Before memory fades

Living life under the clouds of hopelessness and anxiety, I have successfully wasted four and half years of my allotted time in the college. I am a student of 5^th year B.A.LL.B. Disappointing my professors, batch-mates, seniors, and juniors in this journey, now all that I crave for is an end to this misery. Right now, the popular narrative is that I was always doomed to be a failure. A blot on the face of one of the finest institutions of the country. The narrative seems nothing but just and true. I still remember the day of my orientation when a fellow admission seeker had brought a cut out of a newspaper cutting. It announced ‘Kashi Hindu Vishwa Vidyalaya ke 150 chhatro ka Bihar PCSJ m selection’. “What a mighty institution! Indeed a factory of judges," I thought. I, an eighteen-year-old kid then, was immediately filled with zeal and fervor seeing the possibilities, a feeling in stark contrast to the state of mind that I now possess. The question is, how did I end up being a catastrophe?

Yesterday, the honorable head and dean of the faculty in a fruitful interaction advised me to introspect and probably for the very first time in my life, I decided to heed to his advice. The first image that came to my mind in the process of introspection was of a kid who is not a habitual offender and knows nothing else but to show respect to his teachers. He is unaware of the benefits of chain-smoking and shares the aspirations of any ordinary kid born and brought up in a capitalistic society. His enthusiasm, then, was such that every Wednesday evening, on the terrace of our now infamous Chanakya Hostel, along with his batch mates he used to debate upon the desirability of passive euthanasia, the constitutionality of NJAC, and the reasonability of the Shreya Singhal case. A week’s interregnum time because the whole debate was supposed to be memorized and looking at the notes while speaking was not an option for him.

Fast forwarding the introspection 6 months, the next memory is of the day when the admit-card for the first semester exams were being issued. He was anxious and nervous seeing the examinations straight ahead, but the delight came to him when a senior professor of the faculty said to him, ‘I am elated to meet a student like you who has such a good attendance record’. In fact, while the whole faculty was running into chaos due to the short attendance infirmity, his whole batch had quite comfortably crossed the attendance threshold. How would it not happen! After all, they all encamped in the classroom straight from eight to three every single day.

Then all I can wonder is, how can such a sincere kid later become a part of the short attendance chaos for the next seven semesters to come? How can such a zealous kid end up being a docile person in a wrecked-up state? Maybe, he lost his way. But how can three hundred sixty students lose their way, all at the same time? This counter-narrative of the first-year kid does not add up with the popular narrative prevailing now. A possibility is that maybe his whole batch was indoctrinated by his senior batch, but at that time there was only batch senior to them. They were amongst the very first comrades. There was no B.A.LL.B before them. The question is that who spoilt the very first of them?

Now, some cracks start to appear in the armor of this mighty institution. Short attendance was a plague in the university even before they had set their foot inside the campus. The respect of the professors was annually given a short commercial break in the annual cultural fest ‘srijan’ where less than desirable slogans were raised by students who had no relation with the B.A.LL.B course. The boy who was never allowed to stay out of the house after 9 pm was now left on his own in his hostel without any restrictions to roam around, exploring the gullies of Banaras. The vices existed even before he had set his foot in the city of Banaras. It is to be kept in mind that he was only 18 then. His judgment for right or wrong was enveloped by the mist of innocence and curiosity.

The boy is a grownup now, he is a man. Introspecting about the root cause of the status quo, I have discovered the kid who had drifted into oblivion for the faculty, the society, my friends and even for myself. Self-introspection is a powerful tool but only when used at the right point of time. It is way too late to begin the process of my soul searching. But this exercise has brought the memories of the kid who had faded away and had virtually become non-existent. And tt is absolutely necessary to carve these memories onto the stone, to remind everyone that there was a counter-narrative that was conveniently forgotten. I am every student who was/ is/ will ever be in the 5^th year of B.A.LL.B at Law School, BHU. The kid/ boy is every student studying in the 1^st year or who was ever at that stage.