On a dark BU highway, CLAT rank in my hand
Giant library tower , rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I hear of submission deadlines
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to look for lifelines.
There it hung on the noticeboard;
The list of placements was swell.
And I was thinking to myself,
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”
Then he kicked open the door and he showed me my cube
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say…

Welcome to the Laa School Life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
But there’s a saving grace.
Plenty of fun at the Hostel Himalaya
Any time of year (Any time of year)
It’s lit af here.

The system is fully twisted, it’s got some crazy demands.
It’s got a lot of shitty, shitty ploys, to bring you despair.
How they dance in the Acad quad, Trying to forget.
But they’ll always remember, and they’ll always regret.

So I called up the alumnus,
“This place is breaking my spine.”
He said, “Be the monster it wants you to be, then the rest will all be fine.”
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of Torts class
Just to hear them say…

Welcome to the Laa School life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
Until you match its pace.
Then you’ll be livin’ it up at the Hostel Himalaya
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Can I live this life?

Results on the website,
That F by my name looks so nice.
I thought, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in my roommate’s chambers,
They gathered for some scenes.
They had won it with skills and belief
But I just couldn’t take this grief.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the gate
I had to get that Uber fast
But the app just won’t book it.
“Relax, ” said the night man,
“We have blocked all these sites.
You can drop-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! ”

Welcome to the Laa School life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
Until you match its pace.
Then you’ll be livin’ it up at the Hostel Himalaya
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Can I live this life?

Dear First Year,

It has been nearly two months in this place now for you, and I am sure you are tired of being inundated with contradictory advice on how to survive (or thrive) in this godforsaken place. But bear with me, because my advice is fairly simple, and has the advantage of being delivered by someone who is not a stud, so don’t think it is unattainable. It is this: do not, under any circumstances, become like me.

I entered this place with all the realism of a child, expecting everything to magically fall into place for me. When things went wrong – as they were bound to – I went overboard trying to prove I fit into this place. I quit chasing the things that actually mattered to me, the things that shaped me, and went after grades and committees and social status. But I did not do enough for any of these things either – I abandoned moots halfway, and crammed the syllabus at the last minute. I became a receptacle of nothingness, unchanged by the learning that was so easily available to me in this place.

But not only was I untouched by the good parts of law school, I began losing the few passions I did enter the place with. My writing was, if I may say so myself, once filled with allegory and beauty. It has now become a rehash of everyone else’s, echoing all the crap that I am reduced to reading online. The language that was once a source of solace for me has begun to wear me down. Where I could once read Guy de Maupassant and Victor Hugo in the original, I now struggle to switch between the three simple tenses and accord my verbs and adjectives. I no longer sketch or doodle for the heck of it, but as a means of killing time and to avoid studying the next order or bare act. And my reading? Well, I suppose I shall always have books, but they, too, sometimes feel like one more chore to finish.

I can’t even claim to have any character. My ex and (once) one of my closest friends, who once told me he loved me for my ferocity and bravery, has virtually cut me off because he couldn’t stand to see me function as a shadow of the person that I used to be. My convictions and ideals have suffered, and the people around me will not hesitate to admit that I am neither revolutionary enough, nor passionate enough for the causes I profess to believe in. And I am weaker than I ever was – two years at the counselor with no sign of progress, a lack of money the only barrier between me and alcoholism. I long for a smoke every day even though a cigarette has yet to pass my lips.

The truth is, dear First Year, that I allowed the madness in the place – the competitiveness, the bitchiness – to seep inside me and take root there. I let it shake me out until I was insecure about even the little things that did not matter, because every time someone got ahead of me in any area it was like conceding defeat. And I let it wring me dry of any passion or emotion, turning me into the kind of person who, instead of seeking love or friendship or any meaningful human connection, contents herself with the increasingly elusive orgasms from jacking off to shitty porn.

All I have now for companionship is anxiety and envy, and I only have myself to blame.

For those few seniors who will read this and accuse me of self-pity and seeking attention, to those who suggest that I am overly defeatist in my attitude: I haven’t given up. I’m fighting myself every day: telling myself life isn’t all a race, getting things done, pushing myself to come out of my shell, seeking out new experiences, trying to rediscover what I once loved. But I have reached a point in my life where I have to run just to remain where I am without moving forward. God forbid if I were to stand still. And I know as well as any of you that being seen as weak – publicly – is the last thing that is likely to get you help in law school. The only reason I’m writing this is because most of this harm is self-inflicted, and possibly also systemic and cyclical, and I want to serve as a cautionary tale, if I can do nothing else.

