the gods must think we're crazy (or perhaps its all part of the plan).

i mean, really.

today - suprisingly, while i was busy hanging upside down and screaming my head off - i had this epiphany. the gods (or perhaps God singular, or perhaps no god at all but rather whatever is Out There, detached and capable of making this observation)...they must think we're crazy. completely off our rockers, loony, barking mad, and whatever other appropriate adjective you can throw in.

it is the only explanation for amusement rides, and roller coasters, and other forms of insanity that spring from the depths of our human i'm-never-satisfied-with-anything, i-want-more-thrills-so-i-will-turn-myself-upside-down-at-fast-speeds-and-put-my-life-in-the-hands-of-fate-simply-for-30-seconds-of-fun-most-of-which-i-spend-regretting-my-decision-and-screaming-my-head-off minds.

but where do we get to the how to do it wrong part? you might as well ask, why would a seeming sane person ride every ride in the park as many times possible, only stopping because time ran out?

well i'll tell you a small story, the story of a girl - a girl who was afraid of lots of things. and since we all know who we're actually talking about, in order to save face, i must say - not afraid of lots of things, but really rather a reasonable amount of things, things it is generally acceptable for little girls to be scared of...the dark, and water, and guns, and heights, and roller coasters - to name a few.

so let me begin.

1. don't drag your mom's favorite lamp out into the yard while you're camping. yes, you are scared of the dark but no, you are not old enough to understand the concept of electricity. you are surpised no warm yellow light emanates forth from the device like it does when it sits so prettily on the side table in the living room. you can sort of make out the cord trailing back towards the house, into the pitch black of the night. it has a thing at the end that sticks into the wall. you try to stick it into the wall of your tent. nothing happens. you are 4 - confused, scared, and trying to pretend there is no world outside of your little tent. by the time you are 13, you will have embraced punk rock, goth-ness, hanging out the whole night in a cemetery, and the general kick-ass nature of darkness.

2. don't scream "why are you drowning me?!? why?! why why?! nooooo!!!" as your loving and incredibly patient dad holds you in the water at the crowded and very shallow end of the local pool. you are wearing flotation devices around your arms and waist and holding onto the wall, but this matters not. as you look out into the vast expanse of the pool stretching in front of you - all 10 meters of it, you shudder. so unknown. you are 5. by the time you are 12, you will want to be a marine biologist (having given up on paleoclimatology, which nobody seemed to understand and which, you had gathered, wasn't nearly as glamorous as you thought it would be - most of the fun seeming to consist of drilling ice cores from the arctic). by the time you are 14, you will be on the swim team, enjoying sailing with your dad and going whale watching on the harbour. by the time you're a high school senior, you'll have taken marine biology and oceanography. you are building an underwater remotely operated vehicle which you test drive, operating the controls from the shaky platform in the middle of the pool. it is a 100 meter deep navy submarine test tank. you worry whether the water is deep enough.

3. don't - actually, no. hate guns, do. i think they're the devil - always have, always will. but by the time you're 19, you may realize - after a disturbing few weeks shooting rifles at balloons - that you enjoy taking aim, steadying your arm, and firing; you are satisfied to see that brightly colored, obscenely inflated balloon pop out of existence with a little bang. you are disturbed, but perhaps you will take shooting lessons; there could be something there.

4. don't hold up the line at the 10 story diving board. you look down and whimper, just a little, under your breath, as bright blue water spins dizzyingly far below. from the sides of the pool, your parents call encouragement. it is not reassuring. their distant voices only remind you exactly how far down it is from up where you are. you stand there for many minutes. the boy behind you is not happy, and he lets you know. you step to the edge and gather your courage. one, tw-. you don't have time to scream as you find yourself falling, the victim of a not-so-subtle shove in the back. you belly flop, landing splat! with arms and legs outspread - a bit like a parachute, just a tiny bit faster. it hurts like hell. but after that first time, you are not so scared. by the time you are 15, you will have gone paragliding and cemented your love of flying. on your list of things to do in life is bungee jumping and handgliding over the wildlife reserves in tanzania. by the time you are 16, you will have escaped out the window of your 3rd story apartment in all sorts of weather - snow, hail, sleet, rain. you find yourself in college, trying to figure out how to climb up the hostel walls from the outside.

