To all those who grudge advocates their court holidays, you don’t know the feeling of sticking your neck out of a car’s window right into a terrifying storm, fully expecting it to be ripped apart. Only to realise that the storm is imaginary, and the car, unmoving. Stuck in a routine traffic jam on the roads of Delhi, bumper to bumper with other cars carrying other lawyers looking about from their windows. Oh, the exhaustion of realising that nothing is going to happen, because nothing is going to move!

I am an effective item 50 today. Ten years ago, that would’ve meant end of board. Now, it just means a Britannia 50-50. With a 100 matters listed before every judge, every day, there is no way of knowing how many will get taken up or at what pace. His Lordship might sprint through them all or accept his mortal limitations and hear as many as he can properly, no doubt secretly wondering why nobody warned him that he’d be expected to perform miracles like the actual ‘Lord’ almighty and how he might’ve jumped ‘ship’ at the offer of elevation had he known.

As for me, since I have arrived early in anticipation of every possible scenario, there remains only one thing to do: walk about the building aimlessly, sometimes towards a coffee, sometimes away from it. On the way, I greet familiar faces with a familiar question, ‘Where are you?’, and realise that half the courthouse is packed with Britannia 50-50s. Fervent minds with fervent matters, raring to go, but wandering about aimlessly just like me. Bumper to bumper, in a traffic jam.

There must be a reader somewhere thinking of doctors and engineers right now and thumping the fist, ‘they are the ones who do selfless, hard work! They deserve a break, not you! You overpriced, underworked, fake batman of a person!’ To that reader, I say, you have no appreciation for the selflessness that goes into watching mute-TV in the court canteen for hours that could’ve been spent developing one’s practice, all for the sake of a single case, a single prospect of vindicating a single person’s rights. Nor for the hard work that goes into then running back to court at 3:00 PM, finally expecting the matter to come up, only to watch passively as a Rolls Royce figure rolls up to argue till 4:00 PM, bumping aside any hope your Marutian client had of a proper hearing. By the time the wait is over, the bench has heard so much that it can hear no more. Which suits me just fine, because I have revised my arguments so many times that I have forgotten them. Was my matter urgent? It couldn’t have been, if it is squeezed into a minute and a half at the end of the board. Was it imminent? The only thing that seems imminent now is the collapse of my client’s hope for justice. Was I going to say something about protecting ordinary people from big corporates? Oh never mind. That argument is moot now, don’t you think?

As the clock strikes 5 something, the judge considers how much more he can endure while I muzzle an inner voice that won’t stop asking why courts can’t allocate arguing time alongside dates in their orders. I know better than to poke about questions of such gravity. That apple has surely fallen on brighter heads before, all of whom have chosen to placate themselves with the idea that ‘justice must be seen to be done’. Matters must be listed, if only to be adjourned, and allocations of time would make endless listings impossible.

‘But you were hunched over a desk all of last evening for this matter’, the voice insists, ‘the client travelled two hours by bus to meet you, and you assured him he had a good case. What good is a good case if it is never presented? And what good is guzzling so much coffee that it makes you sick?’

I just swallow the protests and try to  think of a song. Bob Dylan starts singing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in my head, but the lyrics don’t seem right.

‘How many coffees must a man guzzle down, before you can call him an advocate? How many times must he walk around the block, before he can do actual work? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in a cause-list. The answer is in a cause-list.'

I shake my head and stutter something about this being an urgent matter, but the exhaustion on the judge’s face makes me reconsider. ‘I will not trouble your lordship, may I have a short date?’

I get something in September, we are in May. I know what he is going to say.

"100 matters a day, there is no earlier slot, look at my board, no-no just look at it!"

Nothing I say will move the needle on the next date, so I don’t say anything.

And just like that, another day goes by as if it were yesterday, or the day before that, or the one before that. I walk to the car-parking exhausted from doing nothing, and cheer myself with the idea that court vacations are around the corner. At least then I will be doing nothing knowing fully well that I will be doing nothing. Those will be such constructive days.

Note from the author: Dear reader, I am thrilled to announce my upcoming fictional novella to be published by Juggernaut, which should be out by the end of the year. Looking forward to sharing it with you!