The gist of my letter, dear First Year, is this: law school provides you opportunities to grow as a person. Use them. Find yourself, find new people, learn new things. But do not let the madness get to you. Hold on to who you are – the good parts of who you are – in the face of whatever challenges law school and life will throw at you. Because if you truly give it a chance, law school can do so much for you.

Do not be me, the one dumbfuck who allowed it to wreck her.

Ever yours,

Anonymous.

In Class XI, I chanced upon the blockbuster self-help book ‘The Secret’. The book made grand claims that the Universe wanted to grant each one of us all our wishes, as long as we visualized our wishes specifically enough. As a 16 year old with (somewhat) big dreams, I began iterating what I wanted from the Universe in a little notebook everyday. Every night, I would scribble down my wish specific enough for the Universe to understand: I wanted to get All India Rank 20 in CLAT and study in NLSIU. Funnily enough, the Universe ended up giving me almost exactly what I wanted- I came to NLS with AIR 21.[1]

In July 2011, I was one of the 80-odd bright-eyed, starstruck first years who entered the hallowed halls of Law School. Having been the typical ‘big fish in a small pond’ back in school, my most visceral memories from first trimester involve feeling heavy pangs of inadequacy and awe at the same time. I remember staring in amazement at a post on the 19(1)(a) Board, in which a senior had casually used the word ‘fungible’. I had perhaps been the only one among my peers in school to have read To Kill A Mockingbird; here, everyone had not only read it but also analysed it from multiple viewpoints to discuss in Legal Methods class. Some batchmates ran NGOs. Many had already traveled the world.

Everything about Law School had me amazed. The fact that library orientations and project writing classes happened at midnight. The fact that we would be writing four 5,000 word papers in which we displayed our analysis. That we could vote for decisions that our Committees made. And that many of these amazing people were now my friends. Many say that first year is the worst time because of how stressful and scary it is. Perhaps my view is tinted by graduation goggles, but I remember it as being an exhilarating time where we learned so many things about life, about the law and about ourselves- all by merely existing.

In second year, I was probably even more excited than Raag himself when Law School won Jessup. One of my most memorable terrace ‘party’ sessions was where my friends and I got into a heated discussion about farmer subsidies- something we had studied in class earlier that day. I would cherish mess-table conversations where we would discuss the upcoming assembly elections one day and our favourite Harry Potter fan-fiction the next. My excitement and upbeatness about Law School even spilled over to the (overhyped) third year, where I found the thought of not having midterms, and the thought of finally being an actual senior quite exciting.

Over the years, Law School has a way of numbing your feelings. Excitement makes way for fatigue and enthusiasm makes way for cynicism. By fourth year, I could barely muster the willpower to hit ‘Like’ on the SBA Facebook Page when someone achieved something. I didn’t even bother taking a notebook to class. Perhaps it’s all a function of being in the same space as 400-odd students, all of whom going through the same grind, but somewhere along the road it becomes easy to distrust other people’s intentions, and I probably distrusted my own more than once. Getting to spend 6 months abroad was a godsend at this time (SBA, I implore you to lobby to give fourth years the chance to go on exchange; nobody needs it more than them).

Looking back, I realize that it does not need to be that way. It’s genuinely possible to be cheerful in Law School. Yes, you are stuck in Nagarbhavi with this assortment of people who are always in your face. On the other hand, it’s the only opportunity you will ever get in life to spend five years in a cozy campus with other young people, where your only job is to look out for yourself and have a good time. When else can you take an afternoon nap and wake up just in time to attend a talk by a photojournalist who works in Chhattisgarh? When else can you turn up for a practice debate sweaty after inter-batch football? When else in life will ‘bonfire and chill’ with fifty-odd like minded souls be just a question of shooting an email to the VC?

