On Being Delusionally Optimistic

There is always a point every semester – during project submissions, end semester exams and other law school trappings when the work from weeks past has pilled up, when deadlines have been stretched out to the extent where they have lost all their linear quality, that I get delusionally optimistic about my ability to get my work done. And then suddenly, I find all the time in the world to do the most inane of things – such as learn Japanese by repeated viewing of Death Note, or read up Wikipedia’s entry on Wikipedia, or write blog posts instead of law review articles…

NAZE??!!!

that’s ‘why’ in Japanese in case anyone was wondering.

Momentary Lapses of the Unintelligible

Sitting on one of those Nature Comittee Benches, legs stretched out conveniently, sipping the ‘not too bad’ slightly too sweet hostel tea, some vaguely familiar music playing in the background and watching a couple of second years dribble a football around for no particular reason, and I think quite cheesily…this here is a moment.

Then again, I am quite capable of coming up with them in retrospect…extra time of a slushy rain swept football match, played in borrowed red spiked shoes two sizes too big, then the goal…we’ve all hugging after that and toppling over into the mud… of course when it happened it was all a blur…which in itself is kinda perfect. Though they always need to slow it down in sport movies for the effect.

There are however the really ironic ones that I wish I would not notice – one really bad moot court later, walking back to hostel and from the most inconspicuous of places – the bloody gym, one hear Eminem taunting ‘you get one shot, one opportunity …that’s all you’ve got…” and, I am not making this up…honest!

There are also the ones, that are truly of one’s own making…for example the fact – that every time I am in a metro train, a part of me keeps waiting for the moment – when the ceiling of the train will be ripped open to reveal our protagonists who will then proceed to have a compulsive cool samurai fight across the length and breadth of the compartment. Sigh, I am still sadly waiting for that one.

Moments, when you notice them are nice. As in, the thing with moments…is that they kinda make the clock stop – there is always a ton of stuff floating around in the background of your head but when you see a moment, you go “WoW! Stop, rewind“…and then again “WoW”. I know I am explaining it in a really bad Bill & Ted impersonation, but the truth is I am glad I see moments…real or otherwise.

Tall Tales On Books – Abandoned And Unread

I like to think, that I am one of those people who read. I also like to think that I am a modest reader. Sure, I was part of the extremely silly (but clearly superior) bunch of idiots who thought they were way cooler than everyone else in class, because they had read the Lord of the Rings before the movies; but, for most parts I know that though I read, there are just too many freakin’ books in the world, for me to make a dent, any time soon.

But here’s the thing. I usually finish the books that I start. Really. Even if, somewhere within the odd first fifty pages – I get the feel that I really do not want to find out what happened between the chic and the groping tentacles, I still finish the book. Force of habit; a wish to be fair; respect for the outrageous amount my dad probably shelled out for the glossy paperback. Call it what you will, but I nearly always finish my books.

Except when I don’t, and then because of my love for lists, I keep track of them, remember why I didn’t and find out why others did. I am not surprised that I can’t think of that many. But here’s what stands out in no apparent order:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I bought War and Peace, and Anna Karena together, when I was probably in my eight or ninth grade, from the cute-but-poor-second-hand-bookseller outside my favourite bookshop in Hyderabad. I got through War and Peace not just because of my tenacious will, or because I was full of pity for Pierre whom I couldn’t bear to abandon mid-book/s conflicted and so very puppy-like lost, but also, I admit for what its worth, for the very superficial reason- that I wanted to be able to say that I had read it; that I had read War and Peace. To begin Anna Karenina immediately after that was nearly impossible for me, especially since I knew what happens in the end. I remember talking about Anna Karenina in all-brazen indifference on messenger to my friend once. My exact words are not what I remember. It was probably something very aseptic, Anna Karenina? She dies, right? Or, something akin but I remember my friend’s response and it was, I swear, like I could hear him talk and he said, “she dies, yes” but the sentence didn’t quite end there, as if there was more to that ending that I could…should find out by reading the book. I think I’ll get back to the book…someday, all because of a two lined conversation on it on messenger.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

There’s no easy way of saying this. In fact I am slightly scared saying it, considering the fanatics I know who worship this book and call it life altering. But I couldn’t get through it. In fact, it is probably one of the few books that I have chucked away physically because I couldn’t stand it. (Another one which comes to mind is Alcott’s Good Wives which gnawed away on all that was special and precious in Little Women but for the record I finished it and wrote an alternate version of it and my mind rests easy on that account.) Getting back, I don’t really know what it was that pissed me off about the book. It disgusted me for some reason, and I take solace on what someone told me about Ayn Rand’s books. You either love them or hate them. There’s no middle ground. I doubtless fall in the latter category and all the purported wisdom of the books is lost on me. Such is life.

