Barrister Parvateesam

I said, “You may say so.” Even so, after a moment’s thought, he continued, “I have no doubts at all, sir. I have complete faith in you. But just yesterday, or perhaps the day before, another pleader in this very town—one with both name and clients—has been trying for a long time to bring me into his circle. Now, he has launched a new weapon. He told me that you are in very poor health, that you are suffering from advanced tuberculosis, and that you will not live more than two or three months. He suggested it would be wise for me to entrust all my cases to someone else before time runs out—in other words, to entrust them to him. I was shocked. I was stunned to realize that even such senior people could harbor such base thoughts. I was deeply troubled. I came to tell you all this, but I do not believe the health report he gave me about you, not even for a moment, sir.” With a respectful bow, he left without waiting for a reply.

I came inside and lay down for a long time, pondering the nature of mankind.

Two days after this incident, when I appeared in court, that senior pleader was astonished to see me. He even forgot to utter the usual, “Oh, are you well?” Within four or five days, our Raju’s case came up for hearing, and the verdict was in Raju’s favor. For that pleader, it was as if he had suffered a stroke.

As my court work increased, I began to feel a deep discouragement and disgust towards my profession. The corruption that occurs here, the mentality of the pleaders, the quarrelsome nature of the clients, the relentless desire to snatch even an inch of another’s property, the greed for a penny or a pie—whether for the plaintiff or the defendant—people appear in court, take a solemn oath before God, declaring, “I will tell the truth, I will not lie,” and then, without a trace of shame, make a profession of giving false testimony.

Watching the people I had taken as role models, I saw that, unsatisfied with the government salaries they received for their jobs, they secretly lined their pockets, conveniently forgetting the illegal activities they committed daily. Yet, if someone else were accused of those same crimes in court, these very men would, without a shred of hesitation, declare him guilty and sentence him with all the authority vested in them. Witnessing such scenes, I began to feel a deep aversion—not just towards the education I had acquired, or the money I earned, or the profession I practiced, or even my fellow Andhras, but towards the entire human race and this so-called civilization itself. The urge to abandon this profession grew stronger by the day.

Every day, the truth and appropriateness of Gandhiji’s call became clearer to me: he had urged all lawyers to leave the courts, all students to leave their schools, and