This article has been submitted by Akash Ghosh for the CLATGyan Blog Post Writing Competition. If you think this article is a good read, ‘Like’ this article on Facebook (the button is at the bottom of this piece) or post a comment using the ‘comments’ section below.
My belief in the abovementioned quote came when I was in class 11 – all set to become a doctor. Scissors, syringes and blood is what I had prepared myself for. As the days passed by physics and math started becoming increasingly excruciating, and that is when I got introduced (by my mother) to the whole idea of CLAT. As I perused through the syllabus, the entire idea of the exam started appearing very attractive to me. I realized that the exam was all about aptitude and learning necessary life skills in the education front. Nothing learnt while preparing for CLAT would become superfluous in life. And legal reasoning was just so much fun!
Class 11, however, was a class where I couldn’t really dedicate myself to CLAT. There is this strange and highly potent black magic which affects everyone after Class 10, the effect inevitably being that no one can concentrate on their studies for a year! And I was no exception. Finally, as I regained my sense of duty and responsibility during class 12, rehearsals and board examinations were knocking at the door. I tried putting my feet on two boats and continuing for a while, but eventually, I just had to let go of CLAT . When my boards got over, however, I started preparing seriously. I solved every possible mock, practiced A LOT of logic and legal and gave the exam all I had. Whenever the preparation would get boring and frustrating, I would login to www.clat.ac.in go to the official page of NUJS and stare at the building. NUJS was my goal. While passing the building en route to my CLAT coaching centers in my car, I would take my eyes off the GK book to just ogle at Ambedkar Bhavan, it would motivate me in a big way and give me the courage to keep up my hard work. But my efforts didn’t bear much fruit that year. With a meager score of 124, NUJS was a pipe dream and even though I got NLUs up to Raipur, I just didn’t feel like going because my passion was NUJS, to enter the hallowed portals of that building as a student.
So I decided to drop a year and try a second time. My parents were initially against the idea of dropping a year but they, eventually, conceded. This year I genuinely tried. I used to study the whole day read The Hindu and The Telegraph twice a day and practice math daily (No one is to assume here that I ONLY did these 3 things :P). I would NOT and I mean NOT let dream remain a dream and was determined to transform it into reality. The only thing I hated were logic games, not because I couldn’t do them but, because they would consume a hell lot of time. When I looked at previous years’ papers, most had 1 logic game at the most and they were pretty doable. So I felt pretty confident about cracking them.
Finally, the D-day arrived. I spent an hour listening to inspiring songs ranging from Brian McKnight to CHAK DE INDIA! With baited breath, I reached the exam center. The hours passed like minutes and a few hours later, I was done with CLAT. And I didn’t do well enough. English was so easy that anyone could do it, it didn’t give me the competitive edge I needed. GK was fair too. But I still fail to fathom what abilities HNLU intended to test by giving FOUR logic games and 3-4 sums where either the options or the data was incorrect! That demotivated me a lot and made me nervous. And we all know in CLAT, time is our enemy and all these errors took a lot of time.
With leaving out around 17 marks in logic and 11 sums in math, my dream of NUJS will remain a chimera. And perhaps I have to turn my face away whenever I pass Ambedkar Bhawan. But I have decided to remain happy. I believe after giving our best shot – which I know I did – it is all about destiny. Like John Lennon says: “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…” In retrospect, I guess that sums the story of NUJS and me. I sometimes feel we humans revel in this unconscious luxury of self-pity and there is nothing more soothing to us than telling ourselves: “We were really unfortunate, man!” but I have decided not to do that, although a part of me tends to do that always. But accepting and moving on is the only thing I can do now to regain myself completely. And what I have learnt is that one should give his dream all he has then even if the dream is not realized, the person will not have anything to lose. So go ahead, give your dreams your best and leave no room for regret. Remember always at the end of the day the ultimate object of whatever we do is to find contentment and weed out regret.
“Life is what happens to us when we are busy making other plans” – Allen Saunders
