Many months ago, Vishnu and I sat down to discuss an idea. Today that idea is on a ventilator, like many of your own perhaps- soon to become a vegetable. Soon it’ll be chopped up, sautéed and tossed in a brilliant garden salad of many such transient, forgettable thoughts. So what is this garden salad? Well, I would suppose it’s the mixed banter that comes out of our mouth in between sips of endless tea or drags of cigarettes at Biju’s[2] and often inks paper and seems rather biased, churlish and inane even. So what are these ideas that law students of ‘our creed’ happen to chance upon and why be they so essential so as to drift with us, pleasantly, in our apparent lassitude that we carry around everywhere these days? Well this is not the question I will answer. Rather, why do our ideas lose stead and age or worse- go into a cardiac arrest of sorts? What could be the reason that we ‘once’ chose to spend all day at Biju’s rather than get on with it? Well I have no definite answer for you, as you’d expect, so no surprises here. By ideas I would mean a developing interest or motivation, no surprises their either. In fact, no surprises anywhere these days and maybe that can give help me give you an answer. Maybe then we’ll all get a skewed picture of these ideas as well and make assumptions and arguments of ‘boredom’, speculate upon them and f&^k them and so on and so forth. Before we all do that I’d like to clarify that this is not the important idea of the article. We just want to know why we have our salad and eat it too!?
So, I can’t speak for everyone, but about a year ago, I decided to never (now rarely) be surprised in my chosen world- NUJS. By surprised I intend to mean greatly bothered, ashamed, taken aback, topple over, startled, etc. By surprised, or rather lack of it, I intend to address that part of the GG’s query, intended or not, where it became difficult to comprehend a certain behavior that manifests itself in most of us- but in very different renditions, backed by a tumult of varying reasons. That slight nonchalance almost transcendental to our NUJSverse[3]. I can’t reason with you on paper and put down bullets here for why it is like that because we’re talking about not being surprised by the world at large- the world that surrounds us (me) here, usually at large within and without us- differing with each person, countless elements and observations forming a part of each. I won’t go into how people should not be weak enough to be bothered by things such as externalities or how there are people I know who really don’t care. And I also won’t try and convince you that its because most of you are indifferent, individualistic, wiki everything, mooters, low lifes, too similar, not like me, too callous, lawyers, too arduous, over involved, SidSins[4], over enthusiastic to the point of being stupid and loud, too quiet, hairy metalheads, self involved, problematic, rappers, too simple, homosexuals, accented, wide eyed, neighbours, blah blah blah, not yet and maybe never. Neither will I get at the college administration, prove and label them as cheats who gas in their prospectus and touch up academic block images on a secret version of Photoshop that NASA used for fake Apollo 11 missions to make them wow ‘unreal’, or as apparatchik, as disquieting, stammering, insecure, political, communists who don’t approve college canteens, liberals in the garb of communists, failed lawyers with burning egos, rising lawyers with flaring egos, incapable, unworthy and so many things that I’ve heard and thought of (in that order so don’t blame me…..wholly). I can’t do all that because it’s been done before, not here, but everywhere else; it’s too tedious and usually gets the better of my otherwise unbiased attempts. This is about me and people who agree in general. In fact, Goutam delineated pretty much everything in his last post here and it is from there that I’d like to follow up- with an internalized approach- one that doesn’t justify but sheds light on a perspective. So here I toss yet another salad hoping you’ll taste it and know where the likes come from. And before I continue I would like all to keep in mind that almost nothing has changed after the widely appreciated article by GG and that children like us and like those we don’t know much about and don’t honestly care are still seen doing exactly the same things. So this is not an article attempting change, its merely hoping that you can derive entertainment enough from it so that it lasts you through till the next issue.
So I’ve given you a head note of reasons behind my nonchalance and have told you I don’t want to justify them since some of them are wholly true and some implicitly false, the rest we’ll never agree upon and even if we do it would be of no consequence. I have told you about the ideas ephemerally governing my life and that I often eat them up myself and told you that they are not as important as why I end up eating them. I have told you that I am rarely surprised. And that has something to do with all of this.
