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For Thanksgiving-an #AppellateTwitter tale involving my grandfather. Virtually all of us have some professional disappointments. Before my grandfather became Justice Gul, he had a big one. My great grandfather was railway clerk who owned a small amount of land /1
So though he was a frugal man, money was always tight. Assembling the money required to put his eldest son through law school was a major undertaking. He poured almost every penny he had into the enterprise. So when my grandfather became a lawyer he was under ... pressure. /2
Now this was the waning days of the Raj, but most good jobs were still reserved for Europeans. One exception was agriculture inspector. Agricultural inspectors were natives and wielded a great deal of authority and respect. My grandfather applied. Went through /3
all the stages. He got the job! He couldn’t believe it! His parents were ecstatic. And then, disaster. The Chief of Inspectors wrote to him asking if my grandfather walked with a limp. He did-one leg had been crushed in an earthquake when he was a baby. /4
Then, the Chief Inspector wrote, I regret your services are not required. Agricultural inspectors rode a great deal, and the CI felt a limping man was not up to the job. My grandfather remembered the crush of that disappointment for rest of his life. /6
He had gone from a lucrative respected job to nothing. He went home and started practicing law. There wasn’t much demand in those days. And his clients could usually pay him only in milk wheat eggs or chickens. /7
Something happened though. The British judges who heard cases began to notice him. And with the Raj dying, it became clear that “native” judges would have to be recruited to offset declining European recruitment. So one day grandpa was startled to receive a note /8
that the chief judge wanted to see him. The British never socialized with natives (maybe with Maharajahs but no one else) so this was unusual. The CJ came straight to the point. “Young man”, he said. “You May have heard that natives are being taken as judges. Have you applied?”/9
Grandpa was astounded. If the CJ had said that they were looking for a new King and would he apply, he couldn’t have been more stunned. He said that he was aware of the new inductions but hadn’t applied. “Then i suggest you do so” the CJ said. Grandpa did. /11
He was invited to take the exam. He did. He was summoned to Lahore, then the capital of British Punjab, to meet the Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court for an interview. (35 years later, when sat on that very court, he asked for the interview room for his chambers) /12
He was selected. This time he was more cautious. He went back to the Chief Judge and asked if he could be a judge with a limp. “Why the devil not?” came the reply. And the matter was never raised again. /13
So he became a judge. Approximately 45 years later, he would retired as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He met virtually every key figure in British India and then Pakistan. But none of this would have happened, he always reminded me, if he had become /14
an agricultural inspector. Or had that limp. So that’s was his Thanksgiving lesson: no one enjoys that bitter prof. disappointment. But maybe that limp and lost job marks the road to better things. The disguise may be most effective, but it’s still a blessing in disguise. /EOM
PS. Thanks for listening.
