Moonlit Ruminations

It's crazy how much you learn from real life than through textbooks—that stark contrast becomes so visible when you get to experience it first hand. On my third day as an intern at a law firm I saw people come in with a whole range of legal problems: gold transaction agreements, divorce, and power of attorney situations when it comes to land transactions. I want to explore more into the latter. Let me preface this by saying that the Principal (landowner) entered into a Joint Development Agreement with an Agent (developer) to subdivide the subject property into residential villas, initially granting a General Power of Attorney (GPA) for a 68% undivided interest in development rights. To resolve the landlocked status of the interior parcel, an access corridor was acquired through a Gift Deed, necessitating a Supplemental POA that expanded the Agent's authority to include the Power of Alienation, albeit subject to Restrictive Covenants mandating prior notice to the Principal and p...

Me and the advocate I was assigned to were just returning from the Vacation Court back to the library as most of the cases she handled were done for the day. Just as we neared the court library we passed by a court where I immediately overheard a lawyer arguing about phone hacking and voice recordings which immediately caught my interest, to be fair for the past 3 days all we did in court was attend attendance in the morning before heading back to the office so this was a very good change in pace. To put it in perspective, most sub-courts have 3 entrances as they tend to get very crowded on busy days; of course, one of the entrances is reserved for judges.  Okay, so we initially walked past the first entrance and the second we did I was filled with this surge of courage out of nowhere, accompanied by a sense of FOMO and guilt that I wasn't in that specific court being able to witness what was about to unfold. I took the existence of the second entrance as a blessing of fate and dec...

Imagine a supercomputer designed by "neuropsychologists" that can give you any experience you desire. You could write a masterpiece, make lifelong friends, or feel the thrill of a perfect sunset—all while your body floats in a vat with electrodes attached to your brain. While plugged in, you won't know it’s an illusion; you’ll believe it is completely real. If you were offered the chance to plug in for the rest of your life, with all your needs met and guaranteed happiness, would you do it? The answer to this question requires an understanding of the human understanding of life and what constitutes it. Sure, living a good life means that you are in a position where relationships, family, jobs—the elements that make up “life” in the most generic sense are met to its full extent. Plugged into a simulation where the feeling and physical experience of achieving those highs seem to fulfill that requirement. The concept of being conscious that the life you’d live is not “true”...

Is it morally wrong to consciously contribute to someone's failure? Should politicians stand for office when they know their promises are shallow? Who does this serve? Them, of course. Should teachers contrive a perfectly planned demo to be appointed under the guise of experience just to stutter when a student asks them a question? A teacher is primarily conducive to their students' intellectual development and the contingent scores that rest heavily upon the students shoulders for a better future. To completely disregard the fate of multiple students for personal interest, say a better salary or work environment, does not weigh equal.  One bad lesson compounds. If a student does not comprehend the foundation the entire lesson will come crumbling down. It becomes a gap that gets carried into the subsequent years, causing irreparable damage unless one seeks help elsewhere. That option, of course, exists. Tuition, additional help from other teachers, parents—but isn't the ent...

  My daily exposure has taken a wild turn this may. As part of my internship, I'm getting the most valuable experience of getting to go to court. And let me tell you, it is interesting. I had the opportunity of sitting in on a check case hearing at the judicial magistrate’s fast-track court.  The defendant was indebted to the complainant of 2 lakh rupees, and in a manner of repayment, wrote an invalid check. The complainant subsequently issued a statutory demand notice which required the defendant to pay the amount within the grace period of 15 days; he did not. From what I could observe the money was either sent to the court or was delayed, as mentioned by the defense counsel.  What I want to focus on is the arguments I heard. The prosecution side basically said that under criminal law, in a criminal court, violation of section 138—by not fulfilling the compensation 15 days after the notice was issued—constituted illegality as complete. The offense is malum prohibitum. ...

Laughter erupts from one corner of the classroom during the sacred 30 minutes. No one could say what prompted the abrupt amusement, maybe it was someone spilling gravy on the desk by accident or that hilarious scene down the corridor a 2 periods ago when a teacher wore a bright green shirt and we couldn't help but call him shrek or perhaps it was all of it mixed together.  We all sit outside our classroom, books in hand for “revision” in the fresh air. Talks emerge about the future trip we might take during senior year, anything but reading our english lesson for the impending test in the next few hours.  A throng of students in mismatched uniforms, some in formal and others in more comfortable house shirts emerge on Monday. We’ll soon be questioned why we aren’t wearing the designated formals and our responses will range from “I forgot it was monday” to “It’s in the wash” when the truth lies behind the hot sun and lack of AC dampening our full hand shirts. The same bunch will...

If you’ve been following my secret lore of sneaking up to the terrace during the sunset you are here for a treat. It's frankly been so long since I've been up there after senior year started—i finally forced myself to make time for it.   I was up there like usual…headphones in, Saturn or Poison and Wine blasting in my ears—wandering around in a daze looking up at the sky. The big blue monster that always looms above us, so magnificent and beautiful yet so ordinary that we don't even pay much attention to it. Most of the time I’m up there my eyes never leave it, but this time it did.  Looking downwards towards the side, I caught a glimpse of something else. A mother packing her son's school bag—meticulously folding swim trunks and arranging notebooks on the couch. I stopped dead in tracks. Of course it's not as dramatic as I'm writing it out to be but that reinforced this idea of Sonder that people talk about. Immediately I found myself scanning other houses in a...