I am a poet,
But till i met u, i didn't even know it.
Till i met u, i thought "i love u" was the only way of saying "i love u".
But now i know, those words just aren't enough, they're so so few.
How do i say?,u sooth me like a starry sky on a hot sunny day?,
or how warm the cold nights become when beside me u lay?,
how do i say? There just isnt one apt way!,
i promise, i will devote my whole life, every single day,
to say i love u to u in a different new way...

Sometimes i will irritate u to the core, just to see ur angry eyes,
Sometimes, just to make u feel better, i will say something nice.
I will never never never let u feel u're all lone,
i will always tell u its u who makes my place a home.
I will fight with u coz i cant think of anything better to do,
and when u're angry enough, i will go on my knees to and say i love u.
Sometimes i will lose an argument, just coz its so satisfying to see u win,
every night when u come back home, i will ask u how ur day has been.
And on days u want to blabber,i will listen to u n shut my chatter.
And when u're sad and dont want to talk about it,
i'll try to make u laugh, discuss something more fun and forget it.
Of course there'll be times when all wont be well,
but u need to know, i believe in happy endings, i believe in fairytales.

I don't want to be imprisoned in my own time,
I want my words to be a timeless chime.
I know am not wiser or better than others,
But it is that I know this, that matters!
I will learn what comes my way,
I will wake up every morning, to a new day..

THP

Don't know who'll believe in me,
But a part of her will always live in me.
A part of me will always act like she wanted,
It'll never forget the pleasures her company granted.

When I'll see someone enjoying getting drenched in rain,
I remember her again.
Somewhere deep I'll be a little moist and hazy,
When someone cute acts adorably crazy.

Time will pass, wounds will heal..
But when I look behind,
There will always be these memories to remind...

Maine zindagi ko dhoonda
Parvaton ke shikharon par, aasman ki unchayiyon me;
Athaang sagar par, hawaon ki raftaar me…

Tumse mila to jana,
Zindagi to hai khilkhilati hasi me;
Bheegi baarishon me, apno ke pyaar me…

Maine puchha phool se,
Tum hamesha hi muskurate ho, raaz kya hai?
Usne kaha, mai to hamesha se hi muskura raha hu,
Tum aaj puchh rahe ho, batao baat kya hai?

You're an Indian

I enter a bar with my cousin to have a drink. The barman has put on a football game on all the TVs. Not that I don’t enjoy football but still, I wonder why would anyone put on a football game when IPL is on? So what if it’s the bottom of the table game today?

Right across me sits a babe. She’s nothing if not a sex bomb. She’s not even wearing much clothes. Which guy wouldn’t stare at her? And she’s even sucking at the butt. Yet, I choose not to look at her anymore. She’s sucking at the butt of a cigarette.

I choose to look at the other one sitting on a table to my right. She’s fully clothed. Yet she looks sensual. She’s merely accompanying her boyfriend there who’s enjoying a beer. When the waiter takes her orders she says, “A coke and a chicken tikka…”. Now, I like her even more. This is the ideal girl you would want to be with. So what if she’s not as sexy as the other one?

Later that evening, I go to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Its nothing if not ambrosia. How can a truly satisfying meal end without a paan? The moment I come out, I order a “KalKatta Meetha” at the nearest paan shop.

It’s vacation time now. I’ve been home mostly watching downloaded Hollywood flicks. Master pieces all of them. Examples of excellence in cinema. No doubt. Yet, I miss watching a “Shahrukh-KJo, larger than life, love means everything” drama sprinkled with spiced songs here and there.

I don’t believe in Nationalism. I am not patriotic at all. Yet, these are the times you realize- You’re an Indian. 

Toofani barish, Imli khatti or kacche aam;
Sard subah, khubsurat raat or akeli shaam…

Man ka saccha par behudd shararti baccha;
Or uski soch pagal…
Dur daraj me behta saaf thanda paani;
Shor machata taral…

Kahi ki raani koi;
Or woh log jo rakhte uska hukm sar-ankhon par…

Yaad tumhari dilate hai,
Kab hsogi phir se mujh pe? Kab baat karogi?
Pucch pucch kar satate hai…

It’s a weird time,

The heart does chime

But poems don’t rhyme…

Words come from Bare Act’s definitions

No emotions, no passion…

Interesting stories are heard as mere “facts”

Everyone around tells you,

“Learn to use them, learn the “tact”…”

Don’t trust anyone, take precaution

People dupe, people are not human.

