As a pioneering judge and the wife of a senior Bata executive, she hosted sit-down dinners beyond number. It shouldn't be hard to strike a balance somewhere in between. We emerge from the garden of the Seth homestead in Noida "" this is the house that Leila Seth and her husband Premo built after a dogged battle with corrupt officials. At least two books have been authored here: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, and Leila Seth's own memoirs, On Balance. We're headed for the Taipan, the Chinese restaurant at the Oberoi, and like the very best of lunch companions, she indicates both that the restaurant is a favourite "" and that she hasn't been there for a while. |
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Seth's life is that she doesn't see it as remarkable at all. "I did what had to be done," she says, succinctly and often. It's her brisk summation of an extraordinary legal career: having crossed the Bar with ease, so to speak, she made a name as a lawyer, became India's first woman judge to be appointed to the high court and the first woman judge to be appointed as Chief Justice (CJ) of a state high court, when she took over as CJ in Himachal Pradesh. (Many feel that she was unfortunate not to become the first woman judge to be appointed to the Supreme Court "" that distinction went to Justice Fatima Beevi.) "My husband was very supportive," she says. "He was very proud; he didn't in the least feel overshadowed."
Their love story, suitably transformed by Vikram Seth's imagination, formed the bare bones for the story of Lata and Haresh Kapoor in A Suitable Boy. Leila Seth is clear that there are key differences between the real and the fictional; she's also amused by the reactions that Lata's choice of husband provoked among readers.
"Many readers wanted Lata to marry Amit Chatterji," she tells me. Amit, the sharp-witted poet who bore an occasional resemblance to his creator, was quite the popular choice in Calcutta, I recall. There were very few takers for the dogged, loyal, pan-chewing, list-making Haresh Kapoor among readers, though Seth's fictional heroine saw the "Praha" shoemaker's virtues rather more clearly. As, one suspects, did Seth herself. "Amit was the romantic choice "" but the marriage would have been a complete flop!"
Her own marriage was an unmitigated success: Premo and she took turns supporting and nurturing each other's ambitions. Premo encouraged her to do the best she could, despite the long hours; she put up with his habit of bringing work back home "" the dining table was often littered with shoes! He has had his life written twice over, once fictionalised, once not, and quipped that perhaps it was time for the Seth family to produce a third author bearing yet another version.
We have a clear view of Delhi from the picture window, though not of the courts where she dispensed justice all these years, as the soup arrives: a hot-and-sour chicken soup for her, a seafood and bean curd number for me. (What the Taipan does brilliantly is to take the most humble standards on the Chinese restaurant menu and convert them into something that would tempt the jaded palates of the Emperors.)
This light first course is counterbalanced by fairly weighty conversation. The former justice has already vented her distress about recent instances of corruption among senior judges: "If this is what happens at the highest levels, I can only imagine what the state of affairs is in the lower judiciary." Judges, in her worldview, must be impartial, must be honest, must be incorruptible "" and must be seen to be all of these things.
The discussion has covered several contentious issues "" including POTA and a uniform civil code. She worked hard at the Law Commission to ensure that POTA was not more draconian in its effects, though she notes that not all their recommendations were accepted. On the uniform civil code, she is blunt.
"There is absolutely no reason to reject a good idea only because the BJP came up with it," says Seth, who is no fan of the ruling party's Hindutva-driven agenda, but who approves, impartially, of the results of the recent elections. ("It was a vote on governance "" a sign that the electorate is maturing.")
In a few succinct sentences, as the waiter hovers with spicy curried prawns, stir-fried green vegetables and steamed rice, Seth sums up the tangled history of the uniform civil code in India and explains why its various provisions have either been contested, or applied piecemeal over the years.
In South Africa, she says, laws uphold the right to practise one's religion as well as the right to equality "" if the two rights should clash, the latter will prevail. Recent visits to Pakistan and Bangladesh lead her to believe that the issue is thornier in countries with more than one religion. In both countries, she found that the Islamic law had been modified, modernised and softened over the years; Hindu law conversely was far more backward and conservative than in India. She was told that the lawmakers were afraid of changing Hindu laws in these predominantly Islamic countries "" for fear that they would be accused of hurting the minority religion's sensibilities.
The prawns are huge, translucent and I am grateful I followed Seth's lead when she rejected chopsticks, firmly opting for knife and fork; practice has convinced me that it is possible to eat gracefully, tidily and prettily with chopsticks, so long as you are possessed of a very small appetite.
We're talking about gender discrimination as we eat "" Seth received generous and indigestible servings of it during her career. Like many professional women caught in the gender bind, she shied away from dealing with gender issues for fear of being stereotyped. Post-retirement, she's just as deeply involved with subjects like gender and the environment as she had assiduously avoided them earlier.
"I felt that I had gone too far in the other direction," she explains, and it has only taken an hour in her company for me to realise that Seth prefers action over futile hand-wringing. She faced chauvinism from lawyers and male clients in Patna; she faced confusion in the Delhi High Court when lawyers hesitantly asked whether they could continue to call her "My Lord" she dealt with a chief justice who publicly stated that a woman's rightful place was in the home. Seth dealt with it all firmly, and with an acute understanding of the importance of opening more doors; one section of On Balance deals with the women who pioneered before her.
As we close with chilled mango mousse (in the shape of a legal-looking owl) and jasmine tea, Seth is in the process of redefining motherhood and retirement for my benefit. Aside from her arbitration work, she's serving on a committee that examines ethics as applied to science and the law, she works with Marg on grassroots women's issues and those are just the first two items on a long list. The connecting thread: "If you're not bothered about payment or who gets the credit, it's possible to bring about a great deal of change."
On motherhood, she's wry, saying of her three surviving children: "I gave them space, and quality time; sometimes when our friends would ask when they were going to 'settle down', I wondered whether I'd made a mistake." She cites the mali's perspective: one son, Vikram, scribbled all day in his room; one, Shantum, built a mud hut and scattered seeds around the garden; Aradhana was always on the phone and surrounded by admirers her brother dubbed mushrooms, because they sprang up out of nowhere.
Now Shantum is a serious student of Buddhism and is known for his unrelenting activism; Aradhana is a well-respected documentary filmmaker and Vikram's writings are applauded the world over. Shantum has married, as has Aradhana, and the Seths (unlike, unfortunately, the Indian media) have long since accepted Vikram's bisexuality.
As we leave, I ask her whether she's had any regrets. The response is immediate: "Fatima Beevi's appointment to the Supreme Court as a judge instead of me, because I felt that politics rather than merit had been allowed to prevail. But I've had a good life; I've done what I wanted to do; I've enjoyed my work. On balance "" no. No real regrets."
Seth is by no means given to smugness; but she cannot help allow a faint, contented, Cheshire cat smile cross her face. I reflect that far more than the rest of us, she's earned it.