End of the Road...

Hey guys...

Well, this is jus' to inform all u guys that this blog "Money, Music 'n' NLU !!!" will henceforth be carried forward by only one person (till now 'my fellow blogger', and that is if he wants to!). I regret to inform that I am no longer interested in being a part of this blog (and blah blah blah...).

Nice bein' with yeh fellas,
Adios!

The Last Ride Home

THE LAST RIDE HOME:

The little rock basketball team composed of members possessed. Created in the eighties, it has now evolved into a cogent unit of semi professionals. Patil sir then took over the managerial post. That is when we really began to see what we were capable of. I became part of the team in 10^th grade. I was a small chap back then, in the team only because I had the uncanny ability of shooting three pointers, never missing. The workouts were intense. I had to leave home early as there were morning drills that could not be missed. So my mum used to drop me at the udupi bus stand 5 kms away, as there was no bus to Udupi until 6 in the morning. I used to take the first express bus then to brahmavar, a further 15kms or so and then another bus to school a short distance away. I made it on most days by 7. It meant that I missed the first half hour of practice. I never enjoyed the morning sessions much. Lots of German relays/suicides, push ups, ab crunches not to mention a variety of offensive and defensive manoeuvres. Nevertheless the draining routine every morning left us all feeling very alive and ready for school which began at 9:30 every morning. I brought a towel, soap and the school uniform with me daily along with the school books. So every morning after practice we had a bath, ate breakfast and went to class. 4:30 in the evening we used to rush to the mess, have the usual tea and snacks, change our clothes and pick up a basketball each from the sports room. Keep shooting and generally fooling around till the coach came and blew his whistle to make us line up at the base line. The evening drills were much more fun. It was the time for match practice. One hour full court games were what we looked forward to. The purpose behind these games was to put our drills into practice, play a set game and to convert most of the baskets. I used to enjoy the feeling. The school buses used to leave around 4:40 every evening. And I was there playing, trying out stunt layups and the little kids who used to poke their heads out of the windows were left impressed. After two weeks of drills we were in for a pleasant surprise. Patil sir came to the court with two big plastic bags in each hand. Our school jerseys- bright blue with white borders and red numbering. I wanted the number 8, because that was Kobe Bryant’s jersey number. But I was beaten to it by somebody else. But nevertheless I was immensely pleased to wear no.12. We played our best game that day, all of us, in our jerseys. I didn’t change back into my uniform after practice. I still vividly remember my dad’s face when he opened the door. There was pride in his eyes, something I know he feels but rarely displays. He did that day and I suddenly felt that all those mornings of thankless drills were worth it.

In that year we took part in the CBSE Cluster level basketball tournament. The top two teams made it to the South Zone and the top two from there went on to the Nationals. We were a young team then. We didn’t have high expectations. All we wanted was to play a hard game and stick to the basics. Our lack of experience cost us dearly. It was a close match and we fought hard throughout. The score was neck and neck right till the end. The match went into overtime. That’s when our defence fell apart. They had a spree of fast breaks. We lost that match 38-34. We were knocked out of the first match of the tournament.

This defeat only spurred out desire to win. Intensity was reaching its peak. Next up was a college level tournament celebrating the Dushera festival. We were scheduled to play MIT, the engineering college team at their home court. A lot of factors were against us. We were kids, they were big guys- brash and to hell with the rules. Moreover the crowd was hostile. The audacity that a school team had the arrogance of challenging the might of a college.

The match began at a fever pitch. I did not figure in the starting five. I guess the coach thought I was too small and would not be able to play such a physical game. Being underdogs helps and our first round loss in the clusters was still very alive in our memories. It was a violent game. The opposite centre elbowed into our shooting guard. His nose broke and he bled buckets. That meant a substitute. This was the chance I was waiting for. I rushed in and the entire opposition and crowd sniggered. I had turned up in an oversized sleeveless banyan which was green in colour. Add to that I was also wearing green shorts which went down below by knees. Hell.