Moving on, weighing scales and the blind lady on the touché prospectus can do the trick sometimes by simplifying my temper into two categories and pitting that one against the other. And after a semester here- my optimism was sitting, eye to eye with the lady of justice (who was blind….sniff), while Mr. Smartass/ Narcissist/ Pessimist/ Selfish/ Sadass/ Lowlife/ &^%^* had just about touched down and walked off. It reminds me of that fat, pissing off kid who’d catapult me across the see-saw on account of his weight;[5] just like that my optimism too had been flung about in a similar way, by some fat dirty kid who’d grown up inside me, feeding of these validations and who I didn’t know existed. And that surprised me more than I remember being surprised when I hit the grass as a child; NUJS hurt not only because of the way I was, or that part of me that grew there had become, but also the way so many around me were when they noticed- all those dirty reasons came back to my mind almost instantaneously. And when that happened I took a U turn on the road prescribed, for a while. Of course, I did give reasons for it then and even negotiated them with others. We all did I guess- participatory nature of grief and disbelief. But the truth is that it was as instant as it was gradual in the sense that after a while, it was not that plethora of reasons that guided my ‘unconcern’, it was the absence of alternatives that led me to rediscover this ganglion of issues each time I was systematically or even vaguely reminded of something concernedly obtuse. So that it grew not only gradually but in ephemeral loftiness each time.
The truth is that I got bored of these reasons, gave up on them rather than felt restrained by them. To my own conscience, they seemed rather futile after a point since they went mostly justified, consensual, unopposed, let alone to me, to everyone. There was a point (more like an epoch) when our centre table (late night contraband enabled) discussions revolved around the ethereal plague of the university’s inherent lethargy. Their seemed to be a common consensus that such existed and collectively (conclusively) we had formed a rather vivid sketch of things that plagued us and our environment. It had a pattern of speechifying and mutual cachet, only to be abruptly restarted in the company of other good men a few days later. So that in under a month’s time, I was high on eight casks of Mallya’s premium beer, Rs.2000 short, staring at potential failure in Contract Law I (which I eventually did fail), one of Abcos’ favoured clients despite being a despotic consumer and in mutual admiration of an army of good men. I remember the time we were working on building a canteen and nothing seemed to come of it except these inconsequential forums. And soon enough the canteen proposal was scrapped, the slope group disbanded and every one hauled their broken spirits back home for Pujo.
I realized then that reasons and observations like those can last forever in the rhetoric of law students and perhaps most others, but their worth and strength, from where they derive a consequential character can last only as long as someone or something capable of affecting them actively does so. Opposition, concession, submission, something has to mirror them. But here, all I heard after repeated thuds to the ground was the panting of the grass- no applause, no jeer, no pushing or shoving- the fat kid was like an assuming, farting mannequin whom we all detested but that was it- he was just too stiff for any one of us. Soon I learned that amotivation not only ruled but ruled rather wisely amongst the presumptuous lot that we all were and continue to be. It enabled rhetorical analysis of almost everything. And it spanned so far across so as to cover all rationales; so far deep so as to mirror its every aspect with brilliant depth, but at the emblematic layer only. There were no ATRs (Action Taken Reports). Just ACRs handed out on every issue. There was no consequence and everything, every decision ended like a roadside Adda- like learned old men debating oil policy for hours each evening only to ride over the fear of loneliness inherent in communism and arthritis. Everyone seemed to accept these reasons and advised me in-spite of their existence, showing me the lawyer’s case. In all of this, I first gave into this rhetoric, simply and honestly considering it as a part of a larger process. But soon I found that students and faculty alike understood and regarded these entire processes- similar experiences backed by similar inferences leading to similar grievances- that I experienced at college initiation as a parallel, rhetorical reality that could strangely be left open ended like loose strings. They might not have meant it, but so many things demanded of them to do so. It seemed like a duality they had identified, accepted and reassured themselves of a long time ago. So long ago that even when they delved back into past I doubt they ever penetrated through the canopy or slid down the trunk to the roots. I saw students accepting and practicing popular politics en masse, saw them not only use words carefully but analyse those uttered by fellows with sharp, churlish method; I saw loyalties transpiring layers and saw that it was easy to transcend frameworks within which they operated- people stood for right and wrong, some chose to take no heed of right or wrong- but as friends or follies such