This is a jungle, people are demons…

Think with reason, think logical

Life is sad

Nothing beautiful, miraculous or magical…

Rules, papers, black and white

People, cases, arguments and fights…

Miss Sharvaree, miss FC,

And miss being just a student

Rub my shoulders with serene faced, grey-haired oldies now

And hope they’ll call me “prudent…”

Time-tables are replaced by cause lists and boards

And I get dates every day but not one of them with a girl,

And every day is a roller-coaster with a twist and a twirl…

It’s a weird time,

The heart does chime

But poems don’t rhyme…

Think with reason, think logical

Life is sad

Nothing beautiful, miraculous or magical…

While Stepping into a Law School… Part II

What are the skills required to a lawyer? From whatever little I have seen of the profession, I can divide the skills into 3 different types of skills-Skills that can be developed while at the law school, personality traits or office skills and court room skills.

Law School Skills

I have just spoken of the number of laws and how it is impossible to know them and how lawyers are required to know ‘where’ to find the law and ‘what to make’ of it above. This is a primary skill officially called ‘Research’ and ‘Analysis’.

Learning ‘Research’ is fairly easy. All you have to know is how to use several databases to extract information relevant to your cause. It includes books, internet, computer based databases, Law Journals and sometimes, when you are looking for a little expert information, the databases relating to such information. For example, if you are working on a case involving, let us say, surrogacy, you need to know the medical aspects of surrogacy as well.

Learning ‘Analysis’ is a life long process. Honestly, most educated minds are doing analysis at a subconscious level all the time. For example, when you decide to buy a certain model of a scooter averaging 50 kpl for 50,000 rupees over a cheaper model costing 35,000 rupees but averaging only 40kpl, you have processed the information to reach a conclusion that spending more right now makes more sense because by buying a scooter that mileages more, you are actually saving more money in the long run. Here, the prices and the mileages of the scooters are mere information. Your conclusion is your analysis.

Again, this fact situation is fairly simple involving mere facts. When you have to process facts along with several esoteric rules to reach a conclusion, the process becomes fairly difficult. Most judgments are conclusions reached after taking into consideration these facts along with the esoteric rules. That is why I strongly recommend reading real texts of judgments and the text books written using the Case Book Method.

It is needless to mention that it is this skill that will help you all your life in no matter what you decide to do after taking your law degree. You need to analyze while making every important conscious decision of your life.

Office Skills

Though I have labeled these as office skills, I do strongly think, that one may begin to develop them while at the law school itself. When you start working, you need only to sharpen them.

‘Trust’

Let us say you are suffering from a serious ailment which requires going under the scalpel. The operation is likely even to cause your death if anything goes wrong. Would you entrust your life into the hands of someone who passed out from a Medical School yesterday? Unless, you are insane, your answer will be a firm and a certain no. But you certainly will entrust it into the hands of someone who has done several such operations, won’t you?

The business of a lawyer is very similar to that of a doctor. It is serious. You’re dealing with the lives and hard earned money of other people. It is very necessary therefore to ‘win the their trust’. The way you talk to people, the way you interact with them, you should seem authoritative, yet friendly and approachable. You should look like and be someone people around you like will trust for your word.

Developing this persona is a skill. Everyone ends up finding different ways to develop it. I suggest talking to diverse groups of people on any subject under the sun. I say ‘any subject under the sun’ because it brings in a sort of humility in a person- because then you know, you don’t know much and yet while you remain confident of your ability to express your thoughts, you end up having ‘respect’ for thoughts you disagree with and subjects you know nothing of. You may also end up knowing a lot about things you know nothing of. This was the sort of exposure LST was able to give me. What you should be happy about is that most law schools are filled with diverse people from all over India and doing this is fairly easy.

While Stepping into a Law School… Part I

The other day a friend suggested why I don’t write about my experiences at the law school now that I am almost a lawyer. I don’t know how much I know because I have seen people who know much, much more. The way I see it, I’m absolutely incompetent for the task. But on second thoughts, when I compare myself to what I knew as a person interested in law and as person who possesses a law degree, I do know of certain insights in the profession which I may share with everyone interested.