The game renewed. I will never forget what happened thereafter. The job assigned to me was simple. To score those threes. So I ran up and down the court well out of the way of the big guys. I didn’t want to get hit for no reason. The ball came to me. Immediately my marker leaped towards me. He was around 6 feet tall. Out of sheer alarm I released the ball. It was a swish, straight through the basket. Phew! A surge of blood ran through my entire body. I knew right then that it was my night. I scored three more baskets that night, all of them in similar fashion, once with my defender actually jumping clean over me.

We were leading by one point again. 13-12, with 20 seconds remaining. All we had to do was to hold the ball and wait for the final whistle. Our ball handler brought the ball upto the 90. Two defenders rushed to him. He managed to pass to the 45- me. I held on the ball for dear life, not knowing what to do. I was surrounded by opposition players. I closed my eyes and did the unthinkable. I threw the ball straight up in the air. The ball looped high. Everything had gone in slow motion. Even the crown screeching itself hoarse till now with “Mighty Mighty MIT” fell silent.

Trust my luck. It was the star player of the other team that gathered the ball. Immediately he rushed for a layup and got fouled. Two freethrows. If he scores both, their team win and we go back home again.

He took the first shot. It went peerlessly through the basket. The scores were now tied. He lined up for the second throw. His knees bent and eyes narrowed in concentration as he released the ball. The sphere zoomed through the air. It bounced on the ring, once, twice unsure of its destination and perilously close to deciding our own.

It dropped into the basket. The crowd burst out and converged on their victorious team. I walked back dazed to my bench, not uttering a word, and wishing above all that I was anywhere else except there.

The coach said just one thing, that still haunts me, “So Gopal, from hero to zero, eh?”

He said it jokingly, but it hurt nevertheless. Tears swelled up in my eyes. Were we always going to lose? Was it always meant to be so near yet so far???

all i can say is that i guess its all in the game. the tide had to turn, our best was yet to come...keep reading the blog to find out!!

(The second instalment is here)

In Search of Sand Dunes: 13th Jan 2007

Well, it was to celebrate Vishnu’s birthday. The bugger turned 18 the other day. Damn it, it means I will have to hear that “you are still a minor” joke for the next eight months. Anyway, we decided to go to Osiyan. The real desert is in Jaisalmer. Osian though had its own miniature version of Jaisalmer’s sand dunes. We thought we would stay there the night, drink, talk around a cosy bonfire burning merrily all night under the starry sky on the dunes….

Piyush and Virmani have driving licences. So that meant Vish and I was to be pillion. We needed bikes and there was a rent-a-bike, in the city on station road. The deal seemed ok. 200 bucks for 24 hours. We got hold of two pulsars-a black one and a deep purple, Piyush and I on the first. Initially we thought of going in the morning on Sunday i.e. today, but then Vish on a sudden burst of adrenaline decided to leave immediately on Saturday evening. I was assigned to fill up the out passes for the overnight journey. but the assistant hostel warden refused to let us out.

Why not, sir?

Because too many people seem to be going on trips.

But please sir, it is just for sight seeing, we’ve never been to Osian.

So what? Out passes can be given only for going home. If Osian is your home, I’ll give you the out passes.

Well, I guess you got the point; we were not going to able to go.

But with people like Virmani, Piyush and to a lesser extent Vish, one learns never to accept defeat, at least not in non-academic pursuits. Piyush recommended forging, Virmani for a second attempt.

So with some deft licking of boots, we managed to get the permission we much needed. We ran then, right outta the university, within minutes we had packed-4 mattresses and an empty bag (to be filled up by booze en route!!). We didn’t know what we were in for then, never realised how cold it would be. The bike rental guy didn’t have helmets that could actually protect your head. They were all cracked. But he said it’s only to evade the police. Also it was evident on the face of it that the engine had been modified to give more efficiency. Safety had been sacrificed for performance, and that’s the only thing that mattered to us anyway.

