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.

“I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky”

–    R. Kelly, I Believe I Can Fly (1998)

It was a warm summer evening in 2004. A group of young law schoolites were sitting around in a circle on Ganga terrace, doing what young law schoolites often do on Ganga terrace. It was just like any other evening, but if one looked closely, they could see that the young men had with them some interesting condiments- a fistful of sugar, a half of lime, a sprig of mint. Shots were poured, drinks were mixed, condiments added. One of the young men on the terrace, Mr. Kharbanda, took a large swig of the newly concocted drink. The kind of swig that precedes bad decisions, or at the very least, bad hangovers. He winced. The others laughed at his poor judgment. Mr. Kharbanda rose up and staggered towards the edge of the terrace. He was convinced that this drink had the potential to lift more than just his spirits. He placed one foot on the ledge of the terrace. He believed that this drink could make him…fly.

I first heard this story on Surya terrace five years ago, in 2011. As an innocent first year, I listened in rapt attention as my seniors asked the waiters at Surya to bring lemons, sugar and mint along with the usual order of OMR and cheap vodka. I was told that this story was the origin of the legendary Law School drink aptly named ‘The Flying Kharbanda’. I gulped the story down along with the (strong and vile) drink. Five years hence, I realized that if there is one thing Law School taught me, it’s to question everything. Another thing it has taught me is that Law School storytellers are prone to exaggeration. So I set out to find out the true story behind this legendary drink.

My long and treacherous search for the objective truth behind the Flying Kharbanda culminated in a Facebook group chat with three super-seniors, all of whom were intricately connected to the story. The first was Mr. Abhimanyu George Jain, Batch of 2011, the one who had shared the recipe with my seniors. The second was from the Batch of 2009, Mr. Satyajit Sarna (“Surd”), storyteller extraordinaire and author of ‘The Angel’s Share’, an excellent novel set in Law School. And the third, whom I never expected to meet in person (okay, on Facebook), was the eponymous Mr. Vipul Kharbanda himself. Mr. Kharbanda is from the batch of 2007, and now works in Allahabad in the legal publishing industry. Introductions were swapped, pleasantries dealt with, and we got to the meat of the matter- What is the story behind the Flying Kharbanda? What is the original recipe?

Our History courses have taught us that oral traditions are important sources of information, but one must be mindful of how time (and unreliable narrators) have the tendency to bend the truth. In the case of the Flying Kharbanda, there is an added level of complexity- that the authors of the story were drunk at the time of its inception, so they don’t remember it clearly themselves. Surd and Mr. Kharbanda had varying conceptions of the origin of the drink, but one thing was certain- that it had nothing to do with Ganga terrace and anyone trying to jump off it. After some back and forth, a fuzzy outline emerged. As it is difficult to tell a story better than Surd himself, I will quote his version verbatim:

“I was sitting at a fine dining establishment at KR Market with my friend Vipul Kharbanda. Just before we are served (amuse bouche, appetisers, entrees – you know how it goes under the flyover), Vipul gets a call from his elder brother Varun. Varun too is a student in Bangalore, but is studying medicine. He in turn has some friends down from somewhere who are asking him to make them a truly excellent drink. In these straitened times he has fallen on young Vipul. In our hurry to get back to our food, we concoct a sickening drink and relay it over the phone to Varun. The idea was to come up with something that would hit its drinker so hard that he could forget how foul it tasted. Then we forgot all about it and got back to dinner. Twenty minutes later, we got a call from four drunk medical students who were raving about it.”

Applying the highest standards of academic rigour, I thought it was important to hear Mr. Kharbanda’s version as well. According to him, he was not with Surd at the time, but at his sister’s wedding, where he was tending the bar with his brother. They called up Surd to ask for a cocktail recipe that they could serve to guests, and the Flying Kharbanda was born. Suffice it to say that if this is the true version of the story and the drink was indeed served at the wedding, the event would have seen several of the Kharbandas flying higher than they had prepared for.

