shameful if you count that as a trip) Ever wonder why you haven’t ever had the time to publish in an international journal? Ever wonder why you’ve not been to more than forty bars in Bangalore – a visiting professor who was here for five weeks told me that she managed to visit eighty-two; that’s double the number that I have managed in four years. None of this has been possible because projects have always got in the way.
But what do we do about this? My suggestion is simple – we get the SBA to make a representation to the vice chancellor asking him to never grant an extension again. It doesn’t matter if the internet is actually bad and we can’t meet the deadline, I’d rather take a project carry than have us continue living the shitty life that we’ve lived. This is the only way that we will actually be able to get back the time that keeps getting stolen away from us. I say that this is the only way because I know that the alternative is impossible – that we actually manage our time better.
]]>O sweet-faced, soft-eyed Medusa of steely heart
We bow before thee, offering obeisance to thy wickedness
Clad in unsuspecting innocence. Thy power over us is unmatched
For thou could be the difference between Life and Death
Pass and Fail
Attendance and Shortage, yet none have
Understood the caprice that governs thy bureaucrat’s mind
Capable of spinning out regulations on the fly
And leaving even students of the law dazed.
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