We rode then, hi-fived just before we started the engine. Finally it felt like we were in college.

Piyush zoomed through crowded Nai Sarak manoeuvring around camel carts, startled bi-cyclists, and a host of other vehicles which I couldn’t make out in the haze of speeding. His long hair billowing in the wind all over my face. This guy could drive.

We stopped for petrol at the nearest bunk. After filling up and checking for air, we moved on. This time faster, as we were out of the city and on an empty stretch. Piyush pushed the vehicle, which willingly obliged its master, although making a curiously echoing sound in the process. We stopped enroute at Chamunda, a highway side Dhaba. Rich food, loads of butter. But we ate light anticipating a strenuous ride ahead. We also bought booze- a bottle of RS half and another quarter of RC. Also we got hold of a bisleri 2 litre bottle and a thums up 1.5 L. Evidently we intended to drink quite a lot…….it was pretty enlightening for me. I have never bought drinks before. All of them were being referred to in their short forms- RS Royal Stag, RC Royal Challenge.

We zoomed off then into the dark desert highway, Hotel California on our lips. It was like The Eagles had actually composed that song for us, for today. I unlike the other three guys didn’t have gloves. And as we rode on, all of us froze in varying degrees depending on the number of layers of clothes we wore. Piyush and Virmani realised that they had lost their feeling below their knees. For me it was my fingers, it felt as if they had to be amputated. They were a pair of lifeless driftwood, cold and dense. But then again we weren’t sissy to complain. We were here to have fun, and we had it no matter how chilly things got. Who gave a damn!!!

The guy at the back bent forward and yelled into the bikers’ ears. No body heard the other, yet all four of us used to nod in agreement. We decided to race.

“One, two three...!” I shouted at the other bike.

The pulsars fled into the night, with the headlights piercing through the veil of darkness.

Whoops of joy escaped from our mouths, the sound already left far behind as the two wheelers accelerated.

Piyush shouted into my ear, “DUDE, I THINK WE’RE DOING A HUNDRED! DAMN THAT SPEEDOMETER, WE CANT SHOW OFF”

Thankfully the road was entirely deserted, not a soul in sight. Not that we could’ve seen them anyway, the night was such. I looked around on both sides. Ha! The advantage of being a pillion. Piyush though was staring straight ahead, his eyes tiny slits, and the better to see. On both sides there was nothing but emptiness, seemingly stretching till infinity. Now and then there were lights on top of some hill, those orange specks, so irrelevant at such a distance.

There came a signboard asking us to slow down. It was a railway crossing. We stopped, waiting for the train to move on. We decided to take pics. So with 50 odd people staring, the four of us took snaps of each other, against the bikes, against the railway crossing, using the streetlamp as the camera light. We reached the Osian temple complex at 10: 30 p.m. It took us 15 minutes to start walking. Only then did we look around. We removed our helmets and tried to rectify the damage to our hair, using the rear view glass as our mirror.

The place was deserted. It was like a ghost town. The temple gate was open though and we walked through. We needed directions to the dunes and some firewood to realise our dreams. We found a group of five men who were huddling around a fire, sitting on their haunches. They didn’t have a clue why four guys should want to come all the way from Jodhpur to spend the night freezing on the dunes. Obviously they were of no help. We asked others outside. Curiously many people turned up, all of them young men. This led us to believe that Osian was a gay district, and I have to admit, we were quiet unnerved at the thought!

We drove off then to the market place in search for wood. Got lost, stopped near a banyan tree, fell off the bike and still no people. That’s one thing about this place, people either come out of nowhere or else disappear equally mysteriously. We kept driving on. Saw a few lights in the distance on top of a hill, never realising that’s where we needed to go. We stopped at a Dhaba. The same old story- No firewood and no recognisable sand dune. But this time Virmani and Vish suggested cutting some dry branches off some bushes by the side of the road. They were horribly enthusiastic; I knew the idea would come to nought. I didn’t say anything though, for fear of being abused and being called a pussy. Piyush though was busy, talking to his girlfriend.