5. don't spend $30 on a ticket to six flags. you know amusement parks are not your thing. you're here on a choir trip and following your eager friends, you walk slowly to join the long cue for The Volcano. the wait is not reassuring. as you stand there, you see the ride operate six times - six sets of screaming people. six sets of twists and turns and rolls. you visibly flinch as a burst of flames is punctuated by a litany of blood-curdling screams. your eyes are glued - you cannot look away; it is a kind of horrified fascination. by the time it is your turn, you already know when to scream and when to pray. your eyes will definitely be closed all the way through. as you are seated you are filled with the certain knowledge that you want to be anywhere but here. as it begins, you grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes shut. you are 13, and sure you are going to die. by the time you are 19, you will be egging your friends into hitting the local amusement park with you. you've already been there thrice this month.

and that, with the adrenaline rush just barely beginning to fade, is where i find myself. writing this blog. a die-hard, peace-loving, ultra-liberal, tree-hugging hippy who's looking forward to her shooting lessons with far more enthusiasm than she'd ever let on.

what can i say? there are lots of things in this world that are, if you look at them a certain way, insanity, pure and simple. but give them a try. somehow there's lots of stuff that seems to turn out way differently than you expect, but not in a bad way.

how to do it wrong? giving it all a miss. you never know what's meant to be, or where you're going to end up.

Lawyers = Priests.

When studying history, I always found it amusing that parallels could be drawn between epochs in the histories of different places. One of the most common parallels was the manner in which religion developed. There have always been priests or holy men, born to be (supposedly, of course) closer to God, and providing a gateway, of sorts, to the commoners, such that the light of heaven could reach unto them. As such individual priests in tribes evolved into established Churches or Temples and moved into some form of an organized religion, the practices were regularised, and the religion became a standard, a way of life that connected many people across a certain land area, binding them to practices; and those that did not follow those practices, faced some sort of penalty or penance.

Given these circumstances, the church/temple/mosque became more and more powerful, and the practices more and more rigid - to such an extent that the holy text upon which the religion was based needed to be interpreted only by the priesthood of that religion - it was often in a language not understood by anyone else. Soon, that language existed merely as a medium to express religious doctrine, and thus the common individual had no longer the right to access God, but merely the right to approach the priesthood. Such an approach often required the needy to pay large sums of money. Thus, in the name of organized religion, extortion began.

To make a prayer to higher authorities, you needed to hire a priest. For a funeral, you needed to hire a priest. To enter a new home, you needed to hire a new priest. You needed the blessing of the religion to start any new venture. And they would come and mutter something you wouldn't understand, rule you from books that you could not read or have access to, and speak in languages to each other which you could only hazard guesses at the meaning of.

And then, one of the constants in life happened - change.

In the case of Christianity, one man stuck a list of demands on the door of a German Church, translated the Bible, and became the founder of a new order - the Protestant Church. The Bible reached the people. Whether people read it or not, of course, is another matter altogether. The priesthood changed. It no longer had a stranglehold on religion. And today, we have more Protestants than Catholics. I think. In any case, Protestants have changed the way Christianity was. Now, Priest preach in the common language, and the Holy Bible is no longer some kind of strange mysterious entity.

In the case of Hinduism, there was the reformatory movement emerging from the Brahmo and Arya Samaj, making Hinduism and the texts more available to the public. And when the religion, earlier on, didn't change fast enough, new religions such as Jainism and Buddhism were born. Given all of this, we see that there is a pattern when one looks at the development of religions.

What does this have to do with the law? Some of you might already have drawn the conclusion I seek to put forth with this post - but I ought, for the sake of clarity and for those who haven't gotten it yet, put it forth again.

Consider the Law. A set of rules and practices that binds everyone within a particular geographical area. It has its own comprehensive tests that might as well be written in an alien language. To understand any of what has been said, one must hire a lawyer. To start any new venture, you have to hire a lawyer to ensure that all licenses, etc. are obtained. To obtain justice, you must hire a lawyer. To get something stolen back, you must often pay the lawyer more money that the object itself is worth.

The movement has not yet reformed, but it might, soon. It scares me to be here, interning, seeing companies send in these 'queries' which we answer and make them pay ludicrous amounts for. Perhaps my protest would be less vociferous if I had a share of the money I am thus earning for the firm I'm at, but it still shocks me to know how many tens and hundreds of thousands we get paid for answering inane questions about the import of olive oil, and restrictions thereof.

The Law binds everyone, and affects everyone. It is a leech, for it does not create anything new, but regulates all that seeks to do so. It is metaphysical, for it speaks of that which is real, but itself is merely a kind of thought, an overarching rule finding bearing due to the way in which certain things move.