3. Cyclops by Clive Cussler

I don’t remember much of the very little that I managed to read of this. I am not a big fan of the Cold War books – “must stop the Evil KGB” kinda lost its charm after the first few dozen books I read in that genre. (One of the really tongue in cheek lovely pieces set in the Cold War period that I really like is a short science fiction piece by Michael C Clarke featuring bumbling Floridian bureaucrats, fake icebergs, and Russian spy ships but that’s obviously another story altogether). Anyways, I vaguely remember something about the Russians in this one. That wasn’t, however, the reason I stopped. There was something about a colony on the moon, which I am totally okay with. But this colony was called Jersey Colony and I just stopped reading after that, because I don’t care if you decided to name it after the State or the cows but after all the awesome names we’ve come up with for astronomical objects, if you are going to have a colony on the moon don’t you dare call it something so very bland! (And this is coming from someone who was completely okay with Planet Bob in Titan A.E! I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact that it came out in Matt Damon’s voice made it seem like a really good idea at that point of time. )

4. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

I had read a lot of Hardy back to back by then. I read Return of the Native, I read Tess of D’Urbervilles, I read A Pair of Blue Eyes, and then I got to The Mayor of Casterbridge. And what can I say, except my will gave out. I am not against unhappy endings per se; sometimes I am appalled by the saccharine sweet endings that are cooked up in books (coughharrypottercough). Perhaps Hardy captures life, as it is in some… most cases, but I couldn’t bear the gloom and doom, okay? My very simpleton needs for some hope and happiness reasserted themselves and I abandoned the book before the really gloomy bits began.

5. This Book I Began But Sadly Could Not Finish

This one I really regret. I was taken to one of my relatives’ home, and as my mum and the aunty gossiped their way into the Guinness books, I sat dour faced while my equally unhappy near aged relative fiddled with her thumbs, yawned and generally wished me long lost and staying that way. At last, desperate for some sort of escape, she sighed and said: would you like to see our books? What can I say? I am sure she had nightmares of the unholy gleam that filled my eyes at the statement.

So I got escorted to what I have to admit was a decent hoard of books and because I had no pretensions (and because really how much longer could my mum gossip?) I chose a thin volume of something, which I have but a vague memory of. Sometimes I think it was a play. Sometimes I think otherwise. It had a girl who was engaged to an unscrupulous jerk of an officer, and there was some rebellious individual who barged into her rooms at night. I know it sounds nearly too overdramatic and reeks of the romantic bug but I remember thinking the girl was pretty cool and level headed. Sadly I got dragged away before I could get much further. Years later, when I was dragged back there, I lurked around trying to find the book, but I was bitterly unsuccessful. Even my desperate attempts to get my near aged relative to divulge the name of the book proved fruitless because, get this, she couldn’t remember! As if! If that isn’t part of some devious dastardly plot to…do something, colour me Purple!

Then again, I sometimes think that it’s a good thing that I never finished it. What if, I had hated it? For now, I am okay with the undone memory of the book in my head. I’ve even nearly forgiven that near aged relative. Because there is something in thinking that someday I will chance upon the book again and I’ll get to read it. It’s just one of the countless things to look forward to in life.

Ramblings On Organised Mess

I’ve been back in college for four days now and over the weekend – I finally overcame my fears and inhibitions, and completed the very very difficult task. That’s Right. I cleaned up my room.

Scoff all you want. But this a months’ worth of accumulated grime and dust that I am talking about. The thing is, we had our semester break and my dear old room has had little airing or dusting in the meantime.

People, who have seen the condition of my room in its various avatars, will find this supposed preoccupation with cleanliness slightly out of character. (In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my alcove mates’ almost philosophical musings on a messy room in a recent poetry competition was inspired by the state of affairs in my room) A misunderstanding, for sure. There is difference between messiness and cleanliness – subtle yes, but it’s there!

Over time, I have skipped from one lame escuse to another, depending on whom I am giving it to. People who accidentally pop into my room, are always treated to an airy dismissive wave of the hand, as if brushing all the stuff on the floor under the bed – “It’s been one of those weeks” I say with a brave brave smile and the uninitiated are easily fooled.