There was a minor problem though. The ass was using my cell.

“DUDE, DON’T SPEND ALL THE MUTHERFUCKING BALANCE!!” I yelled after him as he walked off to get some privacy. As if we cared though, about the gooey conversation he was going to have with his girl.

“What the fuck do you need balance for anyway, you just got dumped. Who are you going to spend it on?” Vishnu teased from behind my back. Virmani snorted in agreement. I looked back. Both of them were deeply engrossed in the job at hand-literally. For I could see only their upper torsos. The lower half was lost in the thorns. Virmani the bulkier of the two was doing the dirty job. By holding one end of the branch in his right hand and his left foot as a lever, he managed to price out three ten foot long branches. Vishnu was holding the torch overhead to prevent their throats getting slit. Virmani then proceeded to throw the dried branches javelin style on to the road. Piyush too was done by then. I had lost just 30 bucks. Not bad considering his average per call was nothing less than 120 bucks.

We had to move on now in search of the dunes. Vish and I held the reward by our fingertips to prevent getting pricked. It was a sight to see. Piyush and I followed the other two. He couldn’t control his laughter as we saw huge branches trailing the pulsar moving awkwardly ahead of us. We stopped 200 metres ahead. Virmani had seen something like sand on the right hand side of the road through the beam of his headlight. We decided to send Piyush on his bike to investigate. The side road though was sand upto a foot or so. He couldn’t get far, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. The bike swayed perilously on both sides, but at the end of the pendulum swing he managed to strike his foot out to break the fall. But defeat was inevitable. Virmani and Vish decided to explore on foot instead. So I waited there with Piyush. He got a call again:

“Airtel sucks!! The bastards are everywhere. How the fuck am I getting a signal even here? I realised that he probably had a fight with his girlfriend and didn’t want to talk to her, so I didn’t pursue the matter.

So we waited hopefully for the other two to get back. We could see the torchlight bobbing in the distance. May be they had struck gold after all, in the form of dunes of sand!!

They came back fifteen minutes or so disappointed. We had to move on now. It had been more than two hours since we started the trip, with no luck.

The four of us stood around the bikes, the pulsars being our round table for discussion.

“I suggest that we ask for directions, otherwise we’d end up getting lost.”

We ended up sleeping by the road. After cleaning up the shit of camels and dogs, we spread out the blankets: two on the ground and two to cover us. The branches we had cuts and the two bikes forming our enclosure. We looked up at the star lit sky. It was brilliantly lit, almost as good as Jaisalmer. Our feet became numb. A truck stops midway on the highway. We wonder whether the driver saw our cigarette lights or the reflection of the headlights upon the shining armour of the bikes.

We woke up in the morning to see curious faces of half a dozen villagers. Looking around, GEES, we had slept in the middle of nowher. And there it was in the distance, the dunes. How did we miss it last night I have no clue!!

We went there after all and wow, it was so amazing. We sat on top of the highest dune and looked around, the scenery was breath taking to say the least. While Piyush and I dozed off Virmani and Vish decided to do what they know best: fight!! So they had a good dog fight with Virmani coming trumps…although Vish will never admit it….;)

We left the place then at around 12:30 p.m. We went back to the temple gate where our bikes were parked, this time though we realised that Osian was not that dead a place after all. The temple complex was abuzz with activity. Our tummies rumbling, we had a lousy thali and went up the temple. The first thing you would notice are the steps: stretching right up to the top of the hill where the temple was situated. We had to remove our footwear at the entrance itself. It took us 15 minutes or so, there was so much sand in them! There was one Reebok, one Nike, a woodland and some other fancy brand I don’t remember. No way were we gonna risk leaving them without supervision. I volunteered to wait there while the other three went ahead. It was a rewarding decision on my part, for I got a direct peek at all the hot foreign tourists coming and going!!

Later back in college we found out that a bunch of fifth years were planning a trip to Osiyan in two jeeps. the four of us glanced at each others our eyes sparkling with anticipation.

