At the High Court

With the incessant rain and with nothing much to do in the evening except read and write, I was feeling homesick in the small town I am working in. So when my boss gave me a wonderful opportunity to go to Hyderabad I jumped at the chance. He wanted me to follow up with a top government lawyer about a case in the High Court and told me not to return until I finished the task. I readily agreed to do anything that’d have me in Hyderabad for a couple of days.

I’ve been coming to the High Court since two days and doing nothing but waiting. I’ve had enough experience to know that one doesn’t go to meet lawyers, especially the government ones with a blank face. So I read up on the case and was prepared in all ways for the lawyer’s questioning. Since I also knew that most of my time would be spent waiting I took along a book. I had with me Natalie Goldberg’s ‘Wild Mind’ that I wanted to reread. I sat in the lawyer’s room with the book while he was busy reading files. After a while he got up to go outside and stopped at the door where I was sitting. He asked me what I was reading. When I showed him the book he asked me what it was about. He wanted to get a copy for himself when I told him it was about writing. His room was lined with tomes of legal books and I wonder where this book would fit in.

After he spotted me with the book I got special preference on the second day. He called me first though there were scores of people who had come before me and waiting for his call. He told me not to worry about the case and asked me to sit reading the book while he looked after the documents of the case and prepared a reply. I guess my habit of reading books everywhere has at last come of use even though not for personal reasons. At least I’d be able to impress the boss that I completed the task successfully.