beliefs often reversed and accepted as common practice, I saw with scared eyes potentially powerful people lose themselves in the aurora of power- without bothering to understand its vast implications, I saw some understand them and them thwart them as characteristically and firmly acceptable, saw teachers lamenting administrative decrees and cold shoulder each other, saw effortless procrastination at the highest levels- student societies, administration, trusts, UGC grants and what not. In other words, while I felt that the fire in their belly burnt I learnt that it was conceived on a promise of convenience, compromise- that fed it continuously without guilt. Guilt was contractually void. And that explained the viciously vicious cycle of thought, trepidation, mutual rhetoric, compromise, commonality and mutual admiration. And in all of this, I was lost through my own eyes. Law being a distant, uncompromised dream now seemed like a small circus of world governance, or rather how it was inferred. Nothing seemed wrong here and nothing was right objectively. It was rather philosophical until everyone forgot the spheres of operation and arguments worked like Sophist logic- without a set initial framework- justifiable in the same way as arbitrary African policy ‘upgrades’ by developed countries. In that I saw little that would attract a respectful glance, let alone avid interest. Many seemed to function that way and somehow many shared common ground when they asserted that such an outlook had little bearing on how most perceived, learnt or taught law in the university.
Of course, not every one functions the same way and hence there were packs amongst the NUJS herd. Packs far removed from each other’s reality but offering constant commentary on the other, entertaining within themselves. And I may as well have been a part of this without knowing it. Maybe, at Biju’s shack and in a few rooms I too ran elections to these packs. In fact, I am running a commentary on it right now. And even if the other is true, that is, if I have become less surprised with myself and with everything that surrounds me, some might say I am worse off in this apathy which takes away or gives nothing to my perception as well as to my own self-esteem. And maybe it is true. Or maybe it’s all the same. We all stand by our hourglasses. Maybe the likes of GG and many others who influence us unknowingly or knowingly will initiate us into further thought. And I hope they do. Because the perception of law and polity at the individual level, projected strongly in such percepts, is essential to what may be the larger aims of this university and within it- each one of us. To see twenty year olds languish under the banner of what is widely acceptable in today’s political dominion is like remembering the first time I put a cigarette to my lips- it seemed justified and surprisingly gripping in that time and even today if I look back I rarely complain till it comes around to a severe cough or throat infections. The point is that I had been imitating all along what I felt was widely acceptable and even the norm where I grew up. And now I seldom question the origins of my apathy towards my own fate, but just accept it in a cloud of smoke. Maybe it is in that little habit that servitude towards my own ideas is reflected.
It might be true that coming to this college is easier than going to most others. It might be true that one should learn to mould and adapt to an environment that one chooses for oneself. It might be true that expectations to conform here are way lesser than most other professional colleges (especially engineering where I hear they use the ‘shove things up any one of his orifices’ method). And it might also be true that many have toiled and succeeded where I and many like me have chosen to lament. HELL, it could even be that I am totally wrong and will be for the rest of this article. Maybe this college is the easiest or most interesting ever, I will never know. Neither will you. And everything mirroring and balancing all these probabilities could also be true. But in the end what is the one thing that stands true, unchanged and unfettered in most of us and why? It is probably our ability to analyse in retrospect, quietly within ourselves. Retrospect is probably the meditative inverse of all the rhetoric and handiness we have offered to ourselves. It might not yield in each one of us what I expect it to yield and in most of us it might not even stand true. But for those few who have argued enough, are bored of it and feel that it brings with it only its own sake, it is probably time to reflect on our why we stand (or bend over) the way we do. It is time not because our world is coming to an end or something as melodramatic (read 21st December, 2012) but because five years is too long for some of us to sit on our contemplative arses. And this time will exist till those five years are around after which we will again expect and adapt conveniently in our own myriad ways to a larger society ahead. But there is little hope or satiation in hearing the sound of distant waves as they crash if you haven’t ever seen or stood up to one as it comes at you, roaring, engulfing you in its meaningless banter and leaving you wet with experience. There is a different thrill in that challenge and the taste and sound of it leaves most in vigorous anticipation of something purer than, if not as pure as that sensation.
