To be in a position where I can write a piece targeted toward first-years entering the gates of my University is ridiculous. It makes me wonder about what I’ve done in the past two years being here, but also creates the realization that I have only three years left here. Time’s really slipping away.
But hey! Hello!
Welcome to this centre of learning, and to a place you’re going to reluctantly call home for the next 5 years. Lest you change your path and move on to fresher pastures, you are likely to remain here for a bit. So breathe it all in, and take it easy.
This isn’t going to be an advisory about how to survive Law school – I know I’m definitely still figuring it out. It’s more about the way I’m personally approaching this entire thing, and is something for you to consider.
At this juncture, I’d like to inform you that my third years are now your fifth years. Why is this relevant at all? Because that batch is graduating this year, and I cannot tell you how much I will cry when they leave. I’m very attached to several people in that batch, and cannot envisage what this campus is without them. So if you see me crying some time around the 2nd of May, 2018, you already know why.
Coming back to what I wanted to tell you.
Over the next few days, you’re going to meet a whole bunch of new people. Apart from your classmates and batchmates, with whom you’ll be spending a majority of your time, you’ll meet several seniors.
A lot of us are cynics. It is but a reflection of our time here – confined within grey walls, that all we’ve come to do is criticize. It’s very easy for us to find things we have grievances about, and far easier for us to point out issues that we could improve on as a University. But, none of us do anything about it, and that is a massive problem.
Why? Because it’s a reflection of the fact that deep within, while we recognize that issues exist within the ecosystem that we presently inhabit, we’re also mindful of how incredibly, incredibly privileged we are.
Take a moment to breathe it all in again. You’re at a fully-residential campus that has amenities comparable to some of the best Universities in the country. You’re at an institution that, as a result of it’s national recognition, will enable you to interact with people from all over the country. And, you’re at a place that will help you discover yourself.
Very few within the Indian society, or any society, get to have this experience. Far fewer get to shape the experiences they have – often, as a result of rigid institutional rules, or rigid structures placed to confine them within the shackles of their own imagination.
Here, you’re independent. Quite literally, independent. Everything you do is in your hands, not accounting for luck, the ways of the world, amongst other things.
Embrace that.
Last evening, as I returned from the Gujarat High Court with a batchmate, I conversed with him about his experiences living in Junagadh, which is South of Ahmedabad. I stay with a roommate from Rangia, in Assam, which is a minimum of 52.8km away from Guwahati – perhaps the place you’ve learnt about for CLAT.
Every week, I think, I go through this insane moment of reflection, often very late at night, where I realize that I’m left with a week lesser at this place.
When you meet the cynics, try recognizing the optimist that resides within each of us.
I don’t think that’ll ever leave.
And apart from all this abstract stuff I’m writing, genuinely enjoy yourself here.
Do things that make you happy. It keeps you going along.
P.S.: Please say hello. I don’t know who you guys are and you’re going to be my neighbours for the next 3 years I am here. I will make attempts to speak to you as well. Thank you.
Tejas Rao 