When I was a child, my neighbour used to feed my brother and me whenever my parents went to the village. She would invite me home for food. I would sit on the floor; her entire family would sit at the table.
Bahujan scholar and poet Omprakash Valmiki described in his biography, his father’s insistence on him pursuing a higher education, despite knowing fully well of the discrimination that his son would inevitably face. A child who had already faced such discrimination from primary school, was hence burdened with the expectation of a higher education, with the belief that it was the only route to ridding himself of caste.
I am a Chamaar. This is not an identity that I have ever shied away from. While some of you would expect me to identify as a ‘human’ first, I want to assure you that the society at large has made sure that I don’t forget which caste I belong to. In my time at Law School, as I have gone from identifying as a Chamaar to identifying as a Dalit-Bahujan, I have always embraced the one part of my identity meant to keep me down. As I write today, however, I offer a small glimpse into a journey, familiar to some and incomprehensibly unfamiliar to others.
Much like Omprakash Valmiki, my parents too, harboured dreams of escaping caste. Escaping, however, comes at a price. The price of an education, was sacrificing a house. To send your son to the best possible school, you had to sacrifice the down payment that you could have made on a home. With each tier of education coming at a greater cost, the sacrifices would mount and my parents would make them; because at the heart of hearts they shared the same vision of Dr BR Ambedkar and Omprakash Valmiki. They (and I) genuinely believe that a higher education is the only avenue for one to rid themselves of caste.
I joined Law School in 2015 but my journey began 2 years prior, when I prepared and wrote the CLAT in 2014. Back then, I had gotten a score which would have seen me enter RMLNLU. Determined to improve and make it to the best possible Law School, I rewrote in 2015 and sat stunned as I checked my results at 2AM in the morning. I had secured an AIR of 333. I was dejected. I really thought I could have done better.
In the morning I rang up one of my closest teachers who had helped me with my preparation and informed him that I had gotten an AIR of 333. Being the supportive man that he is, he was delighted. He congratulated me on my effort and told me it was a result of my hard work. Almost as an afterthought, I informed him of my AIR SC Rank 2. He was ecstatic. He yelled in joy and said my entry into NLS was certain. Here is when I was caught in my first dilemma. I expressed to him my doubts about joining a college based on my SC Rank and instead simply accepting a college as per my General ranking. The words he said then fuel me to this day. He said “If you don’t go, the seat will be offered to a child who might not be able to bear that pressure and drop out. Remember, you don’t go there for yourself, you go there for your people; as a guiding light for those students who can look up to you and follow you in the same footsteps.”
Truth be told, these footsteps haven’t been easy. Each step through Law School has thrown up challenges reminiscent of the inequities that exist outside. But after an unlucky streak of two year losses, it is these words which prevent me from dropping out like so many other Dalit-Bahujans, and kindle my hope of graduating from this institution with all the knowledge that I came to gather.
The pursuit of knowledge here, however, seems particularly strange through the lens of a Dalit-Bahujan man. On a campus that boasts equality campaigners in all corners of its settlement, I continue to witness, with each new batch of students, similar incidents of caste-based slurs, “debates” on why “economic reservations are the solution” (this from those joining our LLM and MPP programs) and a culture of discrimination that only serves to remind individuals of their place in the socio-economic hierarchy.
When Valmiki’s father insisted on his pursuit of higher education, the forms of discrimination that he feared may have been different. But in the second decade of the 21st century one can be certain that the perpetrators, then and now, draw from the very same well. Incidents of discrimination, against an individual, only hasten the collective reliving of a community’s historical inferiority complex – of not speaking good enough English, of not being able to understand complex concepts in one go, of not “fitting in” to elite cliques, of not knowing how to compile presentable projects, of not clearing exams.
In the initial days of college, a group of students sitting in their hostel rooms were discussing the marks of the first test of Legal Methods. In the course of the conversation one of my batch mates very casually remarked “Yaar, yeh SC kaise aajate hain iss college mein?” (“Dude, how do these SCs come into this college?”). One hopes that the men present have changed their views over the years, however, the impact that one such statement has on its listeners can persist for years. After all, we were all just first years who wanted to hang out, but from that moment on we would always be reminded that in their eyes our existence would simply never measure up. One day you are a proud member of India’s premier law school, and the other you are just another Dalit who got in through reservation.
The way higher education is portrayed as a route to salvation, one often forgets that those they meet on this journey are a product of the same patriarchal, brahmanical caste-based society that exists outside. For all those who forget, however, incidents like these serve as a reminder.
