Himalayan Echoes, Nov 2025

       Nitya & Pallavi with Janhavi Prasad

In the beginning of this tumultuous year, there happened ‘the great Nainital violence’ and after suffering its' burning heat, finally some comfort returned to this lake town in the form of ‘Himalayan Echoes’ 2025. It is a wonderful literary fest organized by Janhavi Prasad at Abbotsford very tastefully every year. It brings freshness to mind like the smell of a new book.

 

All the peace and good name of our beloved home was brutally snatched away this year by midnight attacks on whosoever attended a different church. Verdicts were passed by all and sundry, based on the color of religious books and demography.

 

Even before constables or courts could open the files, laymen pronounced judgments and punishments were given.

 

Although the deep scars of this violence shall never leave our hearts and minds now, still Jahanavi Prasad’s literary fest full with well-dressed natives of Nainital at Prasada Bhawan, adorning all designer dresses and sunglasses in pleasant sunshine brought back the color and sweetness of our town.

 

Book Launches

"NAINITAL Through  MEMORY, STORIES & HISTORY"

Author- JANHAVI PRASAD                          

                                                             

Book starts with the History of Nainital and brings to life the Faces of Nainital: Past and Present. It has such good sketches of the daily life and places of Nainital that the reader not only reads the books but immediately travels entire town while reading. Nitya was very excited to get the book signed by Janhavi. After talking to the author about St. Mary School, on the way back home Nitya somehow declared that she is the best writer.

 

"Pugmarks & Pugdundees # Nainital Diaries"

Author- Shiveshwar Raj Singh

It is a narrative of the everlasting nostalgia of the Nainital. Everyone who has lived in Nainital can relate to the memories brought back by the author. 

The stories of The Pastry Man, Dorothy’s Seat, Sailing Boats, Bun-Tikki, Bara Bazar and many more written in such expressive way that the reader will feel sitting in a time machine travelling in the past of Nainital.

With Saurabh Kripal & Nicolas

With Candy Aunty

Nitya with Abu

At Rustic Slice Stall

Pallavi & Nitya

                                                                                        

The Frightened Lawyer

Friend is foe and foe is friend !

 

I fought for what I deemed the right,

I saw the Truth, I was her Knight.

My foemen, too, were thus aflame,

Blind chessmen in the obscure game,

Of some malign divinity.

Now, with unfolding eyes, We see.

The paradox of every fight,

That both are wrong,

And both are right.

That friend is foe and foe is friend,

And nothing matters in the end.

                        

        George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962).

It is difficult to know when the end is. Nobody has known it. Nobody will know it. What we can know is what matters in the end. And it is true that nothing matters in the end. Every day, I started with a new fight for something which I thought as mine, only to find out in the end that it was not!

The Frightened Lawyer

Courts and Governments.

Source- https://indianculture.gov.in/node/2824395

Maulana Azad’s Trial (1922)

 

(Maulana Azad was Charged under Section 124-A of the India Penal Code (Sedition)  for two speeches delivered by him in Mirzapur Park in Calcutta, on 1 and 15 July 1921 to protest the arrests of Hakim Saeed-ur-Rahman, Jagdamba Prasad, and Ajodhya Prasad.  He was held guilty and sentenced to a year’s rigorous imprisonment)

 

The Court Statement of Azad -

 

“Except the Government itself, no sensible man can deny the fact that in the present set-up there is no hope for justice from the courts established by the Government; not because they are presided by persons who do not desire to do justice, but because they are part of a system in which no magistrate can do justice to a person whom the government itself does not wish to be dealt with justly. Here, I wish to make it clear that non-cooperation is directed against the present system of government and its rules of governance and not with individuals.

 

History bears witness that whenever the ruling powers took up arms against truth and justice, the Court-rooms served as the most convenient and plausible weapons. 

The authority of courts of law is a force which can be used for both justice and injustice. In the hands of a just government, it becomes the best instrument for attaining right and justice. But, for tyrannical and repressive government, there is no better weapon for wreaking vengeance and perpetrating injustice.

Next to battlefields it is in the court-rooms that some of the greatest acts of injustice in the history of the world have taken place. 

