Chapter 1
A priori
It was her laughter that Sahir heard first, the sound of dancing
bells, interrupting the furious clacking of his fingers on the keyboard. Or
perhaps he was the one who had allowed himself the momentary distraction. He
turned his glare towards the door. But of course it had been left open by that
scatter-brained secretary of his. And now that he knew that the door really was
open, all the other office sounds came swarming into his room. Phones were
ringing, printers were whirring, people were talking, walking with those damned
heels of theirs. And then she laughed again. The nerve.
He strode across his cabin but before he could reach the door, she
breezed in. The new intern, that is. The remnants of some silly chirpiness were
still etched on her face and he could instantly infer that she was the one who
had been laughing. She was accompanied by Linda who routinely showed the new
recruits around and introduced them to the staff working at the law firm.
"You left my office door open. Can't you do anything
right?" he snapped at Linda before she could say anything.
The new intern did not even flinch. She just surveyed him,
silently, seeming only mildly intrigued.
"Sorry Sir," Linda muttered to his knees, "Sir,
this is the new intern. Arzoo Nawsheen Khan -"
"Nice to meet you," he said, mechanically, as a matter
of practised courtesy.
"Oh, it's so nice to meet you too, Sir," she replied,
her face glowing as she smiled at him, as though she meant it.
He could not quite understand, then, why he was so irritated by
her eagerness, her bright sunny buoyancy. As they began to work together, his
irritation with her only kept growing. It was unnerving, the way she appeared
unfazed by his harsh stoicity, almost as though she had dared to perceive
something that lay beyond the shields erected around him, something that
obviously did not even exist.
He soon surmised that Arzoo Nawsheen Khan was an idiot, not in
matters of law so much, but more generally, when it came to how she should
conduct herself, which was no less important. She was like a child, which may
have been acceptable, but he had been a part of the profession long enough to
know that it had no place for naive fools like her. And yet, even as, every now
and then, he predicted to himself that she would not last another week at the
firm, she continued to waltz in everyday with her brand of optimism, her
ideals, and worse, her stubbornness and self-assurance.
For some reason, the partners at the firm - his seniors - were happy with her
work. Well, it was true that learnt fast and worked sincerely. But if he had
not been only a junior at the firm, he would undoubtedly have had more accurate
insights to give about why she was completely unsuited to be a part of such a
reputed firm. He had realized after some time that she was not childlike,
in the sense that she was guileless and devoid of artifice. She was just a
spoilt brat, nothing more.
He could have tolerated her ignorance but her immaturity was
unforgivable. She could just never understand the need for seriousness and
sobriety because she had the luxury to take everything for granted, in jest,
almost. She must have been one of those persons who was always handed
everything on a silver platter. Once, he had asked her about where she had
studied. He had almost been unsurprised to learn that she had started with
studying English literature and journalism, and then moved to law because it
"seemed fascinating," and then taken a gap year before beginning her
internship. He had predicted her "type" quite accurately after all -
she was one of those hippies who wanted to make a difference in the world and
had filled her airy head with fashionable flowery notions of justice and world
peace, with no knowledge whatsoever of how the real world functioned beyond her
rose-tinted spectacles.
What could she, someone who chose career options on a whim,
possibly know of poverty, of having to work to pay one's fees, of the struggle
to make one's name in a ruthless profession without any name to back one's own.
Surely, she had only landed up at one of the biggest firms of the country
through recommendations. Oh, he knew her type well enough, and despised her for
it. If anything, her very presence amidst the world that he had laboured so
hard to build, felt to him like nothing short of provocation.
It had only been two months since she had joined the firm, but how
torturously the time had drudged on. Arzoo had insisted on tailing him like a
shadow, masking her antics behind a so-called keenness to "learn everything."
Sure, he was her mentor in a way, but no other intern had invaded his space in
the way that she did, constantly bursting into his cabin, asking incessant
questions, giving her unsolicited (and usually wrong) opinions. Other interns
at least pretended to be knowledgeable. But she seemed to have no qualms in
revealing her ignorance. He snubbed her at every point, taunting her for her
lack of experience, and shaky knowledge base, but she hardly seemed affected at
all. It was all a game for her after all. It was all pretence. Her wide-eyed
wonder when she listened to him, her words of praise and gratitude.
He hated her. And he hated that she did not even seem to notice his
attempts at making her realize that. And he hated that she was able to affect him
to such an extent. He could not wait for
the day when she would finally leave, so that he could get back to his
unperturbed, disciplined lifestyle. But alas, it seemed, fate had other plans.