We' ve done that already, WHAT NEXT!!

this is getting much too serious

when my fellow blogger told me that we shld start a blog....i guess what both of us had in mind was that we would write hilarious, hep n happening pieces. the kind that would b all cool n both of us wld b the toast of everybody...that every blog would have hundreds of readers and comments, egging us to bring out our collective creative geniuses...all i can say now is i guess we expected a wee bit too much!!!That apart both of us have also realized that along the way we tried to tackle issues that all of us face as people. Be it reservations, inter batch rivalry, or academic policies both Aravind n I care too much abt whats happening around us. Both of us want to see NLU get the respect it deserves. n i think in the process the blogs took on a serious nature....

we hope that at least for some time to come you readers will at the end of our blogs have a smile on your faces and occasional chuckles!

My Philosophy

No obstacle is too great; no distance is too far to traverse. Stand by what you believe in, live life on your own terms. How can you ever be satisfied? I think I have realised today the purpose behind my birth, the reason for my existence. We are all part of a process. Each one of us is in a constant battle, between what we desire and what we should do. Every moment of my existence I ask myself: what do I want from my life? I think I have the answer now: Everything. Right from when I was a child, I was being prepared, mostly at an unconscious level, to work towards my purpose. My mother reading me Wind in the Willows, back then, it was the sound of the words that made me chuckle. I did not gather the import of the writing at the age of 1 and a half. Through our schooling, we are asked what we want to become. The answers range usually from: I want to be a good human being, I want to be successful, I want to be a pilot, a computer engineer, doctor, fire-fighter, and soldier to what not. It was the thrill of the job that inclined us to the field. I went through the same phase. If I wanted to play cricket for India then, why don’t I want to do so now? The sad answer seems to be this. As we grow older, we become afraid. Afraid not of our incompetency, we are afraid of our potential. All of us can make things happen. Nothing is impossible. We grow up in a state of denial. We don’t want to get free. We are afraid to attain the self- realisation. I visualise self realisation as a man standing on a cliff, the highest point in the whole universe, he stands there alone with none else for company. He is blinded by light, all encompassing, and the brightest he will ever see. This is what makes me sad. All of us see this light within us, all of us see ourselves on top of the cliff, yet we blind ourselves, shield ourselves away from our purpose. The idealism we cherish through our childhood diminishes to a point of non existence. We resign ourselves to our desks in office. We fall prey to the instincts of survival. Is that all we are expected to do? The most successful men are those who are unafraid of giving themselves up to the brightest light. They know that their purpose is what is supreme. They work towards their goal. Life comes only once. Should we die unfulfilled? Shouldn’t we have a zest for living?

I believe all of us are philosophers in our own right. We don’t need Plato to tell us about an ideal state. The day we as individuals realise our true potential and work towards our purpose will be a day when humanity will flourish. Ironically again this is similar to Plato’s concept of enlightened individual self!

I have had all the requisites of a happy and contented life. I am 17 now. Throughout I have been blessed with tools without which I would never have seen this day. This piece is dedicated to those tools. What are they?

They are parentage and education. My gratefulness to my parents goes beyond words. People say that the Supreme Creator is God, I do not know. I am just a part of the Universal Process; it is way beyond me to comment on the existence of the Supreme Being. My parents are my creators, I can’t think beyond them. My father is a principled man. He has always stood by his ideals. He has always believed that one should only do what he likes. A person should choose his path and cannot be compelled to do so. I don’t want to make this essay a personal one, and then you wouldn’t be able to associate with it. So I won’t talk about his life or the particular instances that are the basis of my analysis of my father. I think I can fairly conclude that he was individualistic. I have inherited from him the analytical mind.

