The Last Class

The last class of every stage of my education has been memorable. The last day of classes in 12th in KVCLRI, Adyar, Chennai; the last class of my Engineering in IT from JJ College of Engineering & Technology was full of emotions and fear of what awaited me in the future and also of leaving behind good friends. This time it was different, may be due to the fact that I know where I am going from here, and also the kind of attachment we have with the college. The day passed by as any other day. The last class was Simulation and we had a quiz today. The way the quiz went about was quiet hilarious.

Nobody knew or had any clue of how to solve the problem with the probability tables given to us, so they resorted to asking doubts to the professor, who after fielding some questions was irritated and started solving the problem himself on the board. He gave us the answers and even drew the final graph on the board!!!!! So much for a 15% quiz.

My preparation for leaving finally took some shape. I managed to get some cartons and packed all the textbooks. Now I need to get in touch with the packer service and send it home. There are lot more things to be done, and most probably I might have to cancel the Kodaikanal trip with my friends, all thanks to my excellent planning and execution skills.

Today we had our valedictory function. TSG was voted the best academic forum of the year. We won the award last year and in the year previous to that the award went to the same group. So its been three years on the trot for the systems guys. They best non-academic forum was the CCG. They are winning the award for the second year on the trot. They really deserved the award this year, especially for the 2 Amrtya's and for the Interface.

Few things to remember about the valedictory function are - the dig taken by Badsha and CCG at Nutty for the low budget given to Interface and the mix-up in speech by Kedia, while he was giving away the prizes for Speed. He had prepared a sentence to be spoken at the end, which related sports to marketing. In his mixup Kedu said it before the end of the award ceremony and the entire auditorium was rolling with laughter.

Finally managed to complete "King of Torts" by John Grisham. I had issued it on the 7th of this month and was unable to find time to complete it. I finished it after allocating 3 hours for it. The novel was very well written, the story was good, though it lacked suspense and action - the kind of novels I like - but it counts as one of the good novels that I have read. "The Firm" by the same author is another of my favourite and it is difficult for me to pick which of them is better.

For people who are planning to read "King of Torts", it would be better if you stop here. I would like to share some part of the story. Thought it will not contain the climax, but it would definitely cover a major part of the plot.

The protagonist is a bright, handsome and smart Lawyer - J Clay Carter, who works in the OPD (Office of Public Defenders). The OPD is not the kind of place for a good lawyer like him and with a salary of $40,000 per year, he wished to get out and start his own firm; but he knew that he did not have the funds for it.

One day he happened to be in the court room where the judge was handling a murder case which looked like a street fight or old rivalry. The murderer was financially weak to employ a full time lawyer, for such people the judge appoints lawyers from the OPD. Since he was the only member of the OPD present, the case was handed over to him, much to his displeasure.

His attempts to dump the case on other lawyers did not succeed and he is forced to take up the case. On primary investigation he finds that the murderer - Tequila Watson - is a drug addict enrolled with a rehabilitation center. Tequila had served over 100 days with the rehab, which earned him 2 hours per day visit the world outside. The murder was committed in these two hours on the 115th day after Tequila joined the rehab. Further investigations prove that Tequila had no apparent motive to kill. Clay also learns that one of the fellow attorneys in the department had a similar case - with no motive to kill. His investigations lead him to the rehab center and after some time he realized that he was being followed by a Burgundy car.

Was there a motive behind both the murders? Why was he being followed? Was there more than what he could see of these two murders?

His concerns other that the case was his love interest for the past four years. Her name is Rebecca Van Horn, who worked as an assistant to a Congressman. She was beautiful, smart and the kind of woman Clay wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The only problem was - her parents, who wanted her to get married to someone richer. Clay hated the very presence of her parents and she would not leave her parents. Clay was noticing signs of Rebecca falling for pressure from her parents, and was hoping against hope that she would not leave him.

In the midst of all this, Clay gets a call from Max Pace - a fire fighter. A fire fighter who settled fires for big corporate clients who wanted to get things settled without going through the hustles of a court. He offers him a job which could earn Clay money he could only have dreamt with his present job. The new job was guaranteed to earn him more cases and more money.

What follows are the events in the next 17 months of Clay Carters life, during which he earns $121 million., starts a new office in a post locality, hires lawyers, paralegals and secretaries. He also gets hooked to Ridley, a model he had employed to accompany him to Rebecca’s wedding to create a flutter. Ridley liked to spend time with rich people and she took a liking for Clay and his wealth, while Clay did not mind being accompanied to places by am extremely beautiful woman who caused many a heads to turn.

Was the $121 million ill-gotten wealth or was it legitimate earning by Clay. Would Rebecca come back to his life? Would he be able to lead the kind of simple life he has dreamt of living with Rebecca? Was Ridley really concerned about him as she was showing she is? The story tells us how Clay rose from the OPD to be the “best lawyer” in Washington DC, how he became known as "The King of Torts" and how future unfolded for him.

A real good read. I liked it for the narration and the story.