When I was pursuing my law I could not have fathomed even in my utter wilderness, to have sat over a chat with a Supreme Court Judge. But it actually happened in wilderness! It happened on June 5, at 7:00 pm, when we had reached back from our evening safari, to our Forest Rest House number 3, at Dhikala Forest Lodge, Jim Corbett, Uttarakhand. I could find a standard high-profile protocol only befitting a Supreme Court judge, and found out that Justice N Kotiswar Singh was staying in room number 1. I summoned my courage to pass a message and soon found him sitting with me. A paragon of humility, suavity and mildness rolled into one.
He has been Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court. The discussion revolved around Kashmir and by extension to Lucknow. I being from Lucknow, in my ordinary prudence, always try to keep some semblance to it. Somehow the discussion went around the book by VS Naipaul : India a Million Mutinies Now, in which Naipaul had given his instinctive references about Lucknow in the chapter The End of the Line and The House on the Lake on Kashmir. Your Eminence got enamored, took to jotting the name of the title and wanted to know if the book is available on Amazon. He sought to know if I had ever visited Kashmir and insisted that I should.
He then reflected on his first-hand experience in Kashmir which he found to be extremely secular. Where Muslims do not slaughter cows out of regard for Hindu Brahmin sentiments. He emphasized that only a meager percentage of Kashmiris have turned to fanaticism unlike the overwhelming majority which is most essentially secular. Artisans have flourished in Kashmir. If one is a warrior one cannot be an artist he would aver. He would laugh to recollect that once when he asked the cost of a Pashmina shawl, it was for 1.5 lacs, and that would mean shelling out his whole salary. He loathed the efforts from Pakistan to radicalize Kashmiris in the name of religion and reviled the experiment to make Kashmiris follow the line of warriors like Afghanis.
His wife Vijay Lakshmi, a Professor of Sociology would join the conversation. She would narrate how overwhelmed by the sentiment she was, when she prayed at Charar-e-Shareef and when she had opened-up her eyes, she would see all Kashmiri women praying with her and for her. Kissing her and offering her and her husband the best wishes, before they moved to Supreme Court. Her father belonged to Sialkot. Mother hailed from Lucknow.
My wife Dr Maha Kazim too joined the meeting. She is MBBS, MS in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and apprised what makes on the immuno compromised state of mother during pregnancy. Justice listened with rapt attention. Justice then would nod that every subject should be known as myriad issues are handled by the SC. He was well abreast of the film Adolescence directed by Philip Barantini, which has taken the world by storm these days.
He would then confide that he writes the judgement ten times, and tears it apart, to write it all over again, as SC is what is the last resort. In his own downright unassuming mild persona he would confide that he never ‘let-it-go’ that though they are all Lordships yet the Great Lord is always who sits above. In his meaningful mark he delved that SC knows it very well how it has to uphold democracy and the nerve which runs through it is Article 142 of our Constitution which is to see ‘complete justice in any cause’. He offered us a dinner but we had already had it. His wife gave my kids a motherly hug as we reclined back into our room.
The next morning, at 5:30 am, we were ready for our next safari. Justice was all prepared for the errand too. After morning Adaab, he again wished that I visit Kashmir. We took to our safari. We were fortunate to have sighted tiger-the only buzz around, for twice. Thoughts streamed my mind. I remembered Robert Frost famous lines on the road less travelled. Certainly, after the rendezvous at Corbett Tiger Reserve it was all accomplished. A visit worth to reminisce and remember forever. We had visited Dhikhala after a stay at Gairal.
Thanks Your Lordship. Thanks Your Eminence.
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and an advocate.
