I was in Justice *One-of-the-competent-ones* court, waiting for our case to be heard. The courtroom was absolutely packed and there wasn't much space to stand or breathe, forget sitting.
So I was busily trying to watch and learn court practices, by which I really mean I was being subjected to the sound of a constant stream of "Excuse me madam" being hissed at me by men in suits as they pushed past in all directions.
At one point I turned around and spotted a woman advocate. She was fixedly staring at me. I gave her a weak smile naively thinking that it is friendly to smile. She gave me back an equally weak smile. It was so tiring standing around over there in our completely inappropriate attire (consider wearing coats in the scorching heat of late April), I thought to myself. It is too much effort to even muster a smile under these conditions. As it turned out, I was going too far with this whole smiling and friendliness nonsense. I might well have wildly misinterpreted a sneer or a confused look to be something friendly.
Anyway, I didn’t see her again for a while. By the time our suit was finally being heard, I had managed to get hold of a satisfactory location for myself to stand in, where I had a good view of both the lawyers and the judge, without being in anyone's way.
I was in the middle of learning litigation through frenzied observation, taking in the environment and also trying to follow the arguments of both sides since it was *Mr.Boss* and his opponent arguing their cases. In an attempt to hear the advocates speak over the low pitched chaos of the room, I perched myself a little higher by slightly stepping on the bench-platform in front of me. Just as *Mr.Boss* started speaking, is precisely the moment the leech attached herself to me and started sucking my blood.
Oh and how painful it was!
Lady Leech was most concerned you see, about the effect I was having on the courtroom. She dove straight into a good five minute long soliloquy, about, as far as I can make out... "my dressing"
"You are wearing too much tights"
"You were standing with one of your legs on the platform" (Yes shocking, I know, women standing in positions where their knees aren't glued together!)
"We work in an environment full of men"
"You should do dressing in a way that looks good"
"You can wear tights if you want, but your chaak is too high" (Seriously, how much time has this creep spent staring at me?)
"You can wear shirts with no slit at the sides instead" (Can I now?)
"Please don't mind, you didn't take offense did you?" (Err.. are you kidding me lady?)
I don't like going into this woman hating stuff myself mostly because it is so unnecessary. When I first saw her, I did register in my mind that she was dressed a bit frumpy for my taste. But then, what does it matter what anyone wears or how frumpy they might be, as long as they are decent people and do whatever it is they are supposed to be doing well enough. One imagines that an advocate of the High Court would be able to successfully recognize and dismiss old fashioned misogyny. Certainly not in her case: The gist of her verbal attack seemed to be that I was dressed too, ahem... alluring/slutty.
When she opened her mouth and started to address me, I genuinely believed she was going to ask me something sensible or even be friendly. No such luck! As soon as it became apparent to me what her chat was going to entail, I consciously laboured to appear as disgusted as possible: With one eyebrow shooting up and a crumpled brow I gathered the most pained smile I could manage on my face and thanked her for her concern and then carried on prancing my leg in a fashion that would continue to disturb the leech. At first she seemed reluctant to let go off me, but then gave up eventually.
I am still so puzzled by this encounter. First of all, why was she staring at my legs instead of doing her work? I was wearing a mass produced churi-daar pajama- which means thousands of women across the country were also wearing the same thing. This leads me to think that when she was hating on "my dressing" it wasn't really my pajama that really bothered her at all. I got the sense that there was some strange power-play thing going on where the elder woman gets to humiliate the younger, in an act of putting me in my place.
By the time I successfully threw off the leech, *Mr.Boss & Co* were done with the case and walking out the court room. Thanks lady leech, your desire to bring me under the wing of your wisdom and experience (and I suspect, authority) caused me to waste yet another day at court!