“Organised Mess” I tell the others stoically; the ones that know that the week, month or even the year has little to do with the condition of my room. They give me hard stares, shake their heads in grave reproach and mumble about ‘pigsties being neater’ under their breath. Some of them are so overcome by it that they look me in the eye and say the dreaded words “think of what your mother would go through if she saw your room”.

All right So I admit it. My room is hardly perfect. But like I said, “messy” and “clean” are different. I keep my room clean, more than some of my More-Books-On-The-Bookshelf-Than-On-The-Floor-Friends and the whole malfunction, as far as arrangement is concerned, is all the Universities fault. There are vile evil days like “submission day”, “due date”, “day of viva” “exam date” that get thrown around with alarming frequency and destroy whatever little “arrangement” my poor room has.

My mother’s sentimentality aside, I have this to say in defense of my room – that my room’s got character – it was allegedly haunted ( never seen nothing, except a an arrow on the wall and “Lick me” written on it now lost under a host of pictures.) It’s weirdly angled so that it looks bigger than the standard hostel room, and miraculously enough it seems to find some place or the other for the copious amount of junk, that I cannot seem to find any use for but apparently can’t live without, I wasn’t kidding about organised mess either, for there is a wacky order in there…somewhere.

Like I said my room’s got character – you just have to look beyond the clutter just a bit.

Horoscope – less or The Injustice Of It All Is Simply Impossible To Express Except With Exaggeration And Thus The Outrageousness Of It All

I am currently horoscope-less. Pause… No, this is not one of those thunder and lightning inducing moments.

For years, I have thought myself a Capricorn. I’d got comfortable with the idea of being one –they’re terribly witty (when they aren’t being terrible bores with their terribly conservative ways), extremely fun loving (when they aren’t wallowing in existential angst), and just the right amount of lucky (er…except when they are giving contracts viva, but that’s a tale better left alone).

All right so I know that zodiac is largely sham (surprise surprise) but it was nice, you know, when at the end of an extremely shitty day when you’re scanning the day’s paper and your eyes run over the day’s horoscope and there would be something quite vague but very interpretable such as ‘today you may be in for a disappointment but remember the winds of change though windy are ‘ um …er you get the drift, right?

If the weekly horoscope said that ‘the week was going to be super duper awesome,’ I would smile and shrug and say aha! and get on with life. If it said that the week was going to be awful, simply awful, then I’d smile and shrug and say ‘who believes in horoscopes anyways’ and continue to get on with life. But the point was, it was nice, having the horoscope there. And you have to admit; sometimes it rang more true than the day’s weather report.

Then a few days back, a chance remark about my birth date and a little jobless scouting online and I find that I am now stuck…Stuck being a Sagi-Capri cusp (cusp…I hate that word! It sounds like a word that started out just fine and was then abandoned in the middle. Pointing out the appropriateness of this, given its meaning, will not make it seem more charming.)

They don’t make horoscopes for cusps (gah! There’s the word again) and it is no use saying that you could read both the horoscopes because they seem to effectively cancel each other out. ‘The work will be good this week’ of the Capri is easily refuted by the Sag’s ‘are you kidding me! You suck at work, this week,’ note. No sooner do I get ‘a new friend’ thanks to my Sagi weekly horoscope, my Capri connection gleefully tells me ‘beware of any new friend. They’re all, foaming around the mouth, psychopaths.”

Worse, I am left with nothing to blame…not even my stars. No more can I put down the obviously lacking finesse way with which I deal with people with the generalised personality trait of a Capricorn’s unfeeling-ness. Nope – no preset personality type to fall back on. It’s all me…just me. Of course, it isn’t that one is not aware of this but one likes all the excuses that one can find and self induced comforting illusions are difficult…difficult to let go off.

As always I turn to Oscar Wilde (someone whose repository of one-liners would put any modern sitcom to shame) and use his eerie yet strangely comforting words to record yet another triviality of my life and give it a nice little bow-tied finish feel.

The secret of life is being able to appreciate being terribly terribly deceived.

even if it is self induced, eh?

Cheering Up…Or Failing That…

What I wouldn’t give to just give up…to stop dragging my feet listlessly through endless days of inescapable drudgery and just throw up my hands and say ‘ENOUGH’, ‘I AM DONE’, ‘SCREW MULTITASKING’. Forgive my language but whining always tends to stir all that is melodramatic and cliched in me.

