An old man with Parkinson’s

Needs a sipper and straw

Why should this simple request

Get entangled in a lot of law?

 

But amid darkness all around

It became clear as a sunny day

That even this will be contested

Thanks to that thing called NIA

 

From those trained to persecute

Can one get compassion & love?

Foot soldiers perform their duties

As per orders received from above

 

Age or health doesn’t matter

Nor gravity of the alleged crime

Prosecutors are programmed

To hem and haw and seek time

 

For information ready at hand

The pleader a fortnight seeks

And the judge is such a liberal

That he grants him three weeks!

 

On the adjourned date they say

“We took neither sipper nor straw”

And everyone seems satisfied

At the triumph of Rule of Law!

 

The Lady of Justice is Blindfolded

Maybe that’s why she can’t see

But surely she can hear the cries

Of those who cry for Liberty..

 

(Raju Z Moray is an advocate who practices law in the Bombay High Court when not puncturing bloated egos. He is the creator of ‘Gobble D. Gook’, his alter-ego, who figured in the ‘Court Jester’ columns of ‘The Lawyers’.)