My mother on the other hand is determined, she never gives up. For more than twenty years she has perspired. She quit a well-paying job and bore two children, my sister and me, five years apart. One of them was very troublesome. A multi tasker that she is, she managed to balance her writing with taking care of us. And she hasn’t compromised on either. Every rejection makes her more resolute. She knows she belongs to the big league and she will not quit until she gets there. I also admire her patience. She goes out of the way to help people. She cooks even when she doesn’t like cooking; she has tolerated and successfully tamed two men with a lot of attitude: me and my father, I salute her.

Education, it opened my eyes. I have never learnt anything by rote. Without understanding the concept, without asking the question ‘why’ I don’t think that true learning can ever take place, and true knowledge can never been achieved. The world is in such a sorry mess today only because of the absence of the above two tools.

second semester syndrome

well...to start off with..i'd like to thank my fellow blogger for raking up sensitive issues of interbatch rivalries....makes our blog pretty political...so....in following with the alternating blog format..it's my turn now....

i choose to call it the second semester syndrome...it has affected all of us....from the top GPA holders of first sem..right down to the modest 5 pointers ( who incidentally end up ritin blogs)....neway to come to the point....

the winter semester in this university has been dull...downright depressing in fact..one loses track of his priorities...attendence doesnt matter to him nemore..he sleeps at odd hours...cant close his eyes before 4 a.m in the morning..tosses in bed for a couple of hours at least even if he tries to sleep early.....we try to rectify our biological clocks from the incessant damage we put it through..but to no avail..the weather takes its toll...its cold for half the sem and drainingly hot in March and April....dry lips... dried skin.....mess food...we seem to be killing ourselves slowly but inevitably.....i for one has been left scratching my head wonderin what im doin in this place....our ideals go for a six.......CCPing projects become a routine, copying in tests inevitable.....deadline go flying by....(see sindhu shanker's status message!!) keep getting our moots postponed...work on them for a day at max....and of course not to forget...who wants to do an internship this year? hardly a few i guess...(although it is a different matter that all of us will end up doing it nevertheless....its for our CVs afterall..another sad story..will probably talk about it in another blog).....

we have become zombies......walkin in a trance...victims of our circumstance.........

COME ON GUYS..I THINK ITS TIME WE SHAKE OFF THE COBWEBS SETTLING AROUND US.....

P.S: i decided to write this blog to put in words what i know is true for most of our batch...but i dedicate it to preeti...for she gave me the idea from her status message " is fed up"......and im also curious to know if the seniors have also gone through the same experiences....

It's My Turn Now!!

well....i guess to keep the blog goin, someone's gotta type.....and this time its my turn, though i believe im bad at it....gopal's da words guy....newayz, what do i type??
lemme talk about the recent football match(coz football's one thing i can talk abt).....it was between the 3rd years n 5th years.....and frankly speakin, neither wanted to play....why??...to avoid a fight....(the ydisgrace the game, dont they??)
now i want to put forth one question here....why do they want to fight......even in the tug-of-war event, which is sposed to be a fun event, why did it end up in a fight....i know im soundin a bit too sad....but dats how the situation is.....personally, i may not know what has happened b4 i came in here.....but i do share a decent relationship with most 5th n 3rd years......in such a case, id really like to know, why these ppl are bent upon fightin all da time.....abt who's da stronger chap!!.....
the one reason i may miss this place ven im gonna graduate frm NLU is its ppl......i believe this place is made coz of the ppl, coz everyone knows, the admin n worklife sucks....then why disturb such relations.....the 3rd years blame da 5ht fer everythin, and the 5th blame the 3rd in turn....WHY CANT BOTH SHUT UP??....
i beg them to excuse me fer any unparliamentary lang, but wtf??...its my blog.....!!

frustrations....

WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING A DEBATE WHEN THE PEOPLE WITH AUTHORITY TURN UP WITH A CLOSED MIND?

There was a meeting today to discuss whether there should be marks for attendance and whether deemed attendance can be given for extra curricular activities. What happened at the end of it all? Nothing. Status quo. We, the students barely got to speak. Sorry, barely is the wrong word, DID NOT!

