Rules? More like guidelines

I live my life by a set of principled rules formulated based on my notion of morality—of what’s right and what’s not. For the most part, this is a non-issue as these align with traditional laws put forth by the legal system. For minor deviations, I do consciously make it a point to abide by the letter of the law, even if I’m taking liberties with the spirit in which they were intended.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I end up contemplating violating the letter of the law as well. Not because it’s convenient to do so, or because I aim to benefit unjustly from such a violation, but purely because my moral compass opposes what someone else decrees as “right”. I imagine something like this not bothering me, even if technically illegal, because I don’t believe I am doing anything evil.

After a couple of seminars on legal issues however, I’ve realized this is a totally brain-dead idea. Apparently, even tiny breaches of rules (which will only result in a stern warning or a slap on the wrist for a normal person here) can result in international students losing legal status, preventing them from completing their programme.

Now, a bulk of my life plan is predicated on leaving here with a degree, so I’ve decided to make myself aware, and play along.

So, basically, you’ve got to stick to your guns and principles—unless it’s (or could eventually be) tremendously inconvenient.

9 thoughts on “Rules? More like guidelines”

  1. Sorry, this is not a comment specific to this post. I am glad I stumbled upon your blog. Interesting posts. எளிய நடை, வலிய கருத்துக்கள். Keep blogging!

  2. Thank you for stopping by. I thought I could read some Tamil but I am more illiterate than I thought.

    I won’t hazard a guess on the first two words, but I think the last two read vazhiya karithukal (or something like that), but I can’t translate those either.

    Help!

  3. I can’t recall why I assumed you can read Tamil.
    எளிய நடை = eliya nadai = simple style
    வலிய கருத்துக்கள் = valiya karuththukkal = strong content

  4. Cool, thanks. This must be sen-sen-Tamil because I thought I could speak it well and I couldn’t even translate one of those words. But, I’m sure my parents will be proud that I could “read” 50% of what you wrote.

    (Now, people in the audience, before you scoff, recall that I’ve “learnt to read” by matching the English and Tamil bus route titles back home. Which means I read with only a partial knowledge of the alphabet, and with much extrapolation. And obviously not very accurately.)

    And, you must’ve assumed I can read Tamil because you knew I was Tamilian.

    I couldn’t help myself, some inverse-IP looking up and snooping around later, I think I recognize who you are through numerous walking-pasts at corridors. Is your office in EECS too? And are you the dude with the IISc Tshirt?

  5. Yep, 3214 EECS is my office. (But we are moving to the new CSE building this December. Yay!) . And I do own a IISc T-shirt.

  6. Yeah, the building was done really fast considering the typical pace of UM constructions.
    BTW, do drop in sometime or catch me in the corridors, I sure would like to meet the man behind the words.

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