When I came here, education was my primary aim. I started to participate in practice debates because I wanted to speak in English and make sense at the same time. I wanted to participate in class so I tried to contribute. Prof. Elizabeth (aka Lizzie) encouraged everyone to engage and debate in class. Even though the first 3 weeks of History were Latin to me, I started to relate heavily to the lecture on “Society and the Individual” from the “What is History” component. It was here when I first tried to speak in class a few times while seated at the back of the side rows, all the while anxious of being made fun of. Over time, I slowly gained in confidence and my engagement in class increased, till one fine day, I got stuck trying to formulate a sentence and a batchmate of mine looked at me and smirked. That was it. All that effort into building myself up, deflated. The said person later joined the Law and Society Committee. Little did I know that in my second year, I would face the same kind of deflation, only this time it would be at the hands of a Professor, who would use his privileged position, to mock me for the class’s entertainment.
Trust me. It breaks you. Being made fun of for struggling with a language you weren’t exposed to because your parents only spoke to you in either Bhojpuri or Hindi. It cuts at your self-esteem and stabs at your confidence. It effectively kills your sense of curiosity and robs you of your ability to participate. And yet. And yet, it doesn’t break you like you may think it does. It may break your heart, but it does not break your spine. One keeps marching forward towards that goal that is graduation, because one does not walk this path for the benefit of caste perpetrators but towards their direct detriment. Once again, one hopes these people have changed, but the fact that the said Professor continues his antics, doesn’t leave me feeling very optimistic. The certainty with which people say “Arey, people develop sense while they stay here” can only emerge from those unaware or intentionally blind to how deeply ingrained this mentality is in our institutions.
Academic achievers, and discourse creators keep discussing how caste-based discrimination has either vanished or radically reduced with the onset of education. As someone who studies at the premier centre for legal instruction in the country, I would like to categorically disagree. Caste discrimination has merely evolved into discrimination by other means. Language, clothing, taste in music or your consumption of pop culture, each act as a proxy for your socio-economic location. While the cliques that form around these may seem banal, they represent a much deeper divide.
When you enter they ask you your rank, and then look at you with pity. When you speak English they mock and they jeer. Little do they know that their “merit” is bought by money and their rank by a historic access to resources. Their spoken English reeks of condescension and their debates uplift none. Their pretence of inclusivity dies when they shoot down someone for speaking Hindi, and again, when their moot courts “groom” and “polish” the pre-polished selected for “grooming” and “polishing”.
The table from my childhood seems to have persisted to my present.
Distant. Intimidating. Unattainable.
The only difference is,
When I was a child, I ate on the floor.
I will sit on the floor no longer.
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[Image Description: The focus of the picture, in the centre, is the NLS library. Surrounding it are doodles of various things in Law School. There are mentions of all the food places in and around campus – Bistro, Chetta, Rohini, Hungry Hub, Juice Shop, Atithi and Gokul. Law School events are depicted – Spiritus (with a basketball hoop), SF (with a strawberry wearing headphones), Univ Week (with a banner), GCL (with a cricket bat and ball), Mooting (with a trophy) and Nego (with client and counsel placards). There are doodles of Dan, Dominos, Pride, a laptop running out of charge, a bookshelf, a hot beverage, weak wifi, a clock with the bell – various aspects of Law School. These are accompanied by mentions of Nagarbhavi skies, field scenes, Maggi and bun butter bhujia, tort v torts, “pedagogy” and “academic rigour” – all those little things that make Law School, Law School.]
P.S.: We still love you, Law School.
]]>Ever since I was a child, I have been a huge Bollywood fan. My earliest memories are dancing to Kajra Re and Kanta Laga, much to the horror of my parents. The downside of this, however, was having unrealistic expectations. I had always imagined that my college life would be like that in Main Hoon Na. Not the being-held-hostage-by-a-terrorist part, but the living-each-frame-like-it’s-a-musical part. For those who are unacquainted with this masterpiece of a movie, it is similar to High School Musical, except it has an India-Pakistan angle, SRK in a romantic lead role and Sushmita Sen conveniently located next to a hairdryer in each scene. But I digress. Basically, in my head, college was one big party with immaculate outfits, little to no academics, and Gori Gori playing in the background.
NLS however, to my disappointment, felt much more like 3 Idiots. It was not only the academic rigour and strenuous trimester system that provoked this comparison. Rather, it was the complete lack of empathy towards student concerns and a very competitive, suffocating environment. Coming into college, I admit I was a bit naive and deluded about what to expect and my expectations were a bit far-fetched, but nothing could prepare me for the initial monotony and dislike I experienced for this institution. Apart from a very energized Rang de Basanti-esque student protest, most of law school life is centred around either academics or “legit” co-curriculars. Extra-curriculars and sports are given little to no importance. My first realization of this was during Spiritus, which far from living up to its hype and resembling Chak de India, just became an excuse for seniors to take a three day vacation.