[2] Now GG knows what we do at his shack…toss salads!
[3] Sorry, but that’s too bring the ‘universe’ effect…if you have a better word.
[4] Geeeeee…..cheap shot….but then again.
[5] in fact his weight may well be regarded as the quantifiable but not qualitatively negotiable plethora of reasons which have affected me
So, I can’t speak for everyone, but about a year ago, I decided to never (now rarely) be surprised in my chosen world- NUJS. By surprised I intend to mean greatly bothered, ashamed, taken aback, topple over, startled, etc. By surprised, or rather lack of it, I intend to address that part of the GG’s query, intended or not, where it became difficult to comprehend a certain behavior that manifests itself in most of us- but in very different renditions, backed by a tumult of varying reasons. That slight nonchalance almost transcendental to our NUJSverse[3]. I can’t reason with you on paper and put down bullets here for why it is like that because we’re talking about not being surprised by the world at large- the world that surrounds us (me) here, usually at large within and without us- differing with each person, countless elements and observations forming a part of each. I won’t go into how people should not be weak enough to be bothered by things such as externalities or how there are people I know who really don’t care. And I also won’t try and convince you that its because most of you are indifferent, individualistic, wiki everything, mooters, low lifes, too similar, not like me, too callous, lawyers, too arduous, over involved, SidSins[4], over enthusiastic to the point of being stupid and loud, too quiet, hairy metalheads, self involved, problematic, rappers, too simple, homosexuals, accented, wide eyed, neighbours, blah blah blah, not yet and maybe never. Neither will I get at the college administration, prove and label them as cheats who gas in their prospectus and touch up academic block images on a secret version of Photoshop that NASA used for fake Apollo 11 missions to make them wow ‘unreal’, or as apparatchik, as disquieting, stammering, insecure, political, communists who don’t approve college canteens, liberals in the garb of communists, failed lawyers with burning egos, rising lawyers with flaring egos, incapable, unworthy and so many things that I’ve heard and thought of (in that order so don’t blame me…..wholly). I can’t do all that because it’s been done before, not here, but everywhere else; it’s too tedious and usually gets the better of my otherwise unbiased attempts. This is about me and people who agree in general. In fact, Goutam delineated pretty much everything in his last post here and it is from there that I’d like to follow up- with an internalized approach- one that doesn’t justify but sheds light on a perspective. So here I toss yet another salad hoping you’ll taste it and know where the likes come from. And before I continue I would like all to keep in mind that almost nothing has changed after the widely appreciated article by GG and that children like us and like those we don’t know much about and don’t honestly care are still seen doing exactly the same things. So this is not an article attempting change, its merely hoping that you can derive entertainment enough from it so that it lasts you through till the next issue.
So I’ve given you a head note of reasons behind my nonchalance and have told you I don’t want to justify them since some of them are wholly true and some implicitly false, the rest we’ll never agree upon and even if we do it would be of no consequence. I have told you about the ideas ephemerally governing my life and that I often eat them up myself and told you that they are not as important as why I end up eating them. I have told you that I am rarely surprised. And that has something to do with all of this.