It’s not just the good things about Law School that makes it all worth it in the end. A lot of the problems we face are huge problems only because we tend to take everything (including ourselves) a tad too seriously. Yes, it sucks to be stuck in class from 8:50 AM to 1:30 PM every day. But the read books on my Kindle and the scribbles in my notebooks are testament to the fact that boring classes only means you get to spend a few hours doing what you want, quietly. I spent all the boring hours over one trimester in third year making anagrams of the names of every single person in class as well as all our teachers (Vishnu Prasad: Sun-Sharp Diva). Back in first year, Ashrutha and I wrote a story and a poem about Cakes going on strike, called ‘Cakewalk’ (parodying Slut Walk, which was in the news a lot at the time). Looking back, being stuck in class for a few hours everyday almost seems like a gift. And yes, mess food sucks. But when else in life are you going to get three (mostly) nutritious meals taken care of for you while you go about your day? I am quite sure that in the near future, there will be a time when I return from work at night, open my fridge to find just a banana and ice-cubes in it, and miss the watery dal that the mess served on Thursday nights.

This is not to say that we must condone the institutional failures that we witness everyday. We must strive to make Law School a better place. I believe it is possible to be enraged at things that deserve anger, but at the same time, see the humour in the minor misfortunes we face in the little bubble we live in. In first year I was convinced that the Universe was truly watching out for me by sending me to such an amazing place. By fifth year it had started to seem more like punishment. But in hindsight, I wouldn’t have it any other way than coming here. To borrow a line from a recent Presidential hopeful- Let’s Make Law School Happy Again. All it takes is a little humour, optimism, enthusiasm, and keeping the first year in you alive.

[1] Those who want to verify this information can contact me, I still have the notebook as evidence.

My first year of law school, we were set up randomly with roommates. Within a few hours, we had figured out how we were going to deal with the sudden lack of space and our presumed active social lives. Every night, one of us would go out to party, get hammered and do a lot of women while the other one would study in the library and diligently take notes. The next day, we would switch. Some of you first years reading this may be nodding along, thinking “great idea” as you run to the hostel office to get a perm form, thinking about which woman on your top 5 you want to hit on first. This is why you’ll be first years, because you’re very dumb. Tinder in Nagarbhavi has a higher chance of matching you with a supermodel than an idea like this working. Every evening in first trimester, I’d check my wallet at 6:00 pm, decide I’m out of money, go to the next room and learn that everyone is out of money, and then make the excruciating walk to the mess to sign good ol’ roomcheck. I didn’t party every night (sorry, 16 year old me) and I didn’t even see a single breast that trimester (other than my own, and my roommate’s). First year sucks. You have no idea what you don’t know, or how you overestimate yourself, and for that, we envy you.

I don’t know if I’m writing this for first years. There’s no way you’ll listen. You’re too cocky. You’re thinking, “Screw you, I’ve seen Project X, I’ll have this student body wrapped around my finger within a week.” And why wouldn’t you be? You just aced an incredibly tough entrance exam. A town of people looked at you as the smartest thing to happen since Uday Chopra quit acting and you are set up for a future as the next big thing to shake the legal world.

But so is everyone here. You’ll get to college and realize life at home wasn’t that bad. You had food, laundry and masturbation without having to shoo your roommates away. Sure, you couldn’t waste all your time dozing off and jacking off (or you could, I don’t know how weird your family was) but at least you had a constant reminder of your greatness in the form of “good job’s” and “We’re proud of you’s”. Instead of courses you could bunk and nail, you have History I. Instead of class teachers who would fawn over you, you have an endless stream of condescension. The 95’s you used to whine about now seem golden, given the 51’s you celebrate. This is not including PI’s, laundry, or that girl who you thought wanted a quad party hookup when she was just preparing to puke on you. First year is rough. You can ask anyone what they think and their answer will be a bunch of grunts and expressions symptomatic of PTSD.

But don’t look for sympathy. If you look in the eyes of any senior, beneath a hangover, you’ll see fear. The end of the free ride is coming. Either they’re past third year, and have to deal with a job, a career and the choice of fulfilling their dreams. Or they’re awaiting third year. A train is going to him them, and they know exactly when. These seniors would switch places with you in a second. They would take History I, bad quad parties, PI’s all over again to know that they could relive the good moments that come after it. First year is brutal because change is brutal. Change is the ride to the hilltop before the view. That view is coming sooner than the dark abyss of life, and this is why we envy first years. The friends you’ll make, the blackouts you’ll have and the stresses about class that aren’t even a stress at all. Good luck this year, and remember, you are very dumb. 

The author can be contacted at [email protected]