"Does the Counsel Need White Skin to Serve Black Tea?"

A year into law school, I was surprised - surprised at how a random choice could infuse hope into an ill-fated life and a wandering mind. There was now a sense of purpose and being. My vocation was the brush, and my life, the canvas. I read, wrote and pled with passion and poise. I was particularly drawn to moot court activity; the thrill and enchantment of a conversation with the Bench was unlike anything I had ever experienced; the dialogue was not always civil; on one occasion, even as I was trying to convince His Lordship of the need for pretty attendants in my imaginary client's airline, he balked with the air of a skeptic, and was quick to retort: "Does the counsel need white skin to serve black tea?" I was at a loss for words, and was asked to rest my case. With the passage of time, the love of argument wore out, and gave way to resentment; my dislike for our legal system grew with every passing day, and this had a lot to do with the manner in which our laws were drafted.

Law, I believe, is a confluence of reason and instinct, art and science; here in India, elegance in the written and spoken word is scoffed upon at all levels; class is confused with verbiage, and the study of any legal document invariably requires one to hack one's way through a corpus of verbal deadwood. Isn't brevity the proverbial soul of wit? Why then, do I have to wade through an unintelligible river of words every time I seek an answer to a simple legal problem? Jurists of the old school ascribe such verbosity to the British and take pride in the Englishness of our laws; in doing this, they conveniently cloak their apathy towards the ailment. Can we ever dispense with the sanctity attached to relics of the Raj? I think not. I could rant for hours on end; as a concerned student, I've always longed for changes in content and pedagogy. Experiences, many of them bitter, have quelled all hope . I'm resigned to my fate, and that of our archaic system.