Moving on, weighing scales and the blind lady on the touché prospectus can do the trick sometimes by simplifying my temper into two categories and pitting that one against the other. And after a semester here- my optimism was sitting, eye to eye with the lady of justice (who was blind….sniff), while Mr. Smartass/ Narcissist/ Pessimist/ Selfish/ Sadass/ Lowlife/ &^%^* had just about touched down and walked off. It reminds me of that fat, pissing off kid who’d catapult me across the see-saw on account of his weight;[5] just like that my optimism too had been flung about in a similar way, by some fat dirty kid who’d grown up inside me, feeding of these validations and who I didn’t know existed. And that surprised me more than I remember being surprised when I hit the grass as a child; NUJS hurt not only because of the way I was, or that part of me that grew there had become, but also the way so many around me were when they noticed- all those dirty reasons came back to my mind almost instantaneously. And when that happened I took a U turn on the road prescribed, for a while. Of course, I did give reasons for it then and even negotiated them with others. We all did I guess- participatory nature of grief and disbelief. But the truth is that it was as instant as it was gradual in the sense that after a while, it was not that plethora of reasons that guided my ‘unconcern’, it was the absence of alternatives that led me to rediscover this ganglion of issues each time I was systematically or even vaguely reminded of something concernedly obtuse. So that it grew not only gradually but in ephemeral loftiness each time.
The truth is that I got bored of these reasons, gave up on them rather than felt restrained by them. To my own conscience, they seemed rather futile after a point since they went mostly justified, consensual, unopposed, let alone to me, to everyone. There was a point (more like an epoch) when our centre table (late night contraband enabled) discussions revolved around the ethereal plague of the university’s inherent lethargy. Their seemed to be a common consensus that such existed and collectively (conclusively) we had formed a rather vivid sketch of things that plagued us and our environment. It had a pattern of speechifying and mutual cachet, only to be abruptly restarted in the company of other good men a few days later. So that in under a month’s time, I was high on eight casks of Mallya’s premium beer, Rs.2000 short, staring at potential failure in Contract Law I (which I eventually did fail), one of Abcos’ favoured clients despite being a despotic consumer and in mutual admiration of an army of good men. I remember the time we were working on building a canteen and nothing seemed to come of it except these inconsequential forums. And soon enough the canteen proposal was scrapped, the slope group disbanded and every one hauled their broken spirits back home for Pujo.
I realized then that reasons and observations like those can last forever in the rhetoric of law students and perhaps most others, but their worth and strength, from where they derive a consequential character can last only as long as someone or something capable of affecting them actively does so. Opposition, concession, submission, something has to mirror them. But here, all I heard after repeated thuds to the ground was the panting of the grass- no applause, no jeer, no pushing or shoving- the fat kid was like an assuming, farting mannequin whom we all detested but that was it- he was just too stiff for any one of us. Soon I learned that amotivation not only ruled but ruled rather wisely amongst the presumptuous lot that we all were and continue to be. It enabled rhetorical analysis of almost everything. And it spanned so far across so as to cover all rationales; so far deep so as to mirror its every aspect with brilliant depth, but at the emblematic layer only. There were no ATRs (Action Taken Reports). Just ACRs handed out on every issue. There was no consequence and everything, every decision ended like a roadside Adda- like learned old men debating oil policy for hours each evening only to ride over the fear of loneliness inherent in communism and arthritis. Everyone seemed to accept these reasons and advised me in-spite of their existence, showing me the lawyer’s case. In all of this, I first gave into this rhetoric, simply and honestly considering it as a part of a larger process. But soon I found that students and faculty alike understood and regarded these entire processes- similar experiences backed by similar inferences leading to similar grievances- that I experienced at college initiation as a parallel, rhetorical reality that could strangely be left open ended like loose strings. They might not have meant it, but so many things demanded of them to do so. It seemed like a duality they had identified, accepted and reassured themselves of a long time ago. So long ago that even when they delved back into past I doubt they ever penetrated through the canopy or slid down the trunk to the roots. I saw students accepting and practicing popular politics en masse, saw them not only use words carefully but analyse those uttered by fellows with sharp, churlish method; I saw loyalties transpiring layers and saw that it was easy to transcend frameworks within which they operated- people stood for right and wrong, some chose to take no heed of right or wrong- but as friends or follies such beliefs often reversed and accepted as common practice, I saw with scared eyes potentially powerful people lose themselves in the aurora of power- without bothering to understand its vast implications, I saw some understand them and them thwart them as characteristically and firmly acceptable, saw teachers lamenting administrative decrees and cold shoulder each other, saw effortless procrastination at the highest levels- student societies, administration, trusts, UGC grants and what not. In other words, while I felt that the fire in their belly burnt I learnt that it was conceived on a promise of convenience, compromise- that fed it continuously without guilt. Guilt was contractually void. And that explained the viciously vicious cycle of thought, trepidation, mutual rhetoric, compromise, commonality and mutual admiration. And in all of this, I was lost through my own eyes. Law being a distant, uncompromised dream now seemed like a small circus of world governance, or rather how it was inferred. Nothing seemed wrong here and nothing was right objectively. It was rather philosophical until everyone forgot the spheres of operation and arguments worked like Sophist logic- without a set initial framework- justifiable in the same way as arbitrary African policy ‘upgrades’ by developed countries. In that I saw little that would attract a respectful glance, let alone avid interest. Many seemed to function that way and somehow many shared common ground when they asserted that such an outlook had little bearing on how most perceived, learnt or taught law in the university.