First myth is that ‘lawyers know the law’. Let us just do some Math. There are over 33, 00, 000 statutes in India, add to these the innumerable customs and traditions of different places applicable as law to those places, the multitude General Resolutions of the Government, the various Notifications, the rules under all these enactments plus the judgments passed every day by courts all over the world from all common law countries and treaties and conventions the nations have entered into etc. In short, it is impossible for anyone to know the law. No lawyer ‘knows’ the law.

What do lawyers do then? They are simply required to know how to ‘find’ the law applicable and then when all applicable laws are found and understood, making out what do ‘they mean’. The task is not as simple as it sounds because most of the times more than one law are applicable to a particular fact situation. They are often vague, ambiguous, contradictory, written in a language difficult to understand etc. While advising a client you have to take into consideration the ‘combined effect’ of all these laws put together along with the ‘client specific’ or the ‘case specific’ concerns. Point being becoming lawyer is not rote learning, it is learning a thought a process- learning ‘how to think.’

How does one learn this thought process? I did not go to a premiere law school. I do not know what are the methods used by the professors or teachers there to imbibe these skills in their students. Personally however, I would strongly recommend reading real texts of as many judgments as possible. I would strongly recommend reading textbooks written using the Case-Book Method and books of Lord Denning. Over a period of time, you will realize that ‘law’ is not an abstract concept which can stand independently on its own. It is a philosophy developed over ages which, just like poems, means different things to different people at different times. Just that laws, unlike poems, do not always rhyme.

To give an example of what I mean let us take the case of two baby siblings who want to share equally one bar of chocolate someone has given them. It is most likely that they will take the bar to their mother and trust her to break it into two equal pieces for them. The mother will then break the bar into two pieces and hand them a piece each.

Here, in spite of the fact that neither the siblings, nor the mother know a zilch about law the facts to be noted from a lawyer’s perspective are the sense the siblings have that ‘justice needs to be done’, that ‘it has to be done by someone impartial’ and finally the fact that ‘mother does justice.’  Point simply being, that no matter what we all do, we all have an inherent notion of what is ‘just’ and ‘fair’ irrespective of whether we know the law.

The fact situation I have created above is fairly simple. In real life, the situations are much more complicated and stakes much higher than a chocolate bar.

 The study of ‘law’ therefore is both, the study of this ‘notion’ and an ‘activity’ which will enable us to develop over time our own ‘notion’ suitable to the needs of the present society. The more you study, the more you develop your ‘notion’ and that is precisely why older lawyers charge much, much more than younger lawyers.

Tumhari Bohot Yaad Aati Hai...

Kuch thandi hawa ke jhonko me,
Tumhari khushboo aati hai;
Tanhai me, sannate me kabhi,
Tumhari hasi khilkhilati hai;
Ankhen band kar lu to,
Tumhari hasti hui chhavi nazar aati hai;

Sach-me, tumhari bohot yaad aati hai.....

Sapno Se Darr..

Aaj kal mujh par ek ajeeb sa jwar chadne laga hai,
Apne hi sapno se mujhe darr lagne laga hai…

Dosti ke bandhan ab chhootne-se lage hai,
Na jaane kyu, sab dost ek dusre se ruthne-se lage hai…

Duniya ka sach or jhuth dikhne-sa laga hai,
Apne aap se mera vishwas uthne-sa laga hai…

Maine khudko kabhi hara hua nahi samjha,
Magar jeet ka shikhar ab aur ooncha lagne laga hai…

Apne hi sapno se mujhe darr lagne laga hai…

Names

Sometimes it’s extremely funny what names around you are.

Out side the GTB Station you’ll find a shop with the name plate “Maai Shoppee” written in devnagari on it. The shopkeeper probably wanted to name it “My Shoppee” in English but that’s a little dicey when you’re in Mr. Raj’s raj. So “Maai Shopee” now means “Mother Shop”, literally interpreted- a shop where you can buy mothers! I’m glad my mother rarely has to go to the GTB station. She usually travels only in cars and buses but the moment she comes to know of it, she’ll put herself up for sale over there. She desperately wants a different son!