This initial disenchantment was not easy to look beyond. Especially when most of my friends were running from one DU fest to another. However it took six months of being in NLS to realise that although it is definitely not a Bollywood movie, it does have its Bollywood moments.
What NLS does give you, is exposure. I had come from a very sheltered bubble and NLS made me realise that not everybody shares the same privileges and background that I do. I learnt how to acknowledge where I had come from, its benefits and also its drawbacks. Moreover, NLS allows you to think in ways that you have never thought before. Whether it’s a formidable professor like Prof. Elizabeth or one like Prof. Rahul Choragudi, you begin to hold yourself to a higher standard and think beyond what you’ve been taught your entire life. You begin to understand issues that have been explored in Pink and Article 15 from an academic lens. And let’s be honest, Prof. Somashekhar in his pink t-shirt is no less than a Bollywood heartthrob.
Moreover, you begin to realise the vast expanses of opportunities that are available at your disposal. Whether you want a Suits career or the opportunity to make a ‘Tareekh pe Tareekh‘ dialogue, you have all the resources at your behest to do so.
Lastly and most importantly, it is the people you choose to engage with and befriend that really contribute to your Bollywood moments. Law School is a scary place and much like 3 Idiots, we all need some Ranchos in our life. My Yeh Jawaani Hain Deewani memories of NLS involve chilling at Chetta with my friends, dancing on the field to (you guessed it) Kajra Re and exploring Bangalore on the back of a Bounce.
Also much like a Bollywood movie, NLS has moments where you feel like it’s all going to go to shit, but miraculously it doesn’t, and all is well and good (if only for the next half an hour). Whether it’s a History viva or an Eco exam paper, things do go from bad to worse, but somehow they always manage to get a little bit better.
By this point I sound more sappy and cringe than I intended to. It also seems like I’ve fallen into the classic Law School trap of giving unsolicited and unnecessary advice. But what I ultimately want to end with (and yes there will be a Bollywood reference) is that I’ve come to understand that NLS is like Shah Rukh Khan’s career- spanning a very long period of time and a very mediocre body of work, but when it brings you the occasional good movie, it really really is worth it.
]]>Here’s the video for the original song to get into the rhythm! Sing along to raise the standards!
Designing credits: Smriti Kalra (Batch of 2021)
Mallika Sen, Smriti Kalra, Jyotsna Vilva (Batch of 2021), Jwalika Balaji and Lakshmi Nambiar (Batch of 2023) interviewed Sachin Malhan (Batch of 2002), Sarayu Natarajan (Batch of 2006), Tanmay Amar (Batch of 2006), Vikas NM (Batch of 2008) and Srijoni Sen (Batch of 2009), all alumni of Law School, to gain some insight into dissent in their times and the student-faculty-admin relations. They were a few of the many alumni who came down to Law School to sit with the students during the recent protests, which is when the Quirk team got an opportunity to interview them. All opinions expressed are their own.
Q: What sort of issues did you have with the administration and the exam department during your time in law school?
A1: It’s been a while (laughs). There were smaller issues in terms of people facing academic consequences or just the level of freedom that you had on campus, and there was often a back and forth between the students and the faculty regarding these. I remember coming in, in my first year, and immediately being very impressed by the way students collectively spoke to faculty. But we also got the sense that beyond a level, it wasn’t really participatory, even though it affected students’ lives very much. Even at that time, the Executive Council’s decisions were very opaque – maybe it’s okay for students not to have a voice there, but even knowledge about how critical decisions were made about the University – that free information sharing was not there – and you guys are doing a great job of at least making that transparency come into the picture.
A2: I mean we all hated the exam department – but that’s natural resentment right. If they aren’t hated, they aren’t doing their job. Denial of project exemptions that were valid under the UGC Rules was always an issue. There were often battles but it was at the level of individual batches. We had issues with the quality of professors. We gave bad reviews but it’s hard to say if they were taken seriously. So we found solutions outside the system – we got a student’s dad to teach us tax.
Q: How were conflicts resolved? How did the student body handle it?
A: Dialogue. It has always been a very democratic process, especially when it was a collective issue that people faced. One of the great things about this campus is that it has quite a popular President and Vice-President chosen by the student body – it’s not factionalized, it’s not divided up into camps. We trust them to speak and there are always legendary GBMs, of course. If issues were not so big, it would be routed through the President, Vice-president or Class Representatives. There has always been that spirit of dialogue and negotiation, but it was only up to a point.
Q: How successful were these dialogues?