From the holy founders of religions to investors and pioneers of science, there is no movement for piety or truth which was not arraigned before the criminal courts. Doubtless, the revolution which time has brought about ended many excesses. I accept that in modern times we have none of the terrible outrages of 2^nd AD in the Courts of Rome or the tortures perpetrated during the Inquisition of Middle Ages. But I am not prepared to accept that our times are free from the emotions which moved those courts. For sure, their edifices have been pulled down where were preserved dreadful weapons of torture. But who can change those hearts in which are buried the fearful secrets of human selfishness and injustice?

 

The list of injustices committed by courts is a long one. History continues to mourn them to this day. 

In the list we find a holy personage like Jesus Christ who was made to stand with thieves before a strange Court of his times. We find it in Socrates who was sentenced to drink a cup of poison for no other reason than that he was the most truthful person in his country. We find also the name of the great martyr to truth of Florence, Galileo, who refused to belie what he knew and learnt from his experiments, though their avowal was a crime in the eyes of the court of the time.

 

I have mentioned Jesus Christ as a person because in my faith he was a holy person who brought from the Almighty the message of goodness and love. But, in the eyes of millions of people he was even greater than that. What a strange yet majestic place is the dock of the accused in which letter, the most righteous and the worst of men are made to stand. It is not an inappropriate place even for a great person.

 

When I reflect on the majestic and historic significance of this place and find myself honored by standing in it, my soul bows spontaneously in praise and gratitude to God and He alone knows the joy and elation that fill my heart. In this dock for the accused, I am filled with a pride which would be the envy of Kings.

…”

 

How Contemporary...!!!

The Frightened Lawyer

My Last Question !

Whether I am a capitalist or a socialist ?

The Harley Davidson Lawyer certainly doesn't qualify to be a socialist. 

But law school training cant let me remain a capitalist too.

Law school taught us the relevance of socialism.

But the law practice made us realize the power of capitalism, which is brute and absolute. 

Neither law nor courts recognize poverty of a petitioner as a ground for any relief.

Can socialism be served without the means provided by capitalism?

-------

Long back, I asked the last question from my grandfather on his deathbed! 

Q-What school of thought you belonged?

Ans-I belonged to my own school of thought. 

 

"Own School of Thought" remained a dominant theory of my life.

Finally heart has some socialism but mind remains capitalist.

The Frightened Lawyer.

All Skeletons come out Naked !

Lets dig, 

Let's dig deepest.

Let's bring out all skeletons.

Yours and mine.

Rest assured, 

All skeletons come out naked.

The Frightened Lawyer.

Justice Tarun Agarwal; A Judge for the Bar.

 

Justice Tarun Agarwal remained for a brief period in the High Court of Uttarakhand from 2009 to 2012.   

 

Rarely we see someone, who goes to the high podium and also does not forget that once he belonged to the Bar. Justice Tarun Agarwal was one such rare judge.

 

Justice Agarwal, although sat on the high chair but cared highest for the bar and its members. I saw that intellectual giant in my very initial years of practice and found him a lively, fearless and warm-hearted judge. 

 

Giving relief was the rule of his court and dismissal only a rare exception.

 

Older members of the bar shall remember several instances of his dynamic personality. One we saw it when there was a strike from the bar against the rude behavior of the then chief justice in court. Justice Tarun Agarwal was senior most judge in the court and as soon as he came to know about the strike of lawyers, he himself invited Bar leaders and senior advocates to discuss the matter. He immediately not only talked to the Chief Justice but also advocated for the Bar. Only due to his high regard and respect, Bar ended the strike.

 

Only due to the meticulous organizational capacity of that beloved judge of the Bar, High Court of Uttarakhand had its grandest celebration for the decennial anniversary. The scale of grandeur which we could achieve due to his leadership is yet to be seen again in this court.

Although more than a decade has passed but I remember it like yesterday, in the Court no-1, I heard an elegant and graceful voice of a Judge saying to me; Yes, you young man, stand up, Will you become court commissioner in this matter? I was too young to give any confirm reply however with in no time Justice Tarun Agarwal passed the order appointing me the court commissioner to inspect a school in the remote hills of Kumaon. 

Justice Tarun Agarwal was fear of 'the executive' and check of 'the legislature'. 

This Court lost a fearless, giant watchguard of Justice.

Man on the Last Broken Bench !

 

Man on the last broken bench. 

Was he the litigant !

Why was he on the last bench ?

While he is the reason. 

For all our front rows ,

And high podiums !

The Frightened Lawyer.