I’ve written before about why I chose law, but the truth is I keep circling back to it. If I cut it down to one sentence, it would be this: I became aware of how much privilege I had, and I wanted to do something useful with it, to make Earth a better place - to support the pens who are not as privileged as I am.. Law felt like the sharpest tool within reach. Not medicine, not engineering, but law. And since I had access to good schools, English, and books, I decided CLAT would be my road. At sixteen, that was the dream: an NLU, preferably one of the top ones.
Always the Over-Achiever
I’ve been called an over-achiever since I was a kid. Honestly, it’s not even a compliment, it’s a habit. I had to be at the top, or second at worst. Anything else made me fidgety, like I wasn’t myself anymore. I remember being in school debates, and even if the topic was something I barely cared about, I’d still fight tooth and nail because “losing” didn’t sit right with me.
I’ve talked about this in therapy recently - how it helped me and how it haunted me. It gave me structure, but it also set me up for disappointment. Because you can’t always be the best. No one can.
So when I started CLAT prep after tenth grade, I went all in. Coaching classes, piles of mock papers, revision charts stuck to the wall. I treated that exam like it was my one big chance to matter. Which now sounds dramatic, but at the time it didn’t feel like an exaggeration.
Exam Day
I still remember walking into the hall - water bottle in hand, head buzzing with formulas and GK notes. I had a clear plan. Section by section, minute by minute. But General Knowledge has always been my Achilles’ heel. And on that day, it came back to bite me. Half the questions looked like they had dropped from the sky. I felt my chest tighten as I flipped through them.
The rest of the paper was okay, I think. But CLAT has this cruel design - you never know how well you’ve done until the answer key shows up. To make it worse, I messed up on the OMR sheet, small bubbles in the wrong places. Those mistakes felt like daggers.
When the bell rang and I stepped outside, I already knew: I hadn’t done what I came to do.
Results
Rank: 980. A number that landed somewhere between “not bad” and “not good enough.” It didn’t get me into the top three NLUs. I was placed in my fourth preference, and I started telling myself maybe I should try again next year.
Then came the twist. By the third round of allotment, I had a seat at NALSAR. The second-best law university in the country. And here’s the thing - it came through the OBC quota.
It should have been pure joy, right? But instead, I felt a strange knot in my stomach. I’ve always believed in reservations, argued for them, defended them. Yet, when it was me who benefited, I felt small. I had imagined myself getting in on “merit,” whatever that means. I wasn’t ready for the weight of that contradiction.
At NALSAR
Walking into NALSAR for the first time, I carried a strange mix of pride, guilt, and insecurity. The campus was everything I had dreamed about - heated discussions in classrooms, libraries where you could lose yourself for hours, professors who didn’t just teach but provoked you. But I also noticed how many of my peers spoke with an ease I didn’t have. Some of them grew up hearing legal arguments over family dinners. I hadn’t. They spoke such polished English; debated like cake-walk about anything under the sun.
I kept asking myself: do I belong here, or am I just pretending?
What I Learned (And Am Still Learning)
Looking back, CLAT wasn’t just about getting in. It was about tearing down the myths I had built about myself. I had believed that hard work would always push me to the top. But merit, I learned, isn’t clean. It depends on resources, timing, family support, sheer luck.
And my own hang-up about quota admissions? That was a mirror too. I realized how deep the poison of “meritocracy” runs, how we end up doubting ourselves even when we know the system is unfair.
Why It Still Matters
When I return to the question—why law?—I still think about that sixteen-year-old me, the one who wanted to use privilege responsibly. But the story has become messier. It isn’t just about privilege anymore. It’s about stumbling, failing, doubting, and still choosing to stay.
NALSAR wasn’t the neat triumph I imagined. It was complicated, personal, political. But maybe that’s why it matters more. Because law, for me, isn’t just a degree or a career. It’s a mirror. It reflects back all the uncomfortable questions I carry about myself, about merit, about belonging. And those questions are what keep me going.