I'm a laboratory rat.

Been an exceptionally long time... then again, I have had an exceptionally uneventful time. Even by my standards, and my standards seem to get lower everyday.

This agricultural commune I call my college never ceases to fascinate me...all right, fascinate is a little bit of an exaggeration, but the fact remains that after a full minute of pondering its eccentrities, i am generally ready to go one more minute doing exactly the same, and not too many things or people can claim this privilege.

I am convinced that the whole deal, this let's-drop-a-law-college-into-an-obscure-patch-of-land-surrounded-by-villagers-who-hate-it is some sort of social experiment dreamed up by a giggly, scheming septuagenarian bureaucrat who has been given a thousand sheets of bond paper and two secretaries and embalmed in his dusty windowless room in the back end of a crumbly red-brick building somewhere, just so he doesnt get in the way of his workmates, who no doubt wish to be left alone while they perform their functions as the Managers of Modern India. (Nobody has determined the nature of said functions yet.. what Government servants actually DO as part of their job is suspected to be a State secret, passed only from one bureaucrat's immediate senior to himself, in a midnight pagan ritual of initiation involving fire, incense, chanting, polyester safari suits and many binder pins.)

Anyway. Social experiment. I'm saying social experiment cos i'm posh that way - you may also call it Survivor, slummed-down.

My college is perfectly placed to conduct the kind of survey my Statistics teacher would have approved of. We:
1. are isolated (and i dont mean metaphysically; i mean the OH-MY-GOD-WHERE-IS-THE-REST-OF-INDIA-OH-GOD druggie-rehabilitation centre kinda isolated.)
2. are thinly spread. (500 people, 50 acres. Go figure.)
3. are gasbags. (We tend to a lot of talk and not much else. Blame the weather - this is the desert, after all. Any revolutionary spirit you have will be soon bored into a coma and buried in sand. )
4. are dying for ANYTHING new to happen, ANYTIME. (OMG did you see that guy?? He's wearing flipflops to class! OMG!!)

The only good thing we COULD, upto some time back atleast, make a claim to, was some decent teachers. (Oh what was that about infrastructure? Yeah, yeah, the single room, LAN connection, etc etc.... all that sells before you figure the sand and the pigeons in. To any pigeon who may be reading this: I resent your attachment to my grill. Take yourself and your bodily functions away. Now.)

I liked some of our erstwhile teachers. I really did. The Hot One, the Dead One and the Old One. (I didnt know the rest. I was busy mourning the departure of the Hot One.) But they are gone...the first casualties in the "Great Indian Social Experiment - Lets See How Long Law Students Last!!"
This experiment apparently involves throwing the pick of the refuse pile of the legal teaching fraternity in India in the general direction of Jodhpur, aimed for the Laa College and seeing how we react to them. I hope they're satisfied, I'm reacting already. They're a collective itch I can't quite scratch.
And this is only the beginning...I have only experienced the Big Daddy, The Face Pack, The Imposter and Mister Bengal so far.

My general reaction to all may be recorded as follows:
1. Big Daddy: wary stiffness, unusual politeness, bad homework and a tendency to avoid 'you hab not understood. Meet me in my chAmber.' moments.
2. The Face Pack: many tendencies, all classifiable under 'murderous'.
3. The Imposter: so far, only a sense of desperation, and a hallucination that she will soon go away and The Nice Smiley Tam will come back.
4. Mister Bengal: a new patience at having my name mauled and spat out, Bengali style, and quicker reflexes at avoiding the famous halitosis.

Anyway...Two weeks. Pulse check. I'm alive. HA!

*plays Survivor theme*