Lawyer Raju Moray shows the jesting side of jargon-filled 'court lingo'

My heart leaps up when I behold / A client at my door / Coins jingling in my ears / I listen to the bore
The poor chap doesn't realise / What's in store /To endless litigation / He is condemned for sure
Tell you what, / We're in for the money / You don't get the joke / But it's awfully funny
As the dough jumps / From his pocket to my pocket / Fuelled by adjournments / My fees will skyrocket
All those dates will look / So impressive in my docket / Oh! I love this profession / Even though I mock it
It's our bread-n-butter / Our milk-n-honey / Tell you what, / We're in it for the money
The case will go on / From generation to generation / Generating wealth / For our ever noble profession
Thank heavens, on our fees / there is no ration / No wonder our Bharat / Is such a great nation!
But why are you weeping, / you're nose so runny? / You don't get the joke, / But it's awfully funny

These lines from (Excuse me, Fees?) is a sample from lawyer Raju Moray's book Court Jester. The book is a compilation of the 59-year-old's column by the same name from 1993 to 2003 as printed in India's first legal magazine, The Lawyers, brought out by the Lawyers Collective.

Moray was a regular contributor to the magazine and wrote serious and analytical articles since 1985. It helped that he had pursued a diploma in journalism before he joined the Bar. Following a cover story on the subject of legalese, which called for simplification of judicial language to make the legal process more accessible, Moray wrote a one-off piece in 1992, Pardon Me, My Lords, highlighting the hilarious situations created by archaic phrase and jargon in Indian courts. He received such a thundering response that he followed it up with four similarly amusing pieces, which too elicited energetic responses.

"It was (former additional solicitor-general Indira) Jaisingh who then suggested making the one-off pieces into a regular page called Court Jester since the magazine needed lighter, fun stuff as a break from the serious articles. That's how I wrote these pieces, which are a combination of poetry, prose and observations, for a decade," reminisces Moray.

Did he fear any reprisal from the legal fraternity known for being extra-sensitive to criticism? "Though I use caricature to write about people and situations, these are all real incidents and as a lawyer and trained journalist, I found a way to strike a balance and yet have my way," says Moray, who was warned about antagonising people on the Bench and senior advocates. "A senior judge called me to his chambers once and told me to stop writing the column. 'It will harm you in the long run and come in the way if you being considered for elevation as a judge,' he advised me. But I couldn't stop. How could I? Especially since I still see the archetypes of all the characters and situations I've created in the book, around."

Even after the print version of the magazine folded up in 2003 and Moray moved on to writing paid-for, commissioned columns in newspapers, many who would accidentally find an old issue kept complimenting him on his exceptional humour and its relevance in current times. "That's when I thought of compiling these in a book."

Finding the magazine's old editions was not easy since they were not digitised. Only after the Lawyers Collective got all the back issues scanned as pdf files was Moray able to find all the Court Jester columns from the past. "I then went looking for my old illustrator Farzana Cooper who illustrated my Court Jester column for the magazine. She kindly agreed to come aboard for the book too," says a glad Moray. "Though it's self-published and we have no budget for promotion, we have been able to sell over 400 copies already. And most buyers are in the 20-30 age group. It is great that they can relate to the humorous take on what happens in court rooms."