Instances of mistaken identity is quite common in the courts, given that a huge range of reasons take people to the Houses of Justice. A colleague had a particularly rib-tickling experience to share. It was a warm sunny Monday morning, the worst day of the week; the day when the body becomes a battleground between what the heart desires (sleep) and what one’s mind compels one to do. The colleague had to visit the Patiala court to depose in a case in which he was a witness. As he dragged himself down a dusty corridor, full of people, each looking involved in their own problems, he looked around for the particular court room that he was supposed to go to.

As he turned the corner he was suddenly surrounded by a large number of people, all impeccably dressed, all of them speaking to him at the same time, which he could not understand one bit. While our colleague is not a person who likes to attract attention, but once in a while it does make one feel good, he decided as he suddenly felt as if he had become the most important person in the world, with everyone trying to get his attention.

Advertisement

Then it dawned on him that that he had been surrounded by lawyers, each of whomwas trying to woo him by offering their services, for a price of course. But the moment he declared his reason for coming there and sought directions to the court room, the entire lot of the impeccably dressed lawyers vanished leaving him feeling ignored and unimportant once again! Not just that, he had to make his way through the maze of corridors before finding the right court room.