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Writer's pictureBhavya Bhatt

10 - The Moot Court (Part 2) - The Fiasco

I thought our dream of mooting together was it. I didn't think I could moot after this very argument. I remember almost going to the Director to withdraw my name from the moot, but just before I could do something like this, my friend and our researcher put some sense in me. They said how I should do it, and backing out wouldn't be the idle option as of now. We were this close to registering ourselves for the moot, and there was no turning back.

I took a break that day, and my friend and I headed back to our hostel room to just sleep over it. We didn't talk about the moot in our room, and instead, just binged watched FRIENDS till the sunset, and a confusing day ended. The next morning, we went to college, attended the regular classes and, in the afternoon, decided to re-read the moot problem. This time, we decided to read the moot problem in our senses, unlike the day before and did this in the college library, so distractions were none. We read the problem once, twice and then thrice and started getting the hang of what exactly we were supposed to do as arbitrators for our client.


The confidence that was nowhere twenty-four hours ago took a detour and came back to the three of us, and even though we were mooting for the first time, we knew we got this. Mentors were assigned to us soon after we confirmed our predicament for this moot. Every day, we spent hours in the library after college hours, so our memorial could be drafted correctly. Before this moot, we hardly stayed in college for more than five hours, but truth be told, certain challenges require you to change yourself and your habits.


From sleeping in the hostel room for hours after college to staying back in the library till night curfew, this was a new roller coaster we had no idea we'd be a part of, until now. Preparing the memorial from both the claimant's and the respondent's side seemed easy because we thought we knew our contentions the Counsel. However, I did not know the kind of research that goes into drafting arguments. As a third-year law student, who thought law school was just the perfect place to chill with friends (it's not just that), I did not know what I was signing up for at this point.


We had just a month to submit our memorials to the competition, and the three of us religiously worked all night, even in our hostel room. For a couple of days, we gave up watching FRIENDS, our afternoon naps, wandering in the market, going to the mall only so we could ace the upcoming competition. Those big two thousand-page books didn't scare us anymore, studying all night just to find one case law to support our contentions did not worry us. With each passing day, I was confident of our arguments, our research, our compendium because we genuinely put in our two hundred percent.


Although talks did go around in college about how there were a few with 'reputed' moots, and that our moot was not that significant, but we chose to ignore the comments. We focussed upon becoming the best moot team our college could ever have, and I could feel it from the way our mentors praised us and our efforts. We were way ahead of our schedule for submission, and days before our moot, we started pleadings. I remember how professors who sat through our rehearsal questioned every argument of ours, and the first time that this happened, my friend and I, the 'speakers', were unable to answer their questions. We were scared, yes, but we were new to this concept called 'grilling'.


Everything has its first time, and this was our first time getting grilled by professors who I thought were sweet. But, things change when you suddenly become a mooter. You've got to do what you've got to do – Answer the questions, not plead ignorance and reply faster and keep that confidence intact. Each pleading taught us one or two things about how we could answer better, and the notes kept on coming. I remember one professor who other mooters dreaded to plead in front of and he was chosen to be our griller one day! Every team feared his comments, and so did we.


Thirty days of efforts and days of grilling had prepared us for this day and I would be lying if I said I weren't scared. I had never felt my heart beat out of my throat (something I didn't know would happen with me, hehe) until this very point of time where I was standing on the podium and pleading my case on behalf of the claimant. He stopped me, asked questions and thank god for all the previous pleading experiences; I knew the answers to his questions. Sometimes it pays off to work a little harder, stay awake beyond your sleep time and prepare a list of all possible questions arising out of my arguments.


Our pleadings, even with the strictest professor, went terrific and he was confident that we were 80% close to winning the competition. Even our mentors were surprised with the feedback received about our latest pleadings, and things were communicated to our Director, who later called us for a cup of coffee at his office. This invitation sure did get us excited, and later that very evening, we assured him that we would give in our best to this competition.


With only seven days to go, and our memorial already submitted for the competition, we decided to take the next two-three days slow and breathe, because D-DAY was just a week away. There was a team who left for another trial competition this very day we decided of taking it slow, and just the next day, the news was in that they were declared winners. As soon as the news broke out, the rest of the mooting teams had this undying pressure to win, too, because it was now that the pressure got real.


The slow course that we decided to pursue in the last week was scrapped off, and just almost immediately after this news, the three of us locked ourselves in our hostel room and did our pleadings with our hostel mates as judges. The silliest questions were asked to us by our dearest hostel mates, but we knew we HAD to do this. With the winning team already having taken all the thunder, the anxiety and the pressure that we were dealing with was beyond one's imagination.


We finished our pleadings by the weekend, collected all the good wishes by everyone possible and embarked upon a journey called -The Moot Court Competition, featuring three first time, high-spirited mooters. We reached the venue, and the venue was huge and beautiful. We were escorted to our room first and then to the auditorium for day one of the competition.


Day one was very smooth, and no rounds took place that day, except for getting our opposite team's memorials. The prelims were on the second day, and at night, the three of us discussed our strategy for the opposite team with our mentors and just went off to one of the most anxious sleep ever. We woke up the next day, got dressed and even though we were nervous like anything, I just had to get done with it, once and for all. We reached our respective courtrooms, and prelims started.


For everything that took place inside the room – right from the opposite team's arguments, our arguments, the brutal grilling, time running out, our team sort of nailed it. For first time mooters, I felt like this wasn't bad at all. I did plead ignorance one time, I could feel my voice break a couple of times; it was a challenge I was thrilled to be a part of, no matter how much I wanted to get out of it, initially. The second day was exhausting, yes, but it was the fruit that mattered to us, so we just hustled for it.


After hours of all prelims coming to an end, the results were announced, and team no. 308 had qualified for the quarter-finals. YESSSS, this meant we had won all prelim rounds, and we were among the first eight teams out of 26 to qualify for this, and I could see the huge winner trophy smile at me when we heard our team number. We immediately called our Director, broke this news to him, and he said he was proud of us. Our mentors rejoiced too, and well, so did we. We had a musical night, and quarters were supposed to happen on the third and final day, but the three of us thought of skipping the musical night and going back to our room to prepare for the quarters.


For everything we had given up in the past forty-five days, it all seemed worth it, and just when we were leaving for our room, there was an announcement made by the organizer that the results have been changed, and a new result would be announced after the musical night. Hearing this sent jitters down our spines, and to date, I cannot forget this feeling that set in soon after it. For the next half hour, we started doubting our rounds, questioning our arguments and whether we had nailed them or not. We decided to put all of this behind us and focussed upon eating good food in the venue, but all our happiness was a halt because we were still not sure of whether we had qualified for the quarters or not.


The musical night even though it seemed very lively, was a difficult time for us to pass because we wanted to qualify the quarters. When you work hard for something you've wanted so much, there is no way you want to let that slip from your hands when you were this close to attaining it. This was our case too, and finally, the results were announced after a delay of four hours.


The result was certainly unexpected, and the second day surely closed a lot of doors for us, but perhaps opened little windows we weren't aware of.

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