To answer the first question:

1. Whether marks should be given for attendance?

Yes, it should be. But let’s make sure it is an incentive only and let it not degenerate into a priority. Prof. X, who spoke said that marks are an incentive, a reward for those who turn up regularly in class. It only shows that he isn’t aware of the ground reality. Every professor I know has made it a priority. If you turn up to the class 5 minutes late, you are told that you wont get the marks for attendance, so you need not enter the class. What is the basis of this? Why are you throwing out a student when he has done no wrong? Let’s assume this student did stay in the class, listen to the lecture and take notes. There is another student who turned up on time and is sleeping right next to him. Who would get the attendance? The person sleeping. Not the other who took notes.

Another example: last week in a class of 20 (total strength: 42, wonder why the rest of them didn’t turn up, beats me!), there was a case presentation going on. Total jargon, went way above our heads. We were asked questions about it. Couldn’t answer. What were we made to do? Give presentations to get that days attendance. End result: 15 have to give presentations, 5 left out)

2. Whether there should be deemed for extra curricular activities?

I have to at this point admire the idiocy of another student speaker's logic. He said that deemed attendance should be given for debates, essays and elocutions, as these have a direct bearing on our development as lawyers. Sports have no impact whatever, no bearing on our CVs. This is nonsense of the highest order. It was said by the moderator, that there would be decency in language, that it would be a parliamentary debate. A lot of us were denied the opportunity to speak. The higher ups walked off after speaking. Why didn’t they wait for us to question their arguments?

To answer the question that sports don’t have a bearing on our CV’s, the speaker needs to get the facts straight. Why has our university not produced a Rhodes Scholar? Do you know to whom this scholarship is awarded? One of the many examples (meet me, if you want to know about others who have got the same, will gladly oblige!):

Sean A. Genis, Sharon, is a senior at the United States Naval Academy where he is currently first in his class, majoring in Physics and minoring in Spanish. A Trident Scholar, he is doing research on techniques for the acoustic detection of landmines. Sean is a regimental commander, and a member of the glee club and the Academy cycling team. He plans to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford.[1]

This is ample proof enough that a GPA or as you said debating will not suffice alone. We all know how prestigious the Rhodes Scholarship is. In the notice put up by our very own academic committee, we marveled at how a couple of our fifth years got shortlisted for the same. We were hopeful that after NLS (produces one or two every year), NALSAR and NUJS we would be the only other law university in the country to produce a Rhodes scholar.

Prof. X then went on to say that as law students our first priority would be academic: to study and achieve something in the legal field. While he was accurate about the exactness of time, his arguments were round about and in all due respects illogical. He cited the example of a student (who incidentally is an avid cricketer!) and a few others, of how they got selected for the Henry Dunant international round. He said that if sports are your priority you can go ahead but don’t ask the university to support you in this regard. Is he saying that we can’t balance the two? Who says that by going to Spiritus, sports become our priority. In last year’s edition of the annual inter law sports fest, there were among others 'A' (nicknamed ten pointer, for his flawless grades), 'B' (junior Palkhiwala, a.k.a God, for the sheer reason that he is omnipresent, does everything and excels in every aspect[2]), 'C' ( football forward, he won the Miami moot competition, which we keep patting our backs for) and as such a host of others. So, professor what makes you think we don’t know our priorities as students in this university? What makes you think we cant balance our interests and recognise our Laxman rekha?

So finally all I would like to say is that if the authorities have already made up thier minds, why turn up for the discussion in the place? It seems the university will continue treating us as Guinea pigs[3] in experiments for the interminable future.

Say goodbye to the Rhodes, and reason too!!

Gopalakrishnan R.

Roll no: 457 Semester II.

BA.LLB (Hons.)

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[1] http://www.rhodesscholar.org/PDF/2007_final_press_release_winners_bios.pdf

[2] captain of the volleyball team, district level cricketer, former football keeper, mridungam player blah blah blah blah………to say the least.

[3] another speaker from the Xth semester