A: With the smaller things, yes, they were quite successful. When it came to things like drugs on campus or disciplinary issues, I do think we had a good thing going in terms of the faculty and administration trusting students to work it out themselves. There was a lot of trust placed on matters like that. Even with individual academic issues, they listened. When it came to things that were much bigger, usually you wouldn’t get your way.
Q: Was there a lot of dialogue between students-faculty-admin or was it only among the students or among the faculty? Was there cross-dialogue?
A: There was a decent amount of dialogue. Resolution is a different matter but dialogue was pretty much up and running. It is actually the same set of people as today, because it is a small community and the same teachers are there for a very long time. I would say that things have not really changed that much. There is a degree of freedom and a degree to which you are invited to have a seat at the table and talk. But if things are very critical in the way that they see it, beyond that, it became much harder to influence them and then perhaps it becomes necessary to go to the length that you guys are going.
Q: What was generally the way in which law school dissented and protested in your time?
A1: I think it was kind of like this, but smaller. 19(1)(a) has always been the flashpoint for things. What was different was that it was much harder to get word out. Not just media or social media, but there weren’t any publications that kept a close eye on law school. What happened on campus stayed on campus. You would hear about it days later saying something has happened. Word gets out much faster (nowadays), which has good and bad consequences. The good thing is that you can mobilize a lot more people but the bad thing is that it’s hard to get one clear answer – different people say different things, you don’t exactly know what’s going on, there’s no substitute to being here in person, which is why when someone says that we’ll take care of it outside, it’s really difficult because they’re not in it the same way.
A2: Professor Devidas, when he came in, he sort of lost his marbles. For 10 days, he taught us a 2-page article that he had himself written. So, we as a class protested against him teaching us. We all stood in protest front of the VC Office and it was resolved – Aditya Sondhi came and took that course. Barring this isolated incident, there was nothing of the magnitude we are seeing now. There was a black-band protest against Professor Mohan Gopal when he was the Director. We all stood with black-bands and Professor Mohan Gopal himself stepped down. But it was not for a procedural violation as we see now – it seemed to have a broader socio-political basis.
Q. Were students recognized as stakeholders at all times?
A: The fact that Mohan Gopal left in 2001-2002 because of the protest is a sign of that. There was also a change of rules with 50 instead of 40 becoming the passing mark. C and C+ was removed as a grade and class participation marks were introduced. He had this small council to help him make decisions – it consisted of the top rankers of the batches who would override the democratically elected class representatives (they along with rest of the batch also hated this but were picked by the VC, so they had to do it).
The Law School that is described by our alumni is one where speech and dialogue seemed to have been the foundation of the relationship between the students, the faculty and the admin. We must reflect upon what version of Law School we would like to envision and create for ourselves and how best we can achieve it. We are a small community, yet we are so diverse. How we express ourselves and how we re-establish student-faculty-administration relations to realize the Law School that we would want to proudly call our own is a question we all must seek to answer.
“Let’s chill at Chetta”. The phrase I’ve heard most repeated by first years after “Are you done with your projects?” At least we’ve got our priorities in order. Now, Chetta opened about 2 weeks into our time here at Law School. We, first years, had already been so hyped up about how we were absolutely going to love it. So when it finally did open, I was underwhelmed. Ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out what the hype was really about?
To be fair, Chetta isn’t terrible – it’s a fairly decent shop with a variety of everything. But the ice cream tastes like… well, ice cream. The Maggi isn’t long enough to slurp, and they don’t have Piknik. So I’m here wondering, why is everyone in love with Aiswarya bakery?
If I were to think as a student of Economics I, I would think that it’s the theory of supply and demand. There is absolute scarcity of places that will supply you with an ice cream sandwich without the considerable effort of going outside campus, therefore we are all drawn to Chetta for our daily dose of happiness (read: junk food). Additionally, there’s the positive network externalities. Chetta is where the entirety of gossip from all over law school makes its way to, so to stay in the loop you have to be there. Also, at any given point in time if you’re suffering from boredom or anxiety, Chetta will have at least one person from the first year batch who also cares more about jam buns and lemon tea than the impeding project submissions. However, economics fails me in that whenever I go to Chetta – I seem to forget about my budget constraints and cease to be a rational consumer. A rational consumer would not be broke a month into law school. After all of this analysis, I should hope that I don’t have to give an economics repeat but it’s still very likely that it will happen.
