First day at the HC: everything but the internship!

This post is dated 17.11.2008, only posted two days later due to inaccessibility of internet.

“OK, enough of boredom, finally I will have some work now!” And thus I tried to don an optimistic outlook as I attempted this self consolatory effort while leaving Raipur early morning with dad for Bilaspur where the High Court is located. Despite my daily crooning at home for more than a week about joblessness and killing boredom, I somehow thought I’d miss being idle at home listening to loud music and chatting with friends online all day. Anyway, en route I started chatting with dad about my projects which need to be done in the otherwise worthless ‘library internship’ and any other possible work of some worth in case I could multitask for maximum utilization of time when he started talking about some judicial seminars scheduled ahead and with a workaholic mindset I kept getting lured by our discussion over such certain topics quite interesting to write an article or paper on. Quite an obscure and ineffable feeling it is indeed when you imagine getting your work published and start dreaming about a dream CV when you know there is no feasibility of immediate implementation of such aspirations as you are in a car in the middle of a highway, rather a no man’s land; quite reminiscent of a queer feeling I used to have in VK’s classes when he used to glorify hypothetical legends of people getting their publications in first semester itself and I used to start determining myself to ‘enjoy’ research on any topic and attempt such a heroic undertaking only until I used to enter the hostels to find such notions, probably due to the atmosphere of procrastination and lethargy and some social services for seniors, as some superhero dreams which mesmerize kids.

Thankfully though, now after having spent a day at the High Court with some externally casual but deeply encouraging and inspiring people certain law-school-ambitions seem revived and the haze of hopeless disinterest inducing laziness appeared to have been fading away to display parts of the hard-work monster. Certainly some fruit in the first day at the HC! The entry, I admit, was more like a setting of luck done with the maker. As I walked in dad’s chamber, there was running a discussion on guardianship rights of hindu women among three people including dad and the Director of Judicial Officers’ Training Institute who had recently read Githa Hariharan v. RBI in furtherance of their research on a seminar paper titled ‘Rights of Women in Personal Laws’. With the words at my fingertips owing to the much recently given viva on that case comment towards the end of first semester, I immediately got involved in the discussion and attempted to pronounce probable ratios of that case as I perceived it and quoting the exact provisions of law involved i.e. S.6(a) of HMG Act, 1956 and S.19(b) of GW Act, 1890, their exact wordings, interpretation given by the SC and even some case laws in support of my reasons for the stand I took with respect to the judgment which sent in a wave of amazement especially pleasing the Director (supra) who helped me further throughout the day. Quite a replay of my English viva it was but he didn’t know that when he asked me out of an incredible curiosity, “You’ve done just one semester! What do those people teach you there in five years?!?!” I was all smiles, ‘what luck!’ I thought.

HC library wasn’t as fascinating as I had fancied it to be – just another reality check to remind that libraries can never be fascinating! It was, quite rationally though, too vast for any just-cleared-first-semester guy to find it useful. There was a sickening air of unease and misfit as I embarrassingly took a holistic view of the library to find most of its tables occupied by senior citizens donned in black robes and frowns of frustration and arrogance giving me a who-the-fuck-is-he-in-this-‘high court’-library look. And to aggravate this rapidly declining interest of mine, the library had all reporters of the world except the AIR 1959 SC which was exactly what I was looking for! After struggling through to the alternate citations, I somehow managed to get a copy of the wanted case from a source reached through research till the evening. Though I had an unforgettable experience in the break after lunch when I visited two court rooms and saw actual court proceedings live – one in a civil court room and the other in a criminal court room. The civil court room was boring me off to sleep, probably due to the low on life over aged counsel for the appellants who just kept reading everything out to the judge in his multi-lingual attempt to present his arguments and whenever interestingly contradicted by the more renowned and energetic opposition counsel, replied very annoyingly and crooned and rebuked. The criminal court room, on the other hand, had a supposedly stud lawyer, who had apparently exceeded certain limits of seniority (though our Prof. Vepa defies the very existence of any limit on seniority), who was the counsel for appellants in this far-more-interesting case. Though I was trying to get know-how of the procedural proceedings and amidst them whatever i could gather of the case was that it was about a minor girl who had eloped with her lover (being called as ‘dilsaayi’ in hindi) and had entered into matrimonial relations with him. The parents of the girl, when she erratically came back to them, filed the case alleging the guy under sections 363, 366 and 376 IPC and this was an appeal against the trial court judgment. For quite a long time, I sat there in the courtroom, being the only person not wearing the black robe and following the case quite interestingly. Somehow, i started feeling quite conscious of the fact and a bit certain after hearing some whispered conversations behind me that I was shockingly (for me) being suspected as that same guy in the respondent party by the people!! No sooner did I realise this than I came out of the courtroom and went back in the long drawn search for the wanted case which I finally, with the help of dad in the arrangement of some sources, managed to get a copy of. Having woken up in the wee hours of the day and after a busy and interesting day after a long time, I was feeling too sleepy to stay there longer and thus, keeping a bit of BH3 procrastination intact and a truckload of addicted-desire to watch the replay of the second match of the India-England series, I came back with the note of partial content of breaking the ice with the internship thing and getting the copy of the required judgment and the notion of starting with the project some time later whenever i feel like starting (in formal words – waiting for the ‘muhurt’!). Albeit the first day at the HC, it can be counted as another of the recently-many days when I felt attached to nalsar in ‘my-place’ sense than all of my previous attachments.