The days

A bunch of 80-odd students gather, all potentially brilliant with sharp acumen, high ambitions and a sense of achievement and pride of having made it to one of the ‘premier law schools in the country’. A huge diversity of places of residence and belonging, a considerable diversity in schooling and previous lifestyles, an enormous diversity in priorities and the notions of fun and some diversity in age, experience and exposure – all kept together with the same imposed routine and in the same place, making the current diversity zero and reducing the diversity in the notions of fun considerably.

These young students (with some diversity even in innocence) meet, become friends, some ready to judge each other, some ready to let time take its course and some confirmed loners right from the very beginning. But overall, almost everyone is fascinated to see and meet new people and make new friends which everyone knows will stay together for 5 years and hopefully even after that. Unaware of the coming law school life, these freshers enjoy their present to the fullest and with innocence.

Among the diversity (I’d prefer to use this word instead of ‘inequality’ which according to me carries a negative connotation) of people, the ones at a relative lack of advantage (reason being regarded to the previous place, lack of exposure and a difference in lifestyle and notions of fun) like me start socialising with the small step of neighbourhood. And thus, among the gradually growing competition and ambition and crossing through the ragging sessions as time passed in the first semester, a small group of people on the top floor of subconsciously became close friends and this incident is as abstract and symbolic to not be restricted only to the group on the top floor but I guess, to be applicable to the entire batch in some way or the other.

Moving ahead with abstractness, the conditions in the first semester of emotional and practical difficulties are in some way compensated by the relaxed (as it appears now) academic demands. And just as carpe diem ruled, one fine morning, proximate to the end of the first semester, in the legendary room no. 312 of boys hostel 3, a plan is made for the upcoming vacations. The best use of tension free, stress free time of life when there is no dearth of time to devote on everyone and hardly any occupation of mind in relation to human-relations is made by a vacation with friends to the beaches of east coast in Puri and Chilika Lake.

And these vacations turned out to be precious memories. When most of us in the noble pursuit of work and fulfilment of ambitions were busy interning more than the library, the five of us (one out of the six couldn’t come from Dubai) took a week off from everything that could’ve occupied us then and gathered at Cuttack. From there, in a car we had set up our base in Puri from where we roamed around the whole of Puri, Chilika Lake and Konark. Those nights of poker with bubble gums and jellies and fifa on psp, the road trips with complicated academic comments about the praise of the ‘blend of civilisation and natural wild’, the elaborate photography sessions, the conning of marus (only one to be precise and respectful to the rest of the community) with ‘black pearls’, every night after-dinner tea and the gazing of waves on the beach, the attempted time-capsule in the form of a live Neanderthal, the ultra adventure of a fisherman-boat ride on the violent but relatively calm Bay of Bengal and the common part in all – the tension free relaxed life with the zeal life with nothing to bother.

The picture above is one of my favourites. On a closer look, the letter ‘N’ on the sand is clearly visible and top half of the letter ‘A’. This was the excitement we had about NALSAR, not just because of professional reasons but because of the happiness about finding friends and the excitement of a life ahead which started this way in the college. Yes, we all owe it to nalsar for bringing us together is what someone among us had said while writing it on the sand.

Recently while talking to one of my friends who couldn’t believe how time passed and we were about to complete two years here, I held that if we look back, it does feel like we have been here now for some time, it does feel that two years have passed. I’ve seen a lot of changes – changes in my person, in the structure of human relations, in the attitude of most of us, in the shifting focus from social hyperactivity to academic concerns and devotion. So much has happened in our lives in these two years and I don’t restrict so much of happenings to academic achievements only. And it many a times appears that the diversity has been reduced to a great extent. The diversity in innocence, in lifestyles, in notions of fun and other things mentioned above. I haven’t been able to stay in the same routine as in the first semester (for my own good) but a gradual shift to the other extreme is what I have been sensing in myself.

With increased work load, which might not be a load if enjoyed but becomes a load when considered with the fact that you can’t spend time with those whom you like to spend it with, is the biggest change that happened with time. I am not saying that there should be no desire to work, on the contrary, this change in the amount of work is mostly voluntary. But it seems like a crossroad when you realize how important and desirable it is to work and at the same time you need to manage time with close ones. And once into a commitment, it is inevitable and undesirable to come out of it and hence, the only solution is to ‘manage’ time. However, with the diversity in the working pattern of people, which is brought about by this place contrary to being subverted by it, makes it almost impossible to successfully manage time. One time you might be free but others busy and other times when others are free, you are busy and no one can manage times depending on others’ schedules. This leads to a person becoming a loner with work as the only confirmed company and if friends encourage and cooperate with the workload voluntarily undertaken, this puzzle can still be solved rather much enjoyably. However, if too close, the feeling of irritation at my non-availability takes over the prudent faculty of cooperation and encouragement. Then despite the goodwill, it appears that your working style or choice is detrimental for your social relations and hence, you should cut down on the work or change the way you work. But work is the main reason why parents spend so much money to educate us in such institutions and therefore, putting it in the backseat attracts a huge amount of guilt.

Gradually with time here, life becomes tougher and whenever you feel like you’ve settled yourself down in this place, you are reminded of how planting your ass in this place and working is a boring activity and shouldn’t be perpetuated. It often makes one feel like running away forever from everything as everything has so many problems. Right now, I do miss those tension free relaxed days of freedom, of spontaneity and impulsiveness and of purity of fun and the purposelessness of enjoyment – ‘the days: 27-11-08 to 02-12-08’. The sphere of human relations often becomes so complicated that sometimes, it makes me wonder whether getting too close to anyone is good for anyone. But that’s a separate talk altogether and hence, something to wonder some other day.