As all Law School legends go, the original story is not as interesting as what has been passed on. With every session in Surya and enthusiastic senior narrating the story to clueless juniors, the story has been infused with elements drawn from the imagination of each narrator. However, the beauty of legends is that they create templates for stories, and in turn, memories.

Surprisingly, while the story has substantially changed character, the recipe of the drink is almost intact in collective memory. For those who don’t know, or want to know exactly what it was at the time of concoction, here it is: [1]

The Flying Kharbanda

Start with Old Monk Rum, 30 ml

Add any cheap vodka, 30 ml

Add a spoonful of sugar, pinch of pepper and juice of half a lemon

Top up the mix with Sprite

Garnish with a sprig of crushed mint

[1] Mr. Kharbanda adds that he has seen a version of the drink where Whiskey is also added to the mix. Needless to say, this version is not recommended unless you really, really hate the person you are serving it to.

Every year, at NLSIU’s Convocation, a gold medal is handed out to the best graduating Girl Student of the year. This is in addition to the medals handed out to the top ranked students. This affirmative action medal is a vestige of a time when women were scarcely even seen on the rolls in higher education, let alone seen performing exceedingly well. While most avenues remain a ‘Man’s World’ even today, we thought it is worth asking – is academic performance at NLS still correlated to having the coveted Y chromosome?

The Hard Facts

A recent Census of the undergraduate population conducted by a team at NLS strongly indicates that it is not the case. The data indicates that women overwhelmingly outperform men in academics- 72% of all 6 pointers in NLS currently are women while almost 70% of all students with CGPA below 4 are men. These results are not surprising – in fact, studies conducted across the world, both among schools and college students are consistent in this observation. Women, who were not allowed an education some 100 years ago, are now doing better than men. Now even though this is finally a stereotype we can get behind, unlike ‘the wheels’ because we can’t drive, there is still a need to examine this connection especially in an Indian context where it has rarely been attempted before. So we did what Spadika does best. We did a survey.

We hypothesized that this polarization of grades is probably because women work harder for exams, submit projects on time and are more likely to be attentive and take notes in class. And the results seemed to suggest the same. Of the 145 undergraduate students (79 women and 66 men) who filled the survey, more than 70% of the women said they submit projects on time, while less than half of the men said they do the same. As one male student interviewed put it, “It’s one day after deadline and I’ve done zero words in both projects.” There were also zero women who said they submit projects on last-last day (compared to 10% of men). The same trend exists with studying for exams and taking notes in class where women display a lot more diligence than men. Moreover, this is something they’ve carried on from their school life, where a much larger number of women claim to have been toppers in school as well. So what drives them to work so hard and take academics more seriously?

Playing it safe

For many it’s just the way they’ve been brought up. As Ritika Ajitsaria, a third year student says, “Girls are just taught to be more careful and are less prone to taking risks because of the upbringing they have.” This is a common sentiment where women feel that they have more social pressure to be ‘proper’ and disciplined which contributes to their approach towards academics. Gopika Murthy, a top-ranked student from the fifth year says, “When girls are brought up being told that they must be responsible, sincere and think of the consequences of all of their actions, it seeps into all aspects, including academics. I learnt early on that I was better at academics more than in other things, and to remain good at it, I work hard.” This pressure to perform is not just self-imposed; parents tend to place greater importance on the academic performance of girls as well. On a scale of 1-5, a significantly higher number of women claimed that academic performance is highly (4-5) important to their parents. These results appear counter-intuitive, because one would expect that in a patriarchal society, the academic performance of future baby-makers should not matter much. Perhaps, for parents whose children are studying at an infamously ‘liberal’ university far away from home, expecting academic performance is merely another form of making their children conform and ‘behave’.

However, an even more telling reason behind the difference in grades seems to be the tendency for women to be risk averse. Studies conducted all over the world have been conclusive in showing that women are generally less likely to take risks, probably due to the consequences being much worse for them. And the opposite also rings true. A student, who does not wish to be named, attributes his taking such risks for the adrenaline rush that he gets when he knows that he needs to submit a project in the next three hours. Certainly, upbringing has a lot to do with this, but it also suggests that there is generally more at stake for women for them to give everything up for a shot of adrenaline. For many women, maybe more so in India, a higher education might still not be an entitlement, and they still have to fight to get here. “I’ve definitely had to face more obstacles to come here,” says Ritika, “In terms of leaving the city, going to places to give entrance exams, going to coaching centers.” This is reiterated by an observation made by Mohnish Mathew, a second year student, who recalls, how some brilliant girls in his batch back in school were all sent to a particular college in the same city because their parents didn’t want them to leave even though quite a few of them were from affluent families. “They could have done excellent things at places like Shriram (SRCC), they got the percentage, they got the 98, but their parents didn’t really encourage them.” So for women who do make it, college might not be something they can take for granted.

Great Expectations

For other women, this need to prove themselves goes into fighting societal expectations. Madhavi Singh, the designated note taker for nearly two years in a row now, acknowledges that somewhere in the back of her mind she wants to ensure that ten-fifteen years down the line, her husband should not be in the position to tell her to give up her job to take care of a baby. In society, there are still skewed expectations from women to sacrifice their careers for their children, a pressure it is safe to say no man faces. “I don’t want to be in a position where I’m working harder than most people in my batch and fifteen years later in an alumni meet they are ahead of me because I was busy for three years taking care of my children.” She admits to wondering sometimes why she’s working so hard if at the end of the day she’s expected to give up her career after marriage. “It’s my nightmare,” she adds. She’s not alone in harbouring this fear. For other women, it might be the desire to establish themselves before they are expected to settle-down, or to ensure that they are doing well enough that marriage is not the only alternative available to them.

What Madhavi also seems to imply is that it is much easier for men to build successful careers than it is for women. As one student puts it, “Guys have male role models in college and outside who have succeeded despite being bad at academics.” An anonymous fifth year student says, “I grew up with the firm belief that there are no limits on what I can achieve, and this is something I still believe. Perhaps this contributes to me slacking off with respect to projects and exams more than others.” Interestingly, this student is a woman which makes it clear that women aren’t immune to developing such a sense of entitlement and it has more to do with how one has been socialized. However, as things stand now, a variety of reasons stand in the way of women in general feeling as entitled to success as men, such as expectations imposed by families,the presence of the glass ceiling and fewer career interruptions for men.

Chill scenes in MHOR

Does this sense of entitlement translate only to slacking off in the realm of academics? The data seems to suggest so. On average, more men than women participate in moots and debates and sports. Moreover, a casual glance at the Debate Noticeboard Facebook group reveals that men spend more time practicing their debating than women. We see more men than women wanting to practice a few days before project submissions or a week before exams. Of the people surveyed, more men also claim to privilege extra curricular activities even at the expense of academics. Therefore, clearly, for more men it is not aversion to hard work in general but just towards academics.

Several respondents were also of the opinion that the environment in the MHOR needs to be taken into account. On a scale of 5, a significantly higher number of the women surveyed rated their hostel’s conduciveness to studying at 4 or 5 as compared to men. This is not just due to the higher access to a variety of ‘distractions’ but also to attitudes passed down through seniors and peers creating the pervasive notion of Chill. Chill, which has been described as a “garbage virtue which will destroy the species” requires you to be laid back, not care too much about stuff lest you look uncool, and start your projects as late as you can so you can boast about it later. Perhaps such attitudes are also found among women, but for women, as the data indicates there is also higher peer pressure to perform well in academics which perhaps functions as the opposite of Chill.

Before you say “Not all men…,” we will say it ourselves: Not all men submit projects on last last day (almost 50% of our male respondents said they submit on time), not all men start studying the night before the exam (the only respondent who said he started studying more than 14 days before the exam was male), not all men subscribe to the ideal of Chill. We also acknowledge that our conclusions can possibly be disproved with more data. However, looking at the worldwide trend of women outperforming men in academics, we appeal to the Vice-Chancellor to institute a Best Male Student award because in the academic rat race, men are the real victims.