If you’ve seen her riding in an auto to court, trussed up in a big black coat in this sweltering heat, please don’t feel sorry for her. For she, the broke lawyer, is not a product of circumstance. She’s chosen to have car fumes play havoc with her hair as she flips through the judgment she pulled out at 6:00 AM and ignores the auto-wala’s complaints about the rising prices of fuel. This havoc is not coincidence. It is faith. “I’ll argue it today”, she assures herself, mentally envisioning every question, objection, from the judge, the opposition, as she’s done countless times over the last six months, “and when I do, I’ll make it grand”.

“But how will that make anything better?”, the voice in her head keeps asking, “one good order will not change your practice. You need a hundred. And if you don’t have a hundred after ten years on the job, what is the point?!” The voice makes a good point. Is there a point? She would like to explain her motivations, even to herself. But how does one explain a feeling? Not a thought, it was a feeling that got her into practice, and a feeling that keeps her here. If she’d thought it through, she’d have stuck to that first job in the well-lit law-firm where the snacks were free. Or become an in-house boss for a big company where she’d have lots to do and someone to do it for her. Instead, here she is, seeking out the hardships of court-life where the only thing free is her own, day-and-night availability for demanding clients and endless paperwork. As for boss vibes, they left the building somewhere between the first bow and third ‘your lordship’ of the day.

But the feeling. Of stepping into shaded corridors and smiling at familiar faces, stories from different cases. Of reading the board, sniffing out the temperature of a courtroom, taking a quick walk to the registry for that other filing. Of belonging to a place which has purpose, however small your role in it may be. Sure, there are bigger people in the world doing bigger things. But the makers of fast cars know nothing of a carpenter’s joy in chipping out a toy Ferrari for a little boy. They don’t work with their hands. Read papers, draft, file, argue, for the sake of the cheated old man or the illegally evicted shop keeper. Her practice gives her agency. She can choose to defend an indefensible young boy who’s confessed to killing a djinn. To travel all the way to his tribal village to investigate the truth. To plead ‘not guilty’ on the boy’s behalf and lose all her other clients in the process.

And so, as she walks about the courthouse, fully prepared for argument and adjournment alike, she is not wistful. She is happy. Filled to the brim with three cups of coffee, pacing herself for the fourth. Chatting with others who confirm that her matter is unlikely to reach, but buoyant on the sliver of hope that it just might slide in on the 4:00 PM uncertainty and be taken up, depending on the judge’s mood and her own good offices with him. Of which there are few because meaty matters are hard to come by even after ten years on the job.

The clock strikes 4:00 and the judge looks at her, ‘so, what is this about’. She begins to explain. Briefly, at first, conscious that she’ll be interrupted any minute. But nobody interrupts her. She argues. And argues. And argues some more. He hears her. Patiently, attentively, fully. The other side responds, and he hears her again, just to be sure that he’s got everything down. ‘Judgment reserved’, he says, before she bows out panting, beaming, content after what seems like years of preparation. Ready to wait another lifetime for another day just like this one. Broke, tired, and very, very happy.

Note: With much excitement, my book, “The Figure in the Fog” is on its way to the printing press and should be out to buy by the end of July 2026-ish. As promised, the readers of this blog get to call dibs! I’ll give out 50 early copies of the printed manuscript with personalised, hand-written notes to all those willing to read and review the book for me.

Your reviews can be short, one paras, or longer, and published on your amazon accounts (preferably) or social media handles. Juggernaut, the publisher, will republish the top reviews on its own media handles and/or in reprints of the book. You can reach me for the manuscript at manineebrar@gmail.com, by 20 June 2026. Below is the jacket to give you a sense of what it is about: