Studying Law continues...


I enquired from the Head clerk how my lectures would be made up, and the humorous reply was, “We have marked Shadi Lal’s lectures when he was on the high seas; you are here, we will arrange special lectures for you. Don’t worry.”

If Golak Babu had been as strict as modern principals about attendance at lectures, I would have been a chemist and not a lawyer or a Judge.

Though Professor Ruchi Ram had been told by Golak Babu about my admission to the law college, I still went to the chemistry laboratory and started my demonstration work to the First Year class. Soon after, came professor Muat Jones with an angry face and would not talk to me. Professor Ruchi Ram had already broadcast my desertion in the laboratory and to the whole college. For two or three days I attended to my work in the laboratory and then met professor Jones and told him of my plans to be a lawyer. As he took a geniune interest in my studies he was pained to hear what had happened. Professor Wathan also was displeased. I was managing the hockey club and he was its president. Though I was allowed to leave the college, the professors never lost their interest in me. I was always sure of a welcome in the college. Professor Muat Jones continues to be interested in me even now. He came to India in 1954 as the head of a batch of British scientists. It is difficult to describe how happy he was to meet me when he came to dinner at my place. He stayed with me and other Government College boys of those days-Principal G. D. Sondhi, Devi Dayal Dhawan (once Judge of the Lahore High Court) and Professor Chetana Nand and Rama Dhawan for quite a long time after the dinner, all reminiscing about the days long past.

In 1910 when I joined the Law College I was lucky to make two good friends. Jagan Nath Aggarwal, son of a lawyer and businessman of Jullundur Cantonement, was a brilliