Get (it) fresh?

(Warning: This vewy long post. Crowley bored, edgy, overworked, overheated, needs to be letting off steam. You finding reading boring? You go tie lead weights around ankles and jumping off cliff. Be a man. Do the right thing.)

There are certain aspects of my profession that I don’t particularly enjoy.

One of them is waiting in court, hour after hour, in the vain hope that your case will be called out for hearing. This, of course, is on a regular hearing day (Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday), as opposed to an admission/miscellaneous matter day (Monday or Friday, which American attorneys would call ‘Motion Days’), where a matter listed for hearing will most certainly be called out.

But this isn’t the only kind of waiting involved. Another abhorrent aspect of being a litigation practitioner (well, semi-litigation practitioner in my case) is that once the hearing in your matter starts, it could well drag on for days, even weeks, depending on the issue at hand and how quickly the Bench grasps counsels’ submissions.

This translates into the possibility of being stuck in a crowded courtroom for many, MANY hours over a period of several summer days (and do remember, I’m in India), fighting off drowsiness while at the same time ensuring that your eyelids don’t appear to be making a conscious effort to fight gravity. Oh, and also making sure that you (as junior counsel) are diligently taking notes (largely inconsequential) and passing along all the correct documents to the lead counsel.

Small wonder that so many Indian litigators are opting for BlackBerry ™ handsets (despite the fact that most of them don’t use email, or even know how to). The BrickBreaker ™ application serves as a worthy pastime, many will agree.

Anyhow, I digress.

So, Crowley has just concluded with in one such miserable out-take of what ought to have been a 2-3 day long hearing, but which ended up chugging along for 2 weeks. Since judgment is still pending in the matter, Crowley will be über professional and shall refrain from discussing the nuts and bolts of the dispute. However, it will suffice for Crowley to state that he shall break out into a cold sweat each time he chances upon a cell-phone tower (for the next few weeks, at any rate). Crowley shall also heap curses upon a certain phone company for misplacing his bill payment; for assuming that Crowley doesn’t want to pay his cell-phone bills; and, therefore, barring all outgoing calls and text messages from his poor phone. Nevertheless, Crowley is enjoying being incommunicado for a bit.

Crowley spent a large part of this extended hearing sitting next to a female junior counsel (who was assisting one of the other lawyers in the matter). Pleasant sort of gal, reasonably pretty too, and plucky enough to try and make polite conversation with Crowley. Unfortunately, Crowley had other pressing issues to take care of, such as thick briefs being thrown at him by the lead counsel, and so he largely ignored said female counsel’s polite attempts at communicating. Till, of course, the penultimate day of the hearing, when this conversation took place:

Female counsel (in loud-ish whisper): Umm. Hey. Psst…HEY!!!
Crowley: Eh? Yes?
FC: Are you interested?
C (!!!): Er. In what?
FC: Are you interested in all of this?
(Crowley thinks this is a sarcastic question directed towards the dispute in general)
C: Sigh. No, not anymore.
FC: Oh goody.
(Pulls out a sheet of paper and draws an all too familiar grid on it)
FC: Then let’s play tic-tac-toe!
C: Um. Maybe not. Oh look, the Judge’s going to launch into a speech!

Was FC trying to flirt with Crowley? If yes, then YIKES. You need to change your strategy, Miss. There’s a hearing going on, and boring as it may seem, there’s a reason why you’re sitting in it.

If FC was NOT trying to flirt with Crowley, then there is definitely something very wrong here, because I can’t remember anyone asking me out to a game of tic-tac-toe since, oh, 8th grade.

Of course, Crowley should not be drawing unnecessary conclusions, especially not re: flirting, since he’s blissfully inept at the art of flirting, and can’t for the life of him figure out why any woman in her right mind would want to flirt with him. I mean, have you ever tried flirting with a Rottweiler? Have you?

Speaking of being inept, Crowley spent the large part of 2 weeks sitting 2 inches away from FC, and he still doesn’t know her name. Nor has he bothered asking for it.

And then the lad wonders why he’s still single.

Moving on to other things. The other reason why this post is titled so.

I spent close to 3 hours last night at my favourite watering hole, in what was formerly my favourite position – on a barstool, drink in hand, watching CNN-IBN, and humming to myself. CNN-IBN was on the blink last night, so I spent 3 hours watching another news channel (which I shall not name here, not that it makes a difference…they’re all equally good or bad), and I notice that this particular channel spent 3 hours discussing the following ‘hot’ news items:

1. A 24 year-old girl named Sheeba Thomas was shot dead a short distance from my home on Tuesday night, when she allegedly hit out at some armed bikers, who were trying to pull her out of the car. She didn’t make it. Sad, because she was kind of pretty and successful (or so the media made her out to be).

2. A retired army General was also shot on the same night, by allegedly the same bikers who shot aforementioned girl. He made it. Good for the old bugger.

3. The Government of India is allegedly buying new artillery on the sly. “Will it be another Bofors?” scream the headlines. I don’t get it. Since when did governments start publicizing defence deals?

How jobless are TV channels today?