One of my neighbors is Mr. Bias. He’s a judge.

The Hanuman temple on the hill around which my college is situated is called Pensioner Hanuman Mandir. I had an honest belief that lord Rama paid some kind of pension to the Hanuman in that Mandir for the devoted life long service that Hanuman did to him. However, one day I was told the name comes from the fact the all the pensioners in the city go to that temple for their morning walks! What a pity! So even after life long devoted service not even one Hanuman gets any pension! He should meet my friend Akshay. Akshay’s good with labour law.

All, and I mean almost all, photocopy shops are always named “Jalaram”, all raddi depots are always “Mahavir” raddi depots and all jeweler shops are always “Nakoda” jewelers. In fact, I’m so used to them that once I tried selling my raddi to a Mahavir Dairy because after reading Mahavir on the name plate I didn’t really care what else he’d written ahead! Finally, one day I asked one of the “Jalaram Xerox” owners why did they not name their shops after something else. He said Jalaram was their god and they believed in him for their business. I didn’t say anything to him but dude, I had no clue they had representative democracy with each god heading a trade union of a particular business in the heaven up there. I used to think all profit hungry people always worshipped Lakshmi, probably the finance minister.

My cousin, an MBA from Australia, is very annoyed that businessmen in India don’t really know how to ‘build brands’ or market themselves. Like in spite of being well known Jalaram, Nakoda, Mahavir etc. are still not brands, similarly, you find people naming their enterprises after weird things. Like one of the really famous (note: famous, not necessarily one of the better ones) builders in Pune, Mumbai and Nashik area- Haware Builders. Haware in Marathi means “Greedy”. Being greedy is a quality to be taken for granted amongst builders. Why would any builder want to particularly emphasize on it? But they do! Is it a wonder that they’re not one of the “better” builders then?

Then there are those parents give their sons and daughters the weirdest possible names. One of our peons named his son “Sangharsh”, meaning-a really bad fight. I don’t know if the baby was born after he had a fight with his wife or what, but dude, give the kid a break! You don’t need to haunt him with the thought that he was born out of a fight for the rest of his life! Or people who name their kids “Chhagan” or “Dhondu” or “Patang” for instance. Chhagan means waste, Dhondu means “resembling a stone” and Patang means the paper kite kids fly at the time of makar sankranti! Then there are those Mahabharat obsessed people who fill our country with Duryodhanas, Bheeshmas and Devakis. Guys! Duryodhana was the villain! Bheeshma never got the love of his mom and dad together, had a step mom of his own age and he promised her he wouldn’t marry and let her kids take over the kingdom after his dad. So in spite of being the oldest son, never got to be the king! Devaki spent half of her life incarcerated by her own brother who killed 7 of her children and even though the 8^th one did turn out to be Krishna, she didn’t get to bring him up!! Point being, the poor guys were unfortunate! Why would you call your kid any of these? But people do!

Then there are those names synonymous with regions and eras. Aishwarya for instance. To me at least, it’s a synonym for “south Indian girl”. I have 6 Aishwaryas on my phone book and except for one, all are south Indians! And beat this, coz it’s almost impossible to figure out which Aishwarya one is talking about, my friends add the name of the city as a suffix to the name. So the names now are like Aishwarya Cochin, Aishwarya Chennai, Aishwarya Lucknow, Aishwarya Jodhpur and Aishwarya Pune etc. Sounds like Aishwarya Tours & Travel Company’s menu to me! Or take Sachin or Sakshi for instance. All Sachins of Sachin Tendulkar’s age were named after the famous composer Sachin Dev Burman and all Sachins of my age are named after Sachin Tendulkar. So if someone on the phone says “I’m Sachin.” You can easily guess his age! He is in his Mid 20s or late 30s as of today. The name Sakshi became a rage after “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki” released. So all Sakshis are between the ages of 8 and 10.

I even read in the paper once that this guy from the US named his son Reebok because he himself loves Reebok shoes so much! I wont be surprised even if he sells him later claiming to be the factory outlet!

I’ll tell you what, meet William Shakespeare in the heaven (or hell, as the case may be) when you’re dead and quote William Wordsworth to him: “What’s in the name?” and see the expression on his face! Point is simply this: There is A LOT in the name! So before you name, think!