Economics did a fairly decent job of helping me understanding the hype, but often, I still don’t understand the surge of love everyone in law school has for Chetta. However, some cold evenings eating hot cheese maggi, some nights singing “happy birthday” and stuffing our faces with cake, sitting in Yamuna past midnight when you hear people laughing and singing like they don’t have a care in the world … on such days, I get the hype. For most Law Schoolites, Chetta is more than just ‘Aiswarya bakery’. It’s the unending supply of chocolate when you just cannot stop crying. It’s lemon tea, music and friendship. It’s warm coffee and laughter. It’s comfort food; and God knows, we need all the comfort we can get, so far away from home.
For me personally, Chetta is a safe space less than 200m away from the library but miles away from the hassle of books and projects and first trimester in general. It’s a place I won’t find someone reading Carr, automatically sending me into panic mode (Disclaimer: don’t talk to me about projects at Chetta). It’s a place that gives me solace in knowing that midnight Maggis aren’t exclusive to home.
So, despite the PDA and wobbly benches, maybe, even if I did have abundance of choice, I would pick Chetta.
]]>This piece has been written by Anonymous.
[Author’s note: This is in no way intended to be an indictment of law school relationships or patterns of behaviour. It is merely intended to be a social commentary on a law school phenomenon which I’ve observed over the course of my school run. It is, however, not a work of fiction, and characters, events, and incidences are not the product of the author’s imagination and not used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living, semi-living, or going through a history course) or actual events is not coincidental.]
On 1st July every year, those of us who made it through the Russian Roulette of CLAT the brightest young minds of our generation walk through the hallowed portals of our Harvard of the East. They will be greeted by a host of seniors waiting to pass on gyaan, “PI”/take a trip out of them or hit on them. A week later, they will be all indoctrinated into our sacred culture of forced alcoholism and a lucky few will be selected for female impersonation. A day later, they will face NLS’ favourite ritual – a communal sharing of knowledge in an eager-to-learn atmosphere, where students are encouraged to ask questions and hypothesise based on limited factual information prone to constant fluctuation: no, not Eco I – gossip.
In later years, most people slowly start to shrink away from the limelight, and actively try to be as less talked about as possible. However, in the first year, gossip acts as a double-edged sword. First-year exploits either grant you a cult status, or get you the tag of a BT person; a player, or a hoe; as a guy who does “trip” things while drunk, or as someone who can’t handle their alcohol; as a boring pin-up, or a slut. Where you fall on these spectrums plays a part in determining your social life (if any) on campus and its reaction towards you.
Now it’s no secret that NLS doesn’t exactly foster the friendliest atmosphere. We love to outwardly pretend that we’re a premier institution with the brightest learning atmosphere, with a competitive peer group which only encourages academic rigour, because what would we be without competition? Jindal? Even inside NLS’ confines, we’re hesitant to disclose that in fact, it’s not all sunshine and daisies. We’re taught right from the moment we enter law school that we need to succeed at everything, EVERYTHING. And that includes not just academically, but personally and romantically as well. From the beginning of the first year, we’re fed the idea of finding a significant other, and in the days leading to quad parties, with the constant notion of having to get action.
Let’s take a look at our system of PI, which includes the naming of your “Top 5”. It’s not a hard reach to say that this pretty much is an open forum for seniors to either pressurise juniors into either going after persons named, or getting a window of opportunity to go after certain juniors. In the run-up to Freshers, the constant underlying theme to the event is one of, to put it crudely in MHOR lingo, “action toh mil gaya”. First years are regaled with tales of quad parties past, and thus the indoctrination deepens. The post quad party (#RipQPs #Never4Get) ritual is one of intense scrutiny and deep analysis of the hookups of the past night.
This indoctrination extends much beyond the initial months of law school. Some often heard choice phrases I’ve encountered floating around here are ”you’re not relevant in law school if you’re not dating/doing someone”; “He hasn’t hooked up/dated after their breakup, clearly he’s still in love with his ex”; “even THEY managed to hook up with someone at this quad party, and you still can’t?”; “Did you know that X cheated on Y with Z? I don’t know who but someone was discussing it at the mess table lol”; “They hang out too much to be just friends, they’ll end up being a scene”; “You’re in second year and you still haven’t dated? Bro I lost my virginity in first year itself”. Gossiping is, no doubt, NLS’ favourite hobby, and is the channel through which our hookup culture is promoted and revered. This line of gossip, in specific, cultivates the dangerous idea that you necessarily have to be romantically involved, or have a “scene” in law school.[1]
And I could go on and on about law school trends, events, and circumstances, which on a first look, may not be a direct outcome of this dangerous line of thinking that we’re fed, but with a little reflection, definitely are. I’ve seen first years obsessed with the idea of the NLS Ball (with a fervour which is often only reserved for events like Univ Week) – about finding dates, and scared of not being asked, and sad about not being asked. I’ve seen guys pressurised into having to maintain a player narrative about themselves – to be seen as a chill and cool guy – because hey, we all know that commitment ain’t cool and you gotta hang out with your bros and continue to engage in casual locker room trash talk while getting drunk at night, even as you WokeBoi your way through life when you’re with your girl and her friends. I’ve seen people rushing into relationships within the first trimester of law school. I’ve seen people throwing themselves into relationship after relationship, or, alternatively, staying in relationships they might not want to be in because they have no idea what law school would be like without the other person/with them being single.