As it stands I have spent the last few days, nay the week feeling generally sorry for myself. I’ve developed that particular trait so much so that it is almost an art form now and it generally involves being kinda snappy and pessimistic. Some people who may claim to know me may point out that being snappy and pessimistic isn’t very much different from my normal behavior but that’s just crap. I am snappy and full of pessimism yes, but I usually try to maintain the veneer of cheery false optimism that makes life far more congenial at the small cost, of course, of being labeled delusional.

It sucks being stuck in the depths of depression and the pits of gloom and other cliche maligned places and I have tried almost every other cheer up remedy from listening to my Inspi songs,impromptu eating binge with my friends, watching back to back episodes of some inane show, reading up all the Inspi stuff that I could get my hands on, dropping all of it on my parents in a ‘Help Me, I am Your Only Child and Though I should be all grown up I am still gonna act like a five year old and cry Mamma’ phonecall… Yep, I did it all. but the thing is NOTHING SEEMS TO WORK. And I can’t afford to be Blue!!! I have work, damn it…tons and mega tons of it.

I see the cycle of course. I feel blue so I don’t do the work; then I feel blue that I didn’t do the work; So I don’t do more work because I am feeling blue over the work I didn’t do before that. (Okay so this made much more sense in my head)

SO STOP, I say. Stop feeling so freakin’ blue and sorry for yourself!!! (waits to feel different…feet still drag listlessely through several inescapable drudgery filled moments)

Nope no miracle cure in sight and yet I must admit I am done trying to cheer myself up. This is it. I give up. SCREW CHEERING UP. I am just gonna go do my work now.

On Not Thinkin’ On My Laptop

I decided to write on paper the day I decided to quit writing on my laptop. That, of course, is not the right way of saying that. I guess what I should say, is that I decided to ‘think’ on paper the day I decided to quit thinking on my laptop. There, I’ve set myself up for countless snide remarks of ridicule.

As a kid I wrote on paper; in fact, I wrote almost exclusively on the reverse of my journal. (It was a ‘secret diary’ from ages 10 to 13; from ages 13-17 it was a ‘diary’; now, of course, in polite company I call it a journal.) If you flip my old journals and start reading from the back you will find copious amount of really bad literature. The key word to be noted being ‘copious’.

Over time I discovered the wonders of the electronic age – the word processor and I have been a sucker for it ever since. It helps that ‘once college happened’ I actually had a legitimate reason to be caught glued to my laptop, typing away like crazy. 15000 words, by tomorrow morning? No problem! Where’s my trusted laptop?

A lot of people I know can’t do this. They have to write ever last word down on paper before they can begin the painful task of typing it out on word. They say they can’t think on their laptops. (Yes, I made all the necessary snide remarks of ridicule.) I’ve also read articles were authors bemoan the loss of traditional joys of writing as more and more people turn to the word processor. Some even admitted that they were far more comfortable using paper.

Was I – a puny non entity who writes crap either ways in the face of honest admission by writers who had already proved their mettle and therefore could if they wish chose toilet paper as a medium if it caught their fancy and still get book deals – smug? You bet I was!

I had nice one lined thoughts on the issue which I filled away for future autobiographical reference. ( I do this, so that once I get famous I’ll have profound things to say.) ‘It’s so convenient!’ I would say with a wide fake smile as if I was on a tele-brand advertisement for the food processor.

The trouble began when I actually started believing the crap I thought up. (Do not point out the fallacies in the previous sentence; I am aware!)

I started believing that the neat and tidy 12 Georgia font-ed text that I produced on word was of far better ‘literary’ quality than higgly-piggly squiggle that I produced on paper. I started feeling unsatisfied with the finished product when I wrote on paper.

The A-Awful exam scared the living daylights out of me: Precisely because I couldn’t write! I had beautiful white blank paper before me and the words just didn’t come; Me…I, who could churn out ten pages in less than 30 minutes if really needed, couldn’t get my head to cooperate.

That is, I think, when I decided that I didn’t want to have these stupid mind blocks in my head that I can only write well on my laptop or that my thoughts don’t flow well on paper. I love writing and it shouldn’t matter where or how or on what!

That is the reason why I am reduced to copying out this text word for word from paper and let me tell you, my higgly- piggly squiggle has never looked more attactive.

And yeah, Snide remarks of Ridicule (I just love saying that)over my self obsession are as always welcome.

Post 1 of One Year At Law School: Dealing with the Disillusionment

I know this girl who left one of the best of the national law schools (let’s just call it Bla-Bla shall we and no, I am not taking any perverse pleasure in calling this premier institution Bla-Bla). One of our earliest conversations went like this:

Me: So you left Bla-Bla for this (for the record I have the utmost respect for this but compared to bla-bla, this was no competition)

Her: Yes.