Fate, being in conspiracy of course, with the partners at the firm. They had decided
to send him to an important conference on arbitration being held in New Delhi
the following week, with her in tow. As though it was not enough that he had to
see her everyday at the office. Now they would have to travel out of the city
together.
"Sahir Sir?" her voice chirped.
"What?" Sahir said irritably, snapping out of his musings.
"I wanted to talk about the Mehta case. You haven't given me any
feedback yet, on the opinion that I
wrote. I know you said that we should proceed by way of divorce by mutual
consent. But I think if we went for irretrievable marital breakdown based on
the husband's fault, she would get a lot more by way of alimony. She does need
the money after all. I have studied the file thoroughly, there are very strong
grounds that we can rely on. I have identified case law as well. It's all there
in my opinion."
"Arzoo, we do not make decisions for our clients. We act as per
their instructions. I thought you would know that much at least."
"I understand, Sir," she said, clearly not understanding, and
sticking to her ground stubbornly as usual, "but -"
"There are no buts, Arzoo. You are only an intern, here to learn
how things work. So, to begin with, just learn to listen when you are taught
something."
"But Sir," she said anyway, "I think that Mrs Mehta is only
intimidated by the idea of a full-blown lawsuit, and perhaps the husband has
been pressurizing her as well. We only need to reassure her maybe. That's what
I think."
"And will you take the responsibility for what happens when the
husband's lawyer starts with the mudslinging, placing all sorts of untoward
accusations on her? Mrs Mehta is a wordly woman, she knows what she is talking
about. Have you ever even been to a divorce hearing? Do you know what happens
when you bring fault and adultery in as issues? Do you know what happens when
there are big sums of money involved and the one party can go to any lengths to
avoid paying that sum?"
"But it will all be lies. And we have a much stronger case, right?
We could actually win, I think. I mean the case law is completely on our side. Psychologically it will be -"
"Truth does not always triumph, Arzoo," Sahir interrupted testily, "This is the real world, it's
filthy. I know you are out to be a hero and change the world with your rosy
ideals. But it does not work that way. This is not a textbook case - no case
ever is. There are compromises to make. There are several complex issues to
consider. It is not one of your stupid Hindi movies, where you parade in your
lawyer's gown and get judgments delivered in your favour based on tear-jerking cliches.
Get that in your stupid head once and for all, and you may stand a chance of miraculously
qualifying as a lawyer one day. It's not by prancing around like an idiot that you get to deserve this position. And I personally cannot see anyone less deserving than you for what this position requires."
Sahir realized, as soon as he had ended his formidable speech,
that he had gone too far. He was not one to get personal in a professional
setting. He had always maintained decorum, never once allowing any emotion to break
through his deadpan exterior. He had never even raised his voice, and here he was, shouting at an intern, insulting her.
And for once, Arzoo seemed a bit shaken too. The light seemed to
have left her eyes altogether.
"You're right Sir," she said quietly, before leaving the cabin,
without the customary bounce in her step.
And although she did not disturb him for the rest of the day, he
had never been so disturbed. He thought several times about going to her and apologizing.
But there was a part of him that whispered almost gloatingly that he had done
well to tell her what he thought of her, that it would help her in the long
run, shaking her out of her rosy bubble, and forcing her to see the world as it
was. Despite this, however, his restlessness remained. Well into the night,
which was punctuated by fitful dreams of her walking away from him in a
mist-filled forest, without so much as a backward glance.
The next morning, he resolved to apologise. But she cut him short,
saying, "It's okay, Sir. You are trying to help me, and I appreciate that."
Her response threw him off completely. Even though she only voiced out what he had been
thinking anyway, to hear it from her made him feel even more ashamed of
his outburst. He wished she had shouted at him instead, or been rude and angry at least. But there
was not a single hint of derision or pretence in her voice and tone. She actually appeared to be sincere, although this did nothing to reassure him that he had been forgiven. Her smile was subdued, broken. And he knew no way of
unsaying what had been said.
He realized that day that as much as he hated her,
he could not hurt her. That much, he knew for sure. It was a revelation of
sorts, for someone who had been dubbed
by everyone - much to his own satisfaction - as the Shark. Maybe he was not so callous after all.
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Chapter 2: Page 2
Edited by _.serendipity._ - 9 years ago
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