Our classroom in Mumbai.

Hello,

I am Apoorv. I am a Teach for India teacher. I teach in a school where kids from low income families come to study. I am writing this blog to raise funds for my kids.

Who are my kids?

They are 49 students of 7th standard in Divine Child High School in Malad (East), Mumbai. They are the most amazing bunch of students I have ever met in my life. They are inquisitive, joyful, eager and have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They come from families who are completely invested in wanting to improve their child's life. They are kids who have achieved a lot over the past few years but are still just warming up. They are kids who don't get confused when they see a new word. They find out its meaning and then try to use it in day to day conversations. They are kids who can ask you uncomfortable questions about your field of expertise.They are kids who are can surprise you with their answers and their level of critical thinking. They are kids who know that understanding everything is more important than just remembering it. They are kids who work harder and smarter than most kids their age and they do it under trying circumstances.They are kids who are always ready for a challenge. They are my kids.

But we need your help.

There are various ways in which you can help us:

• Volunteer: Come teach the class. Give the students a different perspective about a topic of your choice. They have not had a lot of exposure with the latest happenings around the world so getting to know more people would be wonderful for them.
• Send us books! : If you have old books which are in good condition then we would love to have them as well. You could buy new books and send them to me. You can choose any book which you think a school going kid should read. :)
• Sponsor our field trips : There are SO many places in and around Mumbai which my kids haven't seen yet. We do not have the resources to take them around in a bus. If you fund one of our trips, we promise to send you photos. :)
• Scholarship for the students: Our's is a private school and so the kids do have to pay fees. Our monthly fee is Rs 550/- and apart from that we also have a lot of other misc expenses which add up to a lot. A lot of my kids struggle with the fee payment. Scholarships are a great motivator and have proven to work amazingly well for students. 
• Buy us stuff : We have a perpetual need for stationary. We need a projector and preferably a small screen too. We need board games and a few sports equipment.  

This is just a suggested list. If there is anything else that you would want to do for the students then please feel free to contact me.

How to contribute?

If you wish to contribute in any of the above mentioned ways please send me an email on apoorv.shah2013[at] teachforindia.org or call me on +91 9925027956 any time after 2pm. You can also leave your contact details as comments on this blog and I will get back to you in a day. 

You can wire transfer the money or send us a cheque. More details will be given when you send me the email. :)

If you want, you can go to this link on the Teach for India website and choose me 'Apoorv' in the "donate to specific fellow" tab. Here's the link: http://www.teachforindia.org/donate/give-instantly 

All your contributions will be judiciously used. Highest level of accountability and transparency will be maintained. We will see to it that your contribution is optimally utilized. 

If you have any queries, please direct them the email id. 

You can also get regular updates about the happenings in class on my twitter handle @apoorv3E

Now to end with some amazing news.

I had posted on my facebook account about a similar request and was overwhelmed when I got 5 people willing to sponsor the students. I received scholarship money from one of the donors a couple of days back and received a book from another today.

Here's the photo of the book. 

Me and my students hope that this is just the beginning. :)

If you are in the area, please do come visit. :) 

Thanks

A

Update: I received 3 more books and close to 10,000 Rs in scholarship donation money after this post. Thank you to everyone. We have made a good start but there is a long way to go. :) 

GNLU: A preview/ An Insider's account!

So you gave CLAT and got through to Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.

Congratulations!

I am sure you'll have a hundred questions about the University. You might even be considering whether to choose GNLU over some other University. Well, I hope this post helps you in deciding.

I’ll try to summarise what all things you can expect from the place.

Location:

Gandhinagar is Gujarat’s capital. It’s a very green city. Amazing roads. No traffic. If you are someone who likes the hustle-bustle of Mumbai then you’ll find the place boring. Gujarat has prohibition, something I think all of us know about. There are no night clubs in Gandhinagar. There are very few good restaurants but that can be managed by going to Ahmedabad which is just 30 minutes away. If you are someone who likes peace and serenity then Gandhinagar is the place for you. Transport is relatively cheap. People of Gujarat are famous for their friendly behaviour and their helping attitude. Girls can roam around safely. We have a 9:30pm curfew time for the college hostel which is good enough because there is hardly anything open in Gandhinagar post 10pm.

