Why do yu want to do lawww *nose up, disgusted*?????

Today I added Hemant to my Orkut friend’s list. Flashback to circa 1992. Hemant Kumar joined DAV (Section 2E) the same day as I had some 16 years back and its been some 13 years since I have had any communication/interaction with him. He was this angry kid with that frown, like, forever on his face. If I am not mistaken I was Roll no.32 and he was 33.The only thing that was common between us was that we had entered class after every body had, with that same grumpy face. My face must have been grumpier coz I had entered class with a heavy bag and ..well.. a shaven head (that was the last time). I cannot definitely say so, but all the photographs of that period do suggest the same.

That was also when this bright eyed girl, with neatly braided long hair, offered me the seat next to her. If the circumstance sounds familiar, yes, we did become best friends.
That was also the time when my English teacher, who was also my class teacher then, became my favourite teacher. Ma’am could, without turning her head from the blackboard, ask some back bencher to shut up. I always thought it was some sort of magic. How could she know who exactly was talking even without looking at them? I had only begun to acquire the garrulity that is now associated with me. So one fine day, I asked her, “Madam, how do you do that?” She smiled and said, “I just know, …if you ever do take my place, you will also learn.”
For some reason, I remember my English, Hindi and Social Studies teachers more than the Science and Maths ones. Actually, I remember both, but the former have inspired me more. Ironically I learnt to reason in the formers' classes and it naturally transgressed into my having greater interest in human reason than scientific reason. Perhaps over the years that translated into my desire of not becoming a doctor, engineer or scientist. Perhaps that’s why I went on to consider a career in some twenty odd professions (notably I had wanted to become a journalist (a freelancer, preferably a Times of India Sunday columnist), cartoonist, a Nat Geo Photographer, actor (ahem, not exactly), travel guide(yes), movie director, copywriter, advertising professional, architect etc among teh feasible ones)... Perhaps that’s why, like to many others, law happened to me – this fascination for human reason.

It wasn’t just a whim or intuition after all.

tattlertells

I do intend to continue this one...but everything I have to say just wont fit in here..so ...the alter ego is available at tattlertales.blogspot.com...i still dont know why I chose that name????...but since most of the time I am not in my right minds and do not anyways make sense...I guess...that should only add to my virtues (thats one word ..havent heard being used in quite a long time,no?)

a certain writing on the wall... and defenestration..

ok what i wrote was reiterated in class, in a 'fashion' I don't quite agree with. A writing on the wall can only be literally so unless it is from that magical hand. Magical or otherwise, that hand belongs to the teacher. the blackboard belongs to the teacher.

Dictionary.com Word of Day for Thursday was "Defenestrate". As usual I tried to make a guess as to what it might mean. The pea in my head suggested that it could be anything between removing ones intestines and dignity. obviously all this happened in the few seconds of tracing my imagination along my eyelids, quite like when your 5th grade teacher has just asked you a question (and you pretend to read the answer from somewhere on the ceiling), although quite unlike the nervous waiter at Cafe Noorani who rolled up his eyes to remember the menu.

OK defenestrate means "to throw out of a window". unless used in the context of mundane stuff like chocolate wrappers, Lays packs and the occasional beer bottle (OK, not so much), it makes for interesting talk. my earliest and for that matter the latest memories of the phrase in any significant context are associated with teachers.

you don't get your textbook to class or are caught chatting and Rita Ma'am, my High School English teacher would either "break your head like a coconut" or "throw you out of the window". just imagine, had she then said "i will defenestrate you", we would probably have learnt another word, but the magic (read silence/obedience whatever was required) could have worked with "throw you out of the window" only. perhaps it worked best, if it was some scrawny guy. Because, then it seemed lesser of a threat and more of a possibility.

I will skip those instances where similar threats were issued by dad or when any of the "siblings" or cousins would hold something valuable to me right next to the window to ensure its free fall out of it if their immediate demands were not met.

Historically defenestration has been associated with acts of political dissent. but i think history was made in Noojiedom, when the king (with that oh so benign smile) said "You can do whatever you want in your room. Just don't throw them out of the window."

HYPERRIA!

So as nostalgia sets in, flows and overflows and nauseates my tribe (read fifth years) …and I boohoo my way through the Vitamin C “Graduation Song”…or PROBABLY because of the precedent set by seniors …the fifth year syndrome of “LACK”….. "absolute lack"… I join in…into the eccentric and not so eccentric lot of bloggers For the record, this is the fourth time I am starting a blog, two of the three previous attempts being abandoned for the sole reason that I asked each time, first to myself and then in the blog… “why blog?”… “I mean …what am I doing???” This time around, therefore, let me put real (read random/arbitrary) reasons behind…and put it this way…people decided to swim, strum, salsa...so I decided to blog… The selfish reasons would include finding more takers for my jibber jabber.

I watched Sarkar Raj. Good movie. The sepia tone has been put to excellent use.

OK Human Rights. That’s the one which has managed to create some flutter over the past few days (for whatever reasons).
Actually I was discussing this with a friend. From the look of things they are more keen on ‘teaching’ human rights than making us learn (in triter words “imbibe”) human rights (although I have no clue as to why we would need to learn, either). Look at it this way. Say most of us become corporate lawyers (which we will). We would be anyways working for someone who is rich, powerful or as is in most cases, both. These are the last of the lot who may have human rights issues. These are almost never the people who are at the receiving end.
Then why not make use of the time at law school. Send us to work under a human rights lawyer, create legal awareness etc as a part of the curriculum (and please lets not even start to talk about first year NGO internships!). Instead of the three classes a week, set aside a day to be dedicated to some human rights project, where we actually go out and help people. Do you really think we or anybody for that matter in this country needs to know the difference between human right laws and humanitarian law? Do we really need to know the entire discourse on rights, what rights may be in the abstract? Rights are a reality. Period.
If an area does not have a hospital or drinking water, the only way to dealing with it is give them a hospital! Give them water!!. …what on earth would this ‘discourse’ help them in???????
One has to be in the middle of things. Learning the academics’ way can create only academics (the armchair sort as they say). and even though it has been clarified in class i refused to agree, because the results of these academic efforts have to be visible, tangible...with the academic obsession with abstraction lets not lose reality to the abstract.
Future discussions won’t be this random, its just that all of it is such a sham. Damn!!