INVICTA, Annual Inter-Law School Sports Fest (NUJS)

How do you get 500+ lawyers-in-training to compete in sports for 4 days?Invite then to INVICTA. Hope you weren’t expecting a punch line. INVICTA, the sports fest hosted by NUJS, Kolkata is exclusively conducted for students of law schools. And no, having business law as a subject won’t qualify your college to participate. Firsthand knowledge people. Let’s try another one.What do you call these lawyers?Sportsperson (No funnies in this post. One wayward line and I could be sued by a battalion of upcoming lawyers. Not gonna happen).

Notice I said sportsperson. Not sportsmen, as women are represented equally in this sports fest involving law colleges from all over India. All 12 formal events in the fest, except cricket, are also conducted for women. And throwball is exclusively for women.

A lawyer loves to deal with whistle-blowers, they shed inside dirt and contribute towards a favourable judgment for their clients. But in this case the whistle-blowers are on neither side. I’ve seen some lawyers play, and they don’t ask the referee to produce a witness or display evidence to back up every call, but it’s always good to have neutral and professional people officiating. The referees officiating the football matches are from the Referees Association of Calcutta and the Cricket umpires are from the Cricket Association of Bengal. The other events will be officiated by officials from the Sports Authority of India, who apart from being former players, are also certified coaches at state, national and international levels.

Most of the below events, including basketball, will be held at SAI grounds at Salt Lake. There are other informal events planned such as: Remote Control car-racing, computer gaming (always a high draw), a lottery and some more for the non–participating crowd.Around 550+ participants will slug it out in the following events:- Athletics- Football- Cricket (exclusive for men). Venue: Cricket Association of Bengal grounds.- Basketball- Badminton- Throwball (exclusive for women)- Volleyball- Tennis. Venue- Bengal Tennis Association grounds- Cycling- Table tennis.- Carom.- Chess. (Venues for the last three events: NUJS Campus)

Contrary to what wise guys say, the following events aren’t included and they don’t exist: -Chase the ambulance.-Subpoena dodge.-How many hours can you bill in one hour?-Truth or dare. (Lawyers can’t play half of it)-Shark hunt. (Would you hunt your brethren?)-Search for an honest lawyer. (It’d go on forever)-Most effective camouflage of horns and pitchfork.-Jumping the bar.-Dumping the evidence.

___________________________________________________________________________________

The basketball teams of the hosts, National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) is pretty solid. Their woman’s team made it to the finals in a inter college basketball tournament at Xaviers last year. And their men’s team had a player who alone scored 19 points, more than many other teams in that tournament. So it’ll be fun to watch with the home crowd cheering for them.

I never get tired of quoting the following quote from, Jaysankar Menon, an Asian all star and former Indian team captain. He says: “Young players are enthusiastic about basketball, and devoted to it while they are in school and continue to be so through college. But for them to continue to do so after college there ought to be a professional league for them to play.”

A league. A league. My horse for a league. Well, the BFI in partnership with IMG-Reliance is working on organizing such leagues in some states in India. It’ll be a while before it extends to all over India. But many colleges are already taking the initiative in conducting inter-college matches and sports fests, like INVICTA . These programs lay down the groundwork for a professional league. My guess is that this fest is one of the largest in India terms of number of students participating and breadth of field of colleges which extends to all over India.

Sports fests like this one aren’t all fun and games. Organizing an event of this scale could seem like a logistical nightmare. If you look at it that way. The volunteers see it as a chance to get experience in event management, socialize with their brethren from across the country, and have a good time. Colleges recognize the positives of hosting such events. Namely:-Increasing the visibility of their brand name.-Creation of goodwill.-Interaction among students from all walks of the nation.-And of course, it’s all about sports.

So we have around 18 law colleges from all over India participating in a basketball tournament among others. And we have the BFI college league coming up sometime soon. It’s only a matter of time before a NCAA style league spawns in India to challenge the monopoly of cricket. One which involves engineering, MBA, law and medical colleges. I’d give it a decade to come up. Let’s wait and watch.DISCLAIMERDisclaimer/covering my behind- Info was taken from a FB group page.- Participants may/may not be 500/550.- It’s my inference that other events besides the 12 are strictly for non-participating crowd. Kuch pakka nahi malum.- I’ll cut it short, nothing whatsoever which you just read is verified and I don’t stand by anything I said.- If you’re reading this, you have selected all text, copied and pasted it and increased the font size. No one but a lawsuit happy lawyer-in-training would go to such lengths to read the fine print. And it’s to cover my backside from you that I’ve written this.- Forgive the lawyer jokes.- Last thing I need is 600+ lawyers baying for my blood.- Please don’t sue me.