It's worth waiting for

I could not erase the memories  off my mind about  India's sad loss to Aussies twice in the 2003 world cup match. The excruciating experience was to watch the little master,  despite his brave and gallant exhibition of sportsmanship, struggling not to succumb to his knee sprain on the second match, the finals with Aussies. He scored astonishingly 99 runs which was the oasis of hope for the team India and his expulsion came as the biggest relief to the Aussies who celebrated it so loudly. Once the giant fell, the Aussies took down the rest of the team India in no seconds. This is such an embarrassment for the Indian team. It can't always depend upon one man to win a match, let alone a cup.

I watched the little master's each and every of his move, executing every short with excellence and perfection. After he got out, the rest of the Indian team diligently followed its tradition in discipline by losing their wickets in quickest span. Aussies with fast and well professionally trained bowlers like Lee pulped the Indians out! The fall of wickets was bursting of water bubbles. The indians were totlaly at the mercy of the Aussies. It also made me think of kid playing a video game of football first time not knowing what the game itself about and without reading instructions. The team looked that stranded. The result was so predictable. 

Defeat, well, is after all part of a game. I don't say, the Indian team should never have lost to the Aussies. But even a defeat should be laudable and it can be only if there was a true fight with sincerity and responsibility and should not be like at the mercy of your opponent. 

Having witnessed the loss in the 2003 world cup, as a fan, I was devastated. Literally my life became terrible the following few weeks. I could not relieve the worries off my mind. The impact was so severe that it almost ate into my daily life. This is not the first time I am experiencing this. I infact had watched lot of such matches earlier. Therefore I seriously considered quit watching cricket and yes I did. Since there-after every time I heard the news about how badly the team India performed, I felt like I should the last one to worry about it as it no way affects my life. It was like hearing a headline news of a news paper and you forget it the next minute.

But to admit, I was once a crazy cricket watching fan, mainly because of the little master, but even that times the team India had always kept frustrating me quite often by their spirit less game. But now, its almost 8 years almost since I quit watching cricket and I am not bothered anymore if India wins or loses in the Cricket. Lately I come to learn the Australia which has thrashed us many times been given the taste of its own poison. The little master scored half a century against them while alongside creating a world record by scoring highest one day international runs. This winning takes India to the semis where they would meet Pakistan and the same gonna be a epic.

So for all these years, it's worth waiting for without watching a single match and I feel proud now to watch Indians reaching the stage where I believe they will be acknowledged as the world class professionals! Hopefully..  [And they did - edited on 11-04-2013

Justice postponed. (An open Letter to Bar Council of India: dated 7/3/11) sent via G-mail

The All India Bar Examination (AIBE), since its inception, has been perceived as an evil arm of law which if was not nipped in the bud could put the entire career of fresh law graduates of year 2010 into Jeopardy. The reasons adduced are just so many; some raised the contention that AIBE takes away their fundamental right to freely practice profession of their own. I guess they mistook the word “Bar” used in the AIBE. All these graduates required was to pass the AIBE and get a minimum pass certificate from the Bar Council of India (BCI) and continue with their profession. No body “bar”s them from practising itself. However it is quite curious that the exam applies only to the legal profession and not to medicine or any other profession. It also leads to question of why the legal profession should be targeted. Also has not a law student certified to have attended minimum number of classes and secured minimum marks in all the law subjects before he was conferred a degree and passed out as a graduate from his respective college, then why is he discriminated against a medical or engineering student? This question is answered in the object of the AIBE which states that it is to raise the standard of the Bar! However this answer begs the question; that is if one has to raise the bar, why conduct AIME? Ideally, - improve the quality of the standard of the law colleges which is, in practice, very poor in quality, as compared to other streams.

The aforementioned cumulative reasons may have led to a series of protests in the forms of PILs in individual High Courts, strikes across India, ever since the notion of AIBE was introduced. But later, all the cases were transferred to the Supreme Court which finally upheld the AIBE. When the AIBE was to be implemented, a new wave of protests arose because it made it applicable to the law graduates of batch 2010 who had already started practicing but were forced not to appear before any court of law until they clear the AIBE and other reason that could be validly presumed from is that they also found hard time balancing the time between preparing for this new type of examination and their profession(Later the students were allowed to temporarily appear subject to some undertaking and was liable to be suspended if they fail in the AIBE) as it was quite late to make it applicable upon them. Since the whole idea of AIBE was completely novice, an average student was unprepared to face it, with insufficient time to prepare for it. The BCI might have had thought about it; it postponed the exam from its originally scheduled date of examination , i.e. December 5 to March 6 which though might have given sufficient time for those who needed time to prepare, it failed to impress those who hardly considered this exam as a tussle, yet, the latter had to bear the incidental cost of such postponement whereas those who were protesting against AIBE became silent after postponement date was released, let alone those who had twice travelled all the way from London just for the heck of giving this AIBE, thereby incurring the flight expense up and down personally only to realise that AIBE was not happening, on First time because the BCI postponed it, the second time some minority few were not interested so they boycotted and the exam had to be postponed again. One such victim whom I knew personally was helpless worrying if he should come back the third time for he was not sure what other unexpected event would happen!! A person with a promissory note as proof entitling him for amount of even Rs. 10, 000 against other has a right to sue in the Court of law. This person has lost more than a lakh for no good and it is directly connected to the fact of conducting AIBE. Who should be held guilty?



