RUNNING AROUND

She stood by the platform of her windowless and dingy kitchen and watched the water boil. The restlessness of the water bubbles seemed to resonate with each bit of her existence that day. The steaming water spilled over the container but she did not put the gas burner off. The unsettling water drops and that hassling noise were testifying as to irked she was that day. Her vagabond thoughts went loose and she thought of the very recent past.

It was a constant race against time. Burnt Oats for breakfast, fresh scratches on her new car and a warm and an almost evil fatigue all over her body summarized her not so good morning. But it was luxury to brood over these things then. She barely managed to stumble into the right courtroom on time. Sitting on the first row, she felt a chill across her spine. Events of that unfortunate morning sublimated to the vacuum. She intently looked that the table from where the advocates addressed the Hon’ble Court. How far was it actually from the Judges altar? Exactly how loud a voice would suit the situation while addressing? What if a lawyer could not hear the Judge’s hushed voice a midst the cacophony that emanated from the rest of the Courtroom? Hell!! It was a mess. But she knew instinctively that she would decoil the mess one day. Discover that trick and master that art. But then what if she fainted while speaking there? What if the judge threw a fat book at her from his seat? Or what if the entire courtroom burst into a mocking laughter the moment she began speaking? Shoooooo! For God sake….the over thinking was absolutely unwarranted. She wasn’t going to argue out some lengthy proposition of law or cajole the judge to save someone’s life. Those were anyways the cake of the seasoned, the veterans, the know-it-alls and the Big Men. She was only to seek two weeks time and an extension of the interim relief that had been already granted.

Soon the court was in session and the lawyers started mentioning matters. She took a deep breath and with great effort made herself visible and put forward the many times rehearsed request to the Hon’ble Judge. The Judge’s eyebrow twitched but only to come back to its normal shape. He did not deem appropriate to look up but thankfully murmured the order granting all she sought to his forever typing steno. Before she could realize, she was pushed aside by a fatso lawyer and then by another and another and another. Eventually, she sat down on an adjoining chair comfortably far from the hustled lawyers eager to make their points.

She felt the coolness of her evaporating sweat on her forehead. Her strained muscles also relaxed. And all the fatigue was gone. It was a strangely dignified feeling. It had a speckle of a clandestine accomplishment in it. Exactly like the one which surfaces when an extremely overworked body meets the soft bed linen at the end of a tiring day to dissolve into a dreamless sleep.

She silently told herself that of course today’s experience was a very menial one in comparison to all the complicated craftsmanship that the Big Men practiced in courts every day. But what was important was that that experience was just the first of many. Not just a cog in the machinery, she knew one day she would burgeon in to magnanimous and infallible machine at the cost of ……..Whatever it Took.

How brightly had her world lit up when the judge dictated “Advocate Ms. Soumya Priyadarshinee appearing for the Petitioner in Special Civil Application No. 6800 of 2012”. For the time being she was an advocate and that was plainly empowering. More arguments, even more orders, and even more law were only to follow for the show had begun.

A hot water droplet rested on her palm. She writhed in pain and felt herself pushed to an even agonizing present. There was no need to run. Her perfectly cooked breakfast was cold and untouched and she was not getting late at all. Because she had no Court to rush to. No time to seek and no sweat to evaporate. It was also a not so good morning. A slightly scarier one.