I distinctly remember the day when I bagged the Twelfth International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot 2011. I was not too happy. We were a team of six including two researchers. I don’t think anyone was enthusiastic except in the beginning. This is a moot with a particularly long ‘gestation period’. One had to revive energy and spirit repeatedly, given the dicey problem and the enormous amount of research involved. With no idea about Arbitration and absolutely no idea about Maritime Law, it was a tough job. By the time July arrived, I was worked up with the amount of labour it took. Working in the middle of exams was the worst part of this moot. No matter how much I tried balancing moot work and academics, I couldn’t. The loads of exemptions I took weren’t enough. The moot was still very demanding. Continue reading →

My house is upside down: two nephews + two nieces. I’m in a zoo. No matter how much I try, I can’t study the fat J.N. Pandey I brought from hostel. I thought I’d finish the Constitution course in these four days. Alas.. I caught viral fever and now I’m stuck up here with nothing to do, but post this. I should have posted it long back. Kirti Dashora has been nudging me to write another post. She happens to be one of the chief patrons of this blog, apart from my brother.

I mooted this time. General practice at GNLU is that everyone registers themselves with partners for the first round and one can back out any moment before the memo submission. Initially I almost backed out when I saw the kind of people taking part. My! All big shots!! Yea, yea.. I’ve been abnormally low on self confidence after Sem 1. I was not used to being humiliated in the Moot Court (any stage for that matter..); I had never tasted 40+ ranks; I had never settled for anything less that ‘very good’. All that happened in the first semester. My parents and friends encouraged me against backing out. Specially Ujjvalya Anand (Vyuj, as I call her). She was my partner for the first intras. We finished our memo somehow. Sujoy Datta helped a lot! I can’t imagine that moot without Ujjvalya and Sujoy. Our moot was scheduled last. Last. We reported at 2:00 pm and our moot began at 5:00 pm. All our freshness and enthusiasm wore off. Then, it got over. I dont want to recall how! We were okay. Not great, definitely. I’d like to particularly mention one document though… the Application form of the French Embassy. Sujoy gave me that, hours before the moot. That was one impressive document. You may not understand the context. But it did one great thing: Projected my pathetically scanty research like one awesomely padded piece of work! It was impressive. Rest all was not. Continue reading →