I'm an atheist when it comes to religion already. My thoughts are swiftly turning towards being an unbeliever in the Law, also. And thus, anarchy seems to be an excellent way to lead life.

For those who think I might be overreacting, there is this mall that was sought to be built on Mehrauli - Gurgaon Road, halfway between New Delhi and Gurgaon. It was called 1, M.G. It was meant to house all forms of Fashion Houses and clothes for and of the rich and famous. It turned out they didn't have some sort of building permit, or they were building in the wrong zone, or something.

I was extremely happy when the building was demolished. It showed that the Law would not bow down to the actions of the powerful. It gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. And today, 6 years hence, the hulk of the building still stands - the matter is still being considered by the Courts.

The Law is a leech. And it likes to take it's time over its meals. We, the Law Students of this country, want our own share of blood. We must, however, beware the change that is probably just around the corner. For such is life, and such is the historical imperative of our time.

The Meaning of Honesty

I remember being a child. And as a child, I most distinctly remember the urgency and the fervent hope with which my unfortunate parents and teachers tried to drill honesty into my head. I listened, and I was honest - for reasons stretching from not wanting to hurt the aforementioned parents, as well as not being ass-raped by whatever was out there watching me - another topic of some interest for my role models at the time.

Given all of this, it was a pleasant surprise to realize, in my early adolescence (the 'tweens', I believe they're called) that untruths could serve the awesome purpose of preventing Earthly vengeance - and that divine intervention hadn't been happening for a while. Self righteous anger at those who used falsehoods regularly had their impact on this volte-face. I would often find myself angry at liars, and console myself with the idea that it'd return to bite their ass. When it didn't, my disgust steadily turned to fascination.

Once I'd adopted the way of the lie, life was good. It just made things easier. I mean, so much so, that I'd often find it unnecessary to do anything at all. Of course, when these sort of things piled up, I'd often find myself in deeper shit than I would have been if I hadn't lied. But as I grew up, I found a balance - I lied about some things, and didn't about some. And I carried on.

However, at some point, when the balance became difficult to maintain (mostly because of women entering into my life, and how little I found it safe to tell my parents about them), I realized that just telling the truth was the best thing. I also realized that without thinking about it, I'd held myself to being honest about those things that I'd write or do inside or outside the classroom. This does not include homework and assignments, which I unabashedly did every morning in the 15 minutes it took for class to start, because those assignments were moronic to begin with.

I've always loved doing projects. They made me go and read things on my own, beyond the scope of the (inevitable) shit that I was taught within it. I learned more of the world in those hours spent before encyclopedias (before the internet) and Grolier (does anyone remember what this was? At all? It used to be excellent) and Encarta on the computer.

When I got into Law School, and I was told that there were 4 projects to do a trimester, I was ecstatic. Then I realized how tedious they were. The concept of footnoting everything seemed rather wasteful. But as I continued reading for these things, I did eventually fall in love with this avatar of the same thing. I delighted in realizing new things, and finding them and making them my own. I was scrupulously honest about these things - worked entirely on my own, no cogging/faffing, and all original research and work.

So, this is where this post tells you how to do it wrong. This blog's been kind of straying from it's original path, so I hope to do it the way it was meant to be.

1. Don't go to your crazy ass bitch psycho Human Rights teacher, and ask for a new project topic because you want to do it on a topic you've covered in a previous course.
2. Don't tell her that you did it in such-and-such course, and point out the teacher.
3. Don't point out that she's ignorant during the viva for said project.
4. Don't go to her chambers afterwards and point out once again, she was wrong, because she threatened to mark you badly.
5. If you've done all of the above, don't think that things will be okay. The Disciplinary Committee is waiting to get you.

Well, that's about it. It happened to me. Because I did it wrong. I'm grinning, but not for any reason connected to this.

Remember - honesty never got anyone anywhere. Especially not in Law School. Kiss teacher ass, and you'll be fine.

But if you want to do it wrong, this is how you do it. Be honest. Stand up for yourself, and your principles. Relish things that teach you, fight things that don't. Be lazy, but don't let it be an excuse. Be strong, and don't bow down to shit, however tempting that might be. If a teacher's bad, stand up to him/her. Let everyone know exactly how you feel. Put yourself out there and dare anyone to object. Don't give a damn about what people think, but give many damns about what you think about yourself. Improve, but in your own eyes - you are your best judge.

That's the meaning of honesty. And honesty is one of the many things you can do wrong in Law School.