Yes, Aimlessness & Depression are a Part of CLAT Prep!

Insecurity. That’s the keyword, isn’t it? You’re in the middle of nowhere and your inner self keeps reiterating this like Shammi Narang narrates the ideal way of life in the Delhi Metro. And CLATGyan has, time and again, asked you to remain calm and not panic. But, at the risk of matching up with Uday Chopra’s dedicated attempts to make movies, I’ll blabber to say it all again.

CLAT is just an exam. Right. But there’s more to it. No, wait. There isn’t. It is indeed just an exam. But it could be a little different from all the exams that you’ve been taking in your school. Your marks do not matter here. Only your rank does. There could be a thousand people who deserve a place in the best of the law schools. But they all don’t get it. And the worst part? Your preparation doesn’t really count. If the CLAT Convenor hears about all your hard work, he isn’t going to go “Mugambo khush hua!” and give away a seat like the golgappa guy gives you extra paani after you hog a dozen of them.

So, how do you get that double digit rank? As much as I hate to say this and you hate to hear it, there’s a lot of luck involved. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll not prepare at all. And by preparation, I don’t mean mere mugging up of guides by Universal and LexisNexis. That would be like posing in front of the Taj Mahal with your hand up in the air to create an optical illusion of you holding the entire structure by its finial. Lame! Even if you make it to a good law school, giving credits to these guides is like the BCCI Chairman being credited for India’s World Cup victory.

But then, what’s to be done? Well, heard of perseverance? It’s the thing that keeps Arnab Goswami going with ‘the nation demands an answer!’ crap even when he knows that the nation demands him to shut up. It’s the same thing that made Anarkali pull off a Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya to brave Akbar and even get awarded with a death sentence for her ­pyaar. And mere perseverance isn’t entirely sufficient. You also need to do the right things at the right time in an orderly fashion, while maintaining consistency at the same time. Do not be one of those forever buffering people who pick up a book neither to leave it nor to complete it. There’s no denying the fact that it may all look immensely aimless. There is no parameter to judge yourself by and there is no progress bar that you can use to figure out where you stand. That is the possibly the only depression you need to survive. You never know what might help at the end. But the more you put in, the less the scope to lose out eventually.

Oh, there’s one more thing. Curiosity, it’s called. You need to be as eager to know more of everything as Karan is in his coffee sessions. And observe things that one might not observe usually. I mean, don’t you think Ghazni stealing an idol from Somnath and running away with it could’ve been the inspiration behind Temple Run? Similar stuff. And for that, you use Google. It doesn’t matter if you search for Kejriwal and end up on some lyrics page of “AAP ki kashish, sarfarosh hai! AAP ka nasha…” When someone tells you that Taj Mahal wasn’t built by Shah Jahan, but was a Shiv temple called ‘Tajo Mahalaya’, as long as you run to Google to find out that it isn’t true, you’re fine.

Eventually, it all comes down to time and pressure (and I shamelessly lift this off from the Shawshank Redemption, of course). You cannot complete books like cutting fruits in Fruit Ninja. It’s more like Candy Crush, so to say. Do one small thing at a time and it’ll all add up to be something huge. But for that, you need to do something. Something. And if you cannot even keep up with the newspaper and whatever is happening around you, your chance of making it through is as good as Honey Singh being played on Vividh Bharti.

One last thing – you don’t have to hide yourself like the Sentinelese and quit all the joys of life. That’s what Law School is for.

All the very best! See you at Justice City! 🙂

Asad.

(Originally published on 10th December, 2013)