It’s like dating/hooking up is the norm and not doing so is an aberration. Not dating? Oh you must of course get on Tinder then – that’s the default option. Don’t want to? Too bad lol, you’re reluctantly going to end up with an account anyway, only for random people to take screenshots of your bio and circulate it. And what if you’re asexual? Good luck with that. Law school makes wanting to be single/wanting to not hook up seem like a bad thing, which is funny, given how toxic our pool is, from what we’ve seen of October 2018. And like any facet of law school culture, try as you might to ignore it, or rationalise it, not participating in the culture still gets to you. I’ve often caught myself thinking should I just do it and get over with it? But who am I trying to prove a point to? My ex? College? Myself? The ever-growing void of dread in my mind that says no one will ever love me again? Whoops sorry, that got a little too real.
When you’re so widely fed this notion of having to date, you could find yourself being increasingly dependent on the idea of a significant other as the be-all-end-all, and as your sole anchor in the murky waters of law school. Not only is this an unrealistic burden to place on someone, but it also makes you overlook the red flags because the alternatives of cultivating relationships with other people, or learning to be alone, just seem so much worse. The whole culture of being either with someone or looking for someone makes it even harder to not relapse back into or rebound from familiar patterns, even for those who manage to get out of them. Daniel Sloss put it best when he said that we have romanticised the idea of romance, and it is cancerous. We’re so terrified by the idea of being alone, that some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece, and jam them into our jigsaw puzzle anyway, denying that it may not fit, because we’d rather have something than nothing.
You might wonder what the point of this rant is – is there really such a problem with our gossip culture and aggressively pro-romantic/sexual relationship culture? I think there is. Don’t get me wrong – I think college is a great time and place to freely explore sexual and romantic relationships. But it’s just as important to recognise that more often than not, college may also be the first time doing so for a lot of people. This, coupled with a lack of open conversations, sex education, understanding of consent, and healthy realistic role models for young couples in popular media means that this atmosphere and culture in college fundamentally moulds how we treat our relationships, whether we choose to experiment, with whom and under what circumstances, and what we set as benchmarks for ourselves and our partners. And because we’re so impressionable when we enter, and the years spent here change us so much, it’s all the more important that we carefully look at the culture we inadvertently cultivate and how it can be a healthier, happier, safer space.
Besides, guys, we’re all young! We’ve got places to go, shit to do, people to meet, history projects to write (#SaveOurSecondYears), internships to have our souls sucked out at, feelings of existentialism and imposter syndrome in law school to cry at – we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us to agonise about all this (and probably with the concerned prods of our parents as well, in a few years), so we could probably do with a little more chilling out, and a little less pressure on ourselves right now.
[1] While both of these are not the same concept, they have been used together in this article because of the common causes and consequences (as elaborated in this article – validation, desire to experiment, alienation, dependency, pressures, and the like) of getting into them, and the fact that one is often a segue into, or is a semblance of the other. Plus, in the outside world of Actual Adults, we’re often fed the notion of True Love being the endgame (#ripTony #never4get) through pop culture, movies, TV shows, Cosmo – you get the picture – and this colours our idea of relationships and/or leads to mounting pressures through our 20s.
Or, maybe we’re all just a bunch of sappy wusses who love projecting ourselves as pussy loving players on the outside, but on the inside just want someone to forehead kiss and cuddle us. 
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?
A couple of days ago, someone at NLSIU tried an anonymous Occupy 19(1)(a) [the public noticeboard on the NLSIU campus] by posting snippets of conversation they heard around campus about women and feminists. A large set of posters, titled ‘sexist quote of the day’ (sic), listed comments on how “women who put up a post on being sexually harassed are seeking attention” and that “feminists are sex addicts.” The makers of these comments were not named. But naturally, the Harvard of the East devolved once again into a battleground for pointless argumentation. Debates were fought in class and online about respecting ideologies, quoting out of context and maintaining the sanctity of jokes made in private. People were bitched about. Friendships were broken.
But amidst this hullabaloo, no one minded the newest addition to the board. Lying (mostly) unnoticed next to the feminist posts on 19(1)(a) was a poster of Vedica Natural Mountain Water.
