A day in the Varkala court

It seems such a long time since this war has been going on. In almost a year time not much has changed as far my legal situation.  Indian justice is slow and, from what I can see, murky. I do not have experience in legal matters, never filed a lawsuit. What I thought was commonsense, here in India is not applicable.

Every one lies, the lawyers, the witnesses, everyone; although, one has to swear to say the truth when deposed in the court. Am I too naïf to expect the truth? Probably, yes, but I have never seen so many liars in the same room.

The Varkala First Class Magistrate Court is a moldy building at the edge of a coconut grove. Near by there are no restaurants, no drinking water (the only available water is reserved for the lawyers inside their Bar Association tiny Room). In front of the building there are two glorious frangipane trees, old and knotted, and the ground beneath them is carpeted with the most beautiful perfumed white flowers. These two trees are the best thing of the court house. The courtroom is the size of a medium classroom, with wooden benches for the lawyers, a cement podium for the witnesses and the judge’s desk, on a higher ground. The ceiling fans agitate the long ancient black nets of spider webs. The public is confined to the west side of the court, on a porch furnished with cement and wooden benches.  

  

The crowd of spectators, supporters, witnesses, aggrieved people and criminals includes small children, infants, police officers, and handcuffed prisoners. Everyone pushes towards the only one door of the courtroom, to watch and hear.

It is really hard to know what is going on inside the court. Obviously, the court’s language is Malayalam, but occasionally, and especially in my case, they use a mix of English and Malayalam. The first thing that happens when the court is in session is a roll call; the clerk reads the case numbers scheduled for the day. Mine is CC 60/2010, and I recognize it immediately when called in Malayalam. When the number is called I have to approach the door, to show that judge that I am present. Since Bala was granted bail by the Varkala court, he is also present at the hearings. He stares at me with an intense look of anger, or he smiles, or makes funny faces like something is eating him.

The witnesses go up to the podium to answer questions and there is no recorder, the judge writes everything down, in Malayalam, I presume. Therefore one has to speak slowly to allow the judge the time to write everything, questions and answers. There are pieces of paper everywhere; frail bundles of dusty papers stacked at the feet of the bench, or loose on the floor.

Sometimes there are more lawyers than public. They wear long black flowing coats, like the English barristers, with a starched or plastic white collar. The ladies lawyers wear the black coat over the traditional dress, such as saree or churidar (large pants and long chemise). Most of these black overcoats have turned grey after long years of practice. There is one special lawyer that I search for when I go to the court, just to make sure he is ok, still with us. He is a very small man, extremely thin, his sparse hair combed over. His overcoat is ripped at the seams, the hem is threadbare. He always wears the same flip flop sandals, and his pants barely cover the ankles. He clutches a bunch of papers and he wonders around like someone that has not had the courage to tell the family he no longer has a job to go to, yet he “goes to work” every morning. I have never heard him speaking in the court.

From the first hearing I have realized that anything goes here. This first impression has been confirmed in conversations with various local people that confirmed that it is not uncommon here that a lawyer cheats the client. They gave me many reasons for that: 

“Here, it is not like in your country, lawyers make little money. So they will try to get as much as possible by making compromise”, this is one of the reasons I heard to explain why opposing lawyers come to agreements at the expenses of their clients. A friend told me how he was cheated by a lawyer. The family needed to have a stay order placed on a construction project and they approached the lawyer, who was a relative. The lawyer took his fee from them, took what he said was the court fee to file the request and never file anything, just pocketed the money. This may be an extreme case, but it must be noted that he was a relative, imagine if he were just a lawyer!

During counter-interrogation a common technique is to attack the witnesses, give no time to think of the answer and attempt to intimidate the person questioned, especially of she is a woman. I have seen poor ladies bend their heads and cry.

Not me. Mine was the first testimony of the trial. The court room was full. Bala was present, carrying my 10 years old Jansport backpack (12 dollars at Costco) which he had recuperated from trash, after I got tired of owning it.

The procedure is that the opposing lawyer questions the written statements submitted by the aggrieved person, me. Bala’s lawyer is a thin short man with an impossible to understand enunciation, even in Malayalam, and, unfortunately, no knowledge of spoken English. This created a few light moments in the courtroom. For example:

Bala’s lawyer said:

 “The respondent said that you have never seen his house in Cochin and never met his parents”.

I spent 3 months in 2003 in Bala’s family home in Fort Cochin; I became quite famous in the neighborhood as the “saibin”, the white woman.

Bala’s lawyer continued:

 “The respondent said that the photos you presented to the court are morphed”.

And I replied:

“The respondent is a lair”.

Bala’s lawyer was taken aback:

“You say the respondent is a lawyer?”

I smiled, then:

“A lair, sir, not a lawyer, you are his lawyer, Bala is a liar, a kallan” , which means liar in Malayalam.

Everyone in the courtroom laughed, even the judge. The only serious face was Bala’s lawyer, who did not understand the different pronunciation of   lawyer, \ˈlȯ-yər, ˈlȯi-ər\ and a liar, \ˈlī(-ə)r\. 

When I left the courtroom that day, a few lawyers chitchatting outside the court smiled at me and one gave me the high five. They really enjoyed the joke.

But light moments are rare and it is very stressful to be in the court. No one here had ever seen a Madama - this is what the white women are called here – going to the court every time. In fact, thee have been numerous foreigners, especially women, cheated by local man like Bala, but no one has ever been taken to the court. I can see now how difficult it is, considering that Bala has paid off the whole Varkala Police Station for years, just in the eventuality that he would have needed their help.