By Anirudh Vohra

The decision to pursue a profession of choice after school really is the first real choice we are given over the course of our lives; and the fact that it is the most important choice is stressed upon by many.

Sadly, no amounts of stress can elucidate as to exactly how important this choice really can be. I chose to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in a liberal arts college in the US. This college was situated perfectly: just far enough from civilisation to leave us to our thoughts while reading Plato, Heidegger, Hegel, Kant, Goethe, etc. yet close enough to ensure that our grasp on reality stays intact.

I spent all of one semester at this college, and left to return to India due to the lesson this college had taught me: there is no such thing as a pit-stop in life. In the incessant movement of life I realised I must decide what it is that I want to breathe, eat and dream. My desires set aside, I chose law.

It is one of the most flexible professional degrees, and does not place constraints on the nature of work one would want to venture into after college. I came back to India, procrastinated through my preparation for the CLAT, somehow got a good rank and found myself packing, again, for Calcutta.

NUJS, or rather Beliaghata law college, was the first time I felt I was experiencing something completely new. The myriad of worlds merging as one and struggling to cope with strict professors and conniving together as to how to get attendance without sitting in class; I found many more facets of human nature than I had at my international school or as a foreign student half way across the globe.

Here I have had as many good times as I have had bad, and will do so for another three years till I graduate. The good days are good, but during those that are not as jovial and electric as the others, I remind myself that life isn’t pausing.

The realisation I have reached is that regardless the amount of fun, the education, or opportunities law college can offer, this place, where individuals (highly intelligent and capable) come together in an attempt to try and comprehend what it is that holds the intricate systems of the world intact – why the nature of our lives from the most basic transactions (such as the sale of toothpaste) to the larger ones (governments declaring war) is as it is today – come together to form a magnificent amalgamation that, I feel, cannot be found anywhere else.

I realise, that if I were given the choice again, this is precisely where I would find myself.

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Anirudh Vohra is a 3rd year law student at NUJS. We took his CLATapult teaching recruitment test and so we know that when he says ‘Pearls’, he goes like ‘Phaerrls’. Like a true firang.