Why is Vedica worthy of 19(1)(a)? Did Modiji announce that you can buy their water with old notes? Is Vedica the title sponsor of Strawberry Fields?
No, my friends. Vedica is much, much more than that.
Vedica is a term coined by some men at NSLIU to mean the following:
Vedica (n.): a ‘hoe’ who ‘spews leftist shit’ (widely read to include feminist women as well), and whose mouth should be ‘stuffed with something else’ to shut her up.
Eg. “She said my sandwich joke was not funny! What a Vedica!”
Sure, many leftists are vehement proponents of their views, and they can be annoying. Criticising an ideology, or a person’s approach to an ideology, is perfectly alright. Jokes about people do lighten up the mood. But in all earnestness, let me tell you why using ‘Vedica’ to joke about stuffing the mouth of an outspoken woman is deeply, deeply problematic.
First, using ‘Vedica’ to describe outspoken women amounts to plain and simple sex discrimination, and eventually, oppression.
Society often expects men and women to behave in a certain way, simply because they’re men, or because they’re women. Obvious examples of these ‘gender roles’ are how women are expected to cook and clean, and men are expected to earn. Men are generally more free to do what they like, while women are punished for deviating from being the ‘good’ woman. This is a form of oppression, in that women can’t do what they’d like for fear of backlash. We see this often in schools and colleges, where women are expected to act, speak and dress in a certain way in order to be appreciated by men. It’s what Gillian Flynn calls the Cool Girl:
“Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”
Women who speak out against sexism don’t conform to the Cool Girl role. They can’t take jokes. They call out sexist comments. They will be ridiculed for it. But go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m Vedica.
This is oppression because nonconformist women who feel uncomfortable with these inside jokes will eventually stop doing what they like because they can’t take the ridicule. However, the men in question will continue hanging out with those who aren’t offended by their jokes, no one will say anything, and life will go on. This is called normalization. And that’s not okay, because we’ve now begun to accept discriminatory practices as the norm.
It may be pertinent to note that the widely accepted definition of Vedica has been challenged by certain persons, claiming it to mean a girl with poor logic, but “a capacious sense of well-intentioned emotion.” This is again a gendered insult, given that it is a widely accepted stereotype to characterize women as emotional and illogical and oppress them for it. Illustratively, is there any similar word to characterize overly emotional men? Why not? A Malaika, by the way, is a “slutty woman who hooks up with many men.” Note that neither of these code words can be compared with the “Virat” stereotype, which is a gendered insult for an “aggressive male who does nothing but obsess about his physical strength”. Is it really as oppressive as attacking a woman’s capability of being an individual capable of discourse merely because she’s perceived to be capaciously emotional, or because she has many sexual partners?
Secondly, using ‘Vedica’ to mean that a woman’s mouth should be ‘stuffed with something else’, imparts a sexually violent connotation to the term (sure, you can tell me that you want to gag her mouth with cloth or something, just like Trump claimed that Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her “nose”. In any case, stuffing anyone’s mouth with anything against their will is an extremely violent act). It also implies a lack of consent, given that the individual in question would like to do it to prevent her from doing what she wants: talking.
We know that in (obvious) cases of violence against women by men, women are beaten up, yelled at and sexually abused by men to ‘put them in their place’. It is well-documented that this putting-in-place mentality is an essential aspect of what it means to be a man for most men around the world – a desire to maintain the hierarchy in their own favour, regulate the behaviour of women and punish those who depart from their gender roles. It’s important to note that violence against women can take more forms than just physical – it can be emotional, sexual or even verbal.
As I said earlier, outspoken leftist women are nonconformists at law school. They won’t keep mum. They’ll probably report sexist things you said about them. And women who do not conform…must be put in their place. Let’s make violent jokes about stuffing her mouth, let’s perpetrate some verbal violence, let’s call her Vedica. Joking in such a manner trivializes discrimination and violence against women, and has, in fact, successfully regulated women’s behaviour at NLSIU in the past (in the debating community, for instance).
Until a short while ago, ‘Vedica’ seemed to be specifically directed at women. So what does putting up a seemingly innocuous picture of Vedica water next to a poster full of sexist quotes mean? An inside joke from the locker room, obviously pointed at the makers of the ‘feminist’ poster. A crude way to ridicule the (anonymous, mind you) calling out of (anonymously made, mind you) allegedly sexist comments. But not very well thought out, really: are they now broadening the definition of Vedica to include all people against sexism, whatever their gender may be? Should ‘something’ be stuffed in the mouths of men who helped make this, and men who support this, too? You probably don’t know, because you’re too busy trivializing their attempt at discourse by laughing at them flapping about and being Vedica.