Of course, not every one functions the same way and hence there were packs amongst the NUJS herd. Packs far removed from each other’s reality but offering constant commentary on the other, entertaining within themselves. And I may as well have been a part of this without knowing it. Maybe, at Biju’s shack and in a few rooms I too ran elections to these packs. In fact, I am running a commentary on it right now. And even if the other is true, that is, if I have become less surprised with myself and with everything that surrounds me, some might say I am worse off in this apathy which takes away or gives nothing to my perception as well as to my own self-esteem. And maybe it is true. Or maybe it’s all the same. We all stand by our hourglasses. Maybe the likes of GG and many others who influence us unknowingly or knowingly will initiate us into further thought. And I hope they do. Because the perception of law and polity at the individual level, projected strongly in such percepts, is essential to what may be the larger aims of this university and within it- each one of us. To see twenty year olds languish under the banner of what is widely acceptable in today’s political dominion is like remembering the first time I put a cigarette to my lips- it seemed justified and surprisingly gripping in that time and even today if I look back I rarely complain till it comes around to a severe cough or throat infections. The point is that I had been imitating all along what I felt was widely acceptable and even the norm where I grew up. And now I seldom question the origins of my apathy towards my own fate, but just accept it in a cloud of smoke. Maybe it is in that little habit that servitude towards my own ideas is reflected.
It might be true that coming to this college is easier than going to most others. It might be true that one should learn to mould and adapt to an environment that one chooses for oneself. It might be true that expectations to conform here are way lesser than most other professional colleges (especially engineering where I hear they use the ‘shove things up any one of his orifices’ method). And it might also be true that many have toiled and succeeded where I and many like me have chosen to lament. HELL, it could even be that I am totally wrong and will be for the rest of this article. Maybe this college is the easiest or most interesting ever, I will never know. Neither will you. And everything mirroring and balancing all these probabilities could also be true. But in the end what is the one thing that stands true, unchanged and unfettered in most of us and why? It is probably our ability to analyse in retrospect, quietly within ourselves. Retrospect is probably the meditative inverse of all the rhetoric and handiness we have offered to ourselves. It might not yield in each one of us what I expect it to yield and in most of us it might not even stand true. But for those few who have argued enough, are bored of it and feel that it brings with it only its own sake, it is probably time to reflect on our why we stand (or bend over) the way we do. It is time not because our world is coming to an end or something as melodramatic (read 21st December, 2012) but because five years is too long for some of us to sit on our contemplative arses. And this time will exist till those five years are around after which we will again expect and adapt conveniently in our own myriad ways to a larger society ahead. But there is little hope or satiation in hearing the sound of distant waves as they crash if you haven’t ever seen or stood up to one as it comes at you, roaring, engulfing you in its meaningless banter and leaving you wet with experience. There is a different thrill in that challenge and the taste and sound of it leaves most in vigorous anticipation of something purer than, if not as pure as that sensation.
[2] Now GG knows what we do at his shack…toss salads!
[3] Sorry, but that’s too bring the ‘universe’ effect…if you have a better word.
[4] Geeeeee…..cheap shot….but then again.
[5] in fact his weight may well be regarded as the quantifiable but not qualitatively negotiable plethora of reasons which have affected me