Me: ARE YOU CRAZY???

Her: It just wasn’t what I expected it to be.

Me: I repeat, ARE YOU CRAZY???

I still don’t know whether her choice was for the better, but I do understand it better now. There’s a lot of disillusionment attached to our first reception of law and law schools. For a lot of us, doing law from what are purported to be the best institutions in the country is an idea that appeals to our Perry Mason/Boston Legal/ John Grisham/ Insert own law fantasy book, movie , TV show addled brain. The University has to be a cut above the rest, the education offered in it a brilliant dazzling epiphany, its professors have to be compelling illum…er… you get the picture?

All this codswallop hope that you have of the place crumbles before your first lecture in the place gets over. Actually sometimes it happens a lot faster.

Imagine sixty odd fresh from school lot cramped into a tiny class room in the middle of summer waiting for there first lecture.

Instead of the wizened old professor, in walks well…I know appearances should not matter but seriously…

Hello! I AM CHOCKO!!!

One permanent grin and countless pjs after, everyone is rearing back in their seat in abject horror. It’s so hot that it a human rights violation to hold us in class and Chocko has long ago started talking in Latin…like really.

I can say with utter certainity that I know at least one person who made up her mind to call it quits right after the first day in class and quite a few did the same in the months that followed.

Disillusionment …heaps of it. In all shapes and sizes. I guess a huge amount of it stems from having their fantasies of the place broken. For a lot of us, getting into law school has been a long term plan; they worked their arses off to get through the competitive exam and they are entitled to dream about this place.

Weirdly enough, I turned out to be one of the few who escaped the initial disillusionment bug. This may have a lot to do with the fact that I had never ever not in a million years thought I would be studying law! Law school kinda just happened (not that I didn’t work my arse off, but it still was a lot more eleventh hour than the ordinary). So I didn’t have that many great fantasies of the place and in a way I guess I got lucky.

Truth is I think as far as law is concerned (and maybe it holds through for most courses too) you have to give it time. I’ve heard a lot of my seniors say that if you can get through the first semester of law school, without cracking, you’re gonna be okay. That probably is the best attitude.

And law takes time to grow on you. It takes time to go through a sixty page judgement (oh come on, I was in first year! I am not going to read some insanely big judgement!) and to finally decipher the sheer subtle brilliance of the reasoning behind it or to read a1760 case and marvel at the fact that the judgement holds to this very day.

And though you may never really understand what Chocko taught you in class you might discover much to your surprise that the guy for all his ranting on setting the hardest paper ever, is still a softy when it comes to correction and more importantly unless you actually take his optional papers (in which case you really are crazy), you only have one more class with him in the five years that follow.

One Year At Law School : An Introduction

One Year At Law School, I keep scribbling that on my note pad, in hopes that some profound thought would strike me; in hopes, that I would be able to write something revelatory on my experience and wrap up my first year with a nice one lined eulogy. But as always I only get static.

I could probably say: ‘it has been one hell of a year,’ or pass on an ‘endearing’ phrase to law student aspirants everywhere: ‘Welcome to Law School. Get ready, to be Counter-Striked.’ But there is something neat about these lines that just don’t explain the messy half done feel that I have for the first year.

The post/posts that follow therefore are hardly clear on where the hell are they heading and are at best scribbled down half thoughts of someone who finally has a holiday!

Awful

I was going to crib about the A-awful exam paper I wrote. About how I messed it up, and messed it up badly! I was going to crib about how Awful I felt after the exam, that I didn’t even feel the sickening high that comes post depressive paper where amidst cheery pop music you decide that you are going to do better the next time. I was going to crib about how I just curled up after that on my bed drinking way too much Lemon Tang and watching back to back episodes of Gossip Girl (Sympathy T.V anyone?) and how I woke up late today with no work done and one hell of a lemon tang – gossip girl combined hangover…going Ugh…Ugh…Ugh

But my darling mum just called to tell her wayward child how utterly she does not care if the said child screwed up her paper and she can hardly wait to have her wayward daughter back home so that she can fill her up with family gossip and home cooking.

I’ve got three more awful papers to go and three more awful study sessions to go with them and I am just dreading it. But I know it’s going to be okay and that’s a start.

___________________________________________________________________

Ps: Oh and Gossip Girl…Yeah…I like Chuck…That’s Right…Chuck! There is something fundamentally wrong in saying that out loud. I am victim of the bad boy act. Sigh.

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