Of course, there’s many of us who will dismiss this as harmless because, “the targets are friends, they know and find it funny”. But, really, Targets Who Know and Find it Funny, is it funny to joke about having things stuffed in your mouth because you annoy your male friends? It may, to you, for whatever reason. But is it also funny when they direct it at women who are most likely uncomfortable with such humour? Do you really want to let boys who make fun of women who speak their mind, stay that way?
Love,
Vedica
The vacations are over, and so are my hopes for a decent GPA. I promised myself I’d study for the repeats during the holidays, but my promises are probably not as strong as the urge to sleep till noon. Right now I am freer than Solomon Northup, not because I have prepared everything, but because I barely know the Economics and History course outlines. The only ‘cartels’ I am aware of right now are the ones in Medellín and Cali. So why should I even bother studying? I’ll study when I get back to college, I swear. Don’t get the wrong idea. Stay in school, people. Studying and making projects (research papers?) might suck the life out of you and turn you into a weed-smoking, alcohol-chugging, sleep-deprived, crying-for-help social pariah, but it will land you a plum job. So I guess it’s all worth it.
It has been three months in Law School, and I think it is the right time to look back with a feeling of pride (regret?). In a college where people usually have good trips and bad trips, I have had nothing but persistent guilt trips. It’s the same feeling of guilt that haunts you the night before your exams. You start reliving, in slow motion, all those hours you wasted during the whole trimester. Needless to say, nothing can be done now. I have somehow survived (survived, not passed, mind you) the first trimester and I feel someone should reward me for this incredible feat. So what if you survived a bear attack and ate raw bison liver, Mr. DiCaprio? Try surviving Economics and History in the same trimester. Making us study these two subjects at the same time is as good an idea as building a wall on the U.S. border to stop the Mexicans from pouring in. Might as well make us study calculus and trigonometry. But hey, that’s not all. This place is not that bad. There is no need to feel overwhelmed. It’s not like you have to make four projects and write eight exams in ninety days, right?
I can’t entirely blame NLS for everything. To be honest, I screwed up everything before I even came to this place. I ended up (inadvertently) bro-zoning myself on the ‘Batch of 2021’ group chat. Long story short, I now have thirty sisters. And they do not show any respite. Day in and day out I have to bear my female batch mates call me ‘bhaiya’. The marketing people at Proctor & Gamble made a huge mistake by making Ranveer Singh the brand ambassador of Head & Shoulders. I have more market value as far as matters of lifelong celibacy are concerned.
Things moved way too fast during the first three weeks at NLS, what with all the thousand orientations and the million committee applications. Applying for different committees appeared to be a very exciting idea until the moment I actually started writing my applications. That is the moment I realized that I hadn’t done anything worthy in my nineteen years of existence on this godforsaken planet. I found my batch mates writing 4-page long applications. That didn’t dishearten me at all. These are the kind of people who take notes in Torts class. God bless them.
There is only one thing that is worse than overly competitive batch mates – overly competitive batch mates who finish their projects before you have even started. Working on projects was nothing short of an ordeal. I had to dump my old pal Wikipedia and embrace JSTOR. It was not a very smooth transition. The most interesting thing about projects, however, was TurnItIn. It is perhaps the cleverest (and cruelest) invention of all time. TurnItIn is solely responsible for killing the Pritam Chakraborty within all of us.
I think it would be best if I don’t give an account of my exams. I don’t want the three people who end up reading this article to cry. One of the few memories I actually want to retain in my head from the first trimester is from Spiritus (a.k.a. ‘three days a slave’). Spiritus was made out to be a ‘first-year event’ for some reason. The seniors promised that it would be the ‘chillest’ time of the year. I did feel special for some time. But that feeling ended as soon as I realized that the term ‘first-year event’ is nothing but a euphemism for ‘you-are-a-first-year-student-and-you-will-work-like-draught-animals.’ After all, why would anyone enjoy leveling the throwball court at 7 in the morning? Don’t get me wrong. I loved Spiritus. I am quite sure ‘I carried 5 mattresses on the top of my head all the way from Yamuna to the Himalaya common room’ will look great on my CV.
All things considered, the first trimester was one hell of a ride. Sometimes (mostly) depressing and sometimes fun. Met some great people. Met some not-so-great people. Failed my exams. Smuggled food into the library. Roamed the entire college at 3 in the morning searching for Wi-Fi. Did NOT pass out from over consumption of alcohol. Went from ‘I love mess food’ to ‘I can’t digest mess food’ in a flash. Slept in class. Et cetera, et cetera. I just hope that the next trimester would be better. I hope.
Happy Diwali.
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