The chains of modern slavery are not forged in iron; they arrive in your inbox or WhatsApp texts. They look like emails marked 'No Subject', dangling follow-ups or that dreadful silence more eloquent than any reply.

And the strangest part? Interns clamour for these chains. You beg to be acknowledged, assigned or even scolded, because the alternative is far worse - an endless desert of ambiguity.

The pain here is not overwork, but a fog of ambiguity so thick that even Sherlock Holmes would resign. You are told nothing, you ask nothing and you apologise for everything. Sitting idle feels sinful, yet asking for directions is blasphemous. And somehow, this insanity is accepted as quite normal, almost like a rite of passage.

All this in a profession that worships at the altar of justice and liberty. A magnificent paradox that would make even Shakespeare pause; those who advocate for clarity in statutes are unable to provide clarity in schedules; those who fight for freedom in court govern over fiefdoms of silence and servitude.

Interning in law is often less about learning statutes and more about studying astronomy. Every email you send is a prayer to Gods who neither hear nor care. The response, if it ever comes, feels like divine intervention - rare, mysterious and typically too late to be of any benefit. Until then, you will orbit in silence, like a lost planet swallowed by the black hole of unread texts.

The tragedy, of course, is disguised as humour. You draft, redraft and eventually push 'send', only to find that your work has been met with silence. Days later, you apologise for failing to perform what you were never instructed to do in the first place. In a Shakespearean twist, you end up apologising for the act of apologising. Absurdist theatre, performed daily with grave professionalism.

And this is only after you have landed an internship. The application procedure is like diving into the Mariana Trench of modern desperation, with endless emails dropping deeper into inboxes that never see light. By the time your application is noticed, Darwin could have evolved a new species at the bottom of the trench.

Internships were intended to serve as a bridge between classroom theory and professional reality, a place to learn the ropes that lectures never taught you. But to cross this bridge, you are frequently required to arrive as if you have already sailed the seven seas.

You are required to demonstrate fifteen years of experience for a role that may involve little more than photocopying and spell-checking. To be trusted with the sacred responsibility of the office printer, you must first prove yourself as a seasoned lawyer. As for teaching, that is not a box you can tick, it is more like a mythical creature in the syllabus - spoken of in lofty lectures, sighted in inspirational speeches, but never quite found roaming in the wild corridors of chambers.

Step into a classroom or a conference and you will witness a grand opera of mentorship. Professors and seniors proclaim, with the ease of poets, that they “love guiding young minds,” their voices draped in velvet warmth and paternal pride. But step backstage, and the music fades. Their idea of mentorship involves less Socratic dialogue and more solitary confinement. You are not guided, you are ghosted, left to orbit in silence, only to be told later that this too was a “learning experience.” It is less teaching and more theatre - dazzling in recital, but fatal in practice.

For the same characters who speak like benevolent guardians often treat interns as aliens who wandered in by mistake. In theory, you are the future of the profession; in practice, you are disposable labour. The affection is like a well-crafted clause, beautiful in theory but poisonous in practice. The warmth of words rarely survives reality, when deadlines take precedence over direction and interns are seen but not heard.

If professors and seniors set the stage, juniors frequently assume the role of miniature lords. Once hungry for guidance themselves, they now preserve the crumbs of knowledge with frightening tenacity. Interns realise that their closest superiors are not experienced seniors, but newly hired associates who wield authority with a zeal that would make even mediaeval apprentices blush.

The old tradition in which yesterday’s apprentices put on the shoes of today’s overseers quietly repeats itself. Those who formerly wished for kindness now distribute it with the precision of a miser counting pennies, as if stinginess were a professional trait. The end result is less mentorship and more of a bizarre pantomime; instead of a hand helping you up, a finger points you in the direction of the photocopier, or worse, into a maze of uncertainty.

To be fair, this does not constitute intentional cruelty.

Frequently, it is only an echo of what they themselves experienced, an unconscious heritage passed along like an heirloom no one asked for. Exceptions do arise, of course, but there are enough instances to remind you that the hierarchy in law offices is not always collegial; it can resemble a mediaeval court where everyone is both servant and master depending on where they stand.

When you question the drama of paradoxes, the reply comes plated like fine cuisine - “This is your struggle, your learning curve.” Apparently, silence is the new protein and humiliation the latest superfood, best consumed raw, without seasoning. The defence is so rehearsed it could be filed as a standard form affidavit - “We went through it, and so must you.” If suffering truly built character, by now lawyers should be saints, or at least have halos glowing faintly over their office cubicles.

If wisdom were genuinely contagious, it would have spread by now, just like Wi-Fi, not password-protected broadband. Expecting clarity to emerge from chaos is like teaching a student to swim by first tossing them into a well. The only “lesson” learnt there is panic, and how little oxygen one has remaining.

Here we are, in a profession that spends its life drafting “fair procedures” and issuing writs against arbitrariness, but insists that its own initiation be arbitrary and without procedure. It is as if due process were a right that everyone has, except for those who are training to defend it.

The saddest part is not the harshness, but the normalisation. Young lawyers rarely speak up, not because they do not feel the pain, but because they are afraid of being labelled as weak, entitled or unsuited for the profession. Silence becomes survival, and is mistaken for acceptance.

And when they do communicate, their words reverberate weakly and are often unheard. Most of their points are discreetly filtered out, rarely appearing in columns, magazines or public debates. The problems of the youngest are reduced to whispers in packed rooms, present but unacknowledged.

But beneath the comedy lies a cost more tragic than we admit. Behind the silence are numbers that we do not want to address. Rising suicide rates among students and young professionals are discussed only in whispers, then dismissed as if they were simply another statistic.

The irony is too thick to miss. The law, which purports to safeguard all citizens, appears to ignore its own children. The same fraternity that expects devotion and patience from its juniors cannot muster it for themselves. And so, the cycle continues - bright young minds learn early on that expressing their concerns is not advocacy, but liability.

But introspection is not the same as revolt. The goal is not to storm the gates, but to gently redefine what mentorship might entail. If justice is delayed, it is denied, and when direction is rejected, futures are destroyed. Interns do not need red carpets; they need road maps. They do not seek indulgence, but rather guidance.

The greatest emancipation the judicial system can try today is not in statutes or precedents, but in its own corridors: freeing its interns from the silent bonds of neglect. After all, the judicial system has long claimed the ability to liberate the nation. Surely, it can start by releasing itself.

For what justice is it, that frees nations in courts, yet binds its heirs in silence?

Aditi Jha is a fifth year law student.