Campus:

The campus is still under construction. We stay in the old campus of NIFT. Students joining this year can expect to spend 4 years out of 5 in the new 45 acre campus. The new campus is sexy. It will be among the best in the country. Although, the current campus is not too bad either. We have arguably, the best hostels amongst law schools in the country. Almost all our requirements are easily met in this current campus. But then, as Seth Godin says, “Good is not great.” :)

Faculty:

Okay this is a toughie. I think I can safely say, like all NLUs and I think Universities in general, we have the excellent, the good and the ugly. A few teachers are amazing. They will literally make you want to attend class. Sometimes, when you have a free class and that faculty is teaching in some other class, you’d want to go and attend that other class. Yea, they are that good. Some of them are okay okay. We can’t call them good or bad. They are in-between. Personally I feel that faculties are only there to guide you where to go. Legal Education should mostly be self learning.

Students:

The best part about GNLU is the variety of students that we have. The year I joined I was told that GNLu has students from 26 states now. We are a diverse crowd. We have had it even before IDIA started working on it. :P Students are helping. There are 160 odd students per batch so there will be a lot of people you’ll get along with and learn from. The students are the elements which make a university. Shri Jairam Ramesh will be happy to see that even though right now GNLU is not the country’s best law school, the students are right up there. :) Seniors are very helpful. They will make you feel right at home from the very first day. There is almost no ragging. Everything done is in good humour and will be enjoyable for the new student as well. Nothing outward happens. GNLU students appreciate talent. People will look at you with respect if you can sing, dance, play a instrument, are a good orater, can play CS like you are invincible, can write notes even during boring classes, have a good sense of humour, are a foodie or just have a good collection of movies/sitcoms. :D

Placements:

Yes, this is what everyone thinks is the most important way to judge a University. I disagree. Contrary to popular opinion, GNLU has a very good placement record. If we see Legally India statistics for this year’s placement then we can see that 73 GNLU students have been placed in reputed places. The batch had 145 odd students. So after 73 there are 145-73= 72 students left. GNLU is, according to me, one of the very few law schools in India which sends a lot of students to litigation. That’s what NLUs were set up to do, right? I can safely say that out of the 72 students left, 30 to 35 join litigation. So that leaves only 35 odd students. We have 20 students who are going to pursue further studies in prestigious institutions in India and abroad. That leaves only 15 students. Who knows, maybe some of these 15 have been placed somewhere after the latest LI update on the recruitment page. I am not sure. 10% of a batch not getting their desired placement is normal. The fact that GNLU has 150 plus students in a normal batch makes it even more difficult for the college to place all of them. Amarchand Mangaldas took 15 students this year still that would only be 10% of the batch. Imagine if GNLU had 80 odd students and Amarchand took 15. It would change the situation completely. So don’t just blindly follow statistics. Consider all the parameters. If you are a good student and you do decently in academics then you’ll get a job irrespective of which law school you join.

So this is a brief overview of GNLU. Please be sure that this is not everything about GNLU. It’s just a basic outline. Ask specific questions to know more.

I won’t tell you what I think is GNLU’s rank is in the country’s top law universities because frankly it doesn’t matter. No one gives a damn about the ranking yet people fight over it. I am personally against giving so much importance to Moots. MPL is a good way to judge a college’s mooting prowess but not enough to judge a college. So don’t read too much into it. Visit the college website for more details.

I am a fourth year student of GNLU. If you are someone who got through and wants more details then send me a message on my LI account or post your facebook account link in the comments, I’ll ping you.

Don’t ask me if you should GNLU over HNLU or NLU-J or NLU-Bhopal or NLU-D or any such thing. Every college has its positives and negatives. Choose wisely and then stick to it. Stop cribbing once you get into college, you got what you deserved.

P.S. – I’ll try answering all genuine queries that any one of you have in your mind. Post it in the comments.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover or price, a person by his/her clothes/accent, a law student by his laptop/CGPA and a law school from its website/campus/MPL rank/India Today or Outlook rank.” – This is an original Napster quote. :P

All the best to everyone. I hope you have fun in law school because in the end, that's all that matters. :)

Jai Hind!

P.P.S. -This post first appeared on Legally India where I blog under the name of Napster.