The appropriate reading materials to prepare for AIBE has been supplied and in which it is implicated the question paper for the AIBE would be set from the reading materials only. A model question paper which can be downloaded online from the BCI official website is highly helpful regarding this matter. There was also sufficient time created to study those materials. It was declared the exam would be an open book type meaning any person could bring any material except electronic device. Despite, English being a necessary and important language for a student of law, relaxation was nevertheless made for the purpose of the AIBE to write even in a vernacular medium, i.e. Tamil. From December 5 till to March 6th , there has been silence and no protest and every one was presumed to have been acquiesced to the idea of AIBE and was preparing for the same but Just before the Exam was about to begin, I see a handful of few delinquent students (I helplessly use this term) amongst whom there were older than middle aged men too, abruptly started making ruckus shouting slogans, which I had seen only during events like election rally, also some tearing the students’ name list put up on every class doors (for them to identify their respective rooms allotted for their exam), while some threatening to pull any student out and beat them up if they dare enter into any of his or her classroom to write the exam. I don’t understand why? Their only justification for doing this was that AIBE has no legal validity.

AIBE may or may not have legal footing but it is true AIBE as an idea was envisaged, was made in to a workable law. There was protest et all but it is all over. It is true, AIBE was conducted all over India on March 6th February, 2011 and law graduates of batch 2010 from all over India wrote this exam at their respective centres, except here in Chennai. And it is also true that the majority applicants for AIBE who were at the examination hall were ready to write their exam but could not. Whoever behind engineering the thought that by boycotting, the AIBE could be scrapped have clearly not applied their mind and have acted keeping in mind the short end goal alone which has only kicked us back in the form of examination being postponed to march 27th. Now because of some minority few, the whole batch of lawyers are made to carry forward this hangover of AIBE for another month whereas whoever who wrote the AIBE in other part of the country rejoicing all over India of being relived of the AIBE shackle. It was a forlorn hope for those who thought by boycotting, they could make BCI scrap the AIBE. These people, doubtlessly, have either had no brains or not applied their mind. How is that possible? Assuming BCI agrees and scraps AIBE, would the lawyers who had just given the AIBE across the country be quite? I foresee a much worse situation - An Inter-state violence fostered directly by the very idea of AIBE, in which case the very object of AIBE, i.e. to raise the standard of bar would bite the dust.

Even I was against the idea of AIBE when it was proposed to be implemented just like many other were across the country, especially the manner in which the BCI was experimenting with it. But the AIBE is not a draconian law to be taken that seriously also. The fundamental right to express doesn’t entail one to express his or her rights anywhere and anyway it suits him, especially when such exercise by a certain few would impose heavy cost upon others. The boycott of AIBE on March 6th by a minority few, being watched haplessly by the rest, is the most irrational form of exercise of freedom I have ever happen to witness in my career. If a handful of few want to boycott the AIBE why others who have genuine interest in the AIBE should suffer? The irony was that the very same people who had engineered this boycott; they had full support and protection from the police who were suppose to thwart such deviant behavior. And what is the guarantee that such thing will not be repeated on March 27th and if it repeats it is the BCI which should be primarily responsible.

I seek instant remedy. BCI has to be a little more serious about the lives of the lawyers who wanted to practice litigation with no unnecessary worries other than that legitimately concerns our profession. I was hoping, March 6th would put an end to everything, but a minority few with the temerity that no body would question no matter what they do ( the inaction of police stood testimony to that) coupled with their callousness about the serious repercussion that would ensue with respect to the others’ career, have boycotted the exam. Please do realize that BCI is not a science lab and lawyers are not Guinea pigs. Therefore

Merely postponing this exam would not be the remedy to it. It won’t help prevent events like what occurred today from repeating. I, on behalf of the majority who are interested in writing the AIBE, are not prepared to suffer further because of state’s potential inability to conduct the examination scheduled to be held on March 27th in a peaceful manner. On March 6th, the local police were so minimal and hence proved useless, irrespective of them supporting culprits through the whole event. So we expect the BCI to be proactive about this issue, we need assurance that there will be adequate and guaranteed protection to ensure that the AIBE will be conducted smoothly and successfully on March 27th. It does not matter even if the security necessary is as good as it is necessary to conduct a mid-term assembly election. The state won’t lose much in the exchequer for appointing an approximate of 200 police personnel at each center for 4 to 5 hours for the security. Our professional lives are at stake. It is BCI which came with the idea of AIBE, so morally; the BCI should be responsible for any negative effect of that we are made to bear with. Postponement of AIBE is definitely a negative effect. Now it is up to the BCI to decide how it should be done and to prevent any further consequences that would otherwise bound to arise out of the conduct of the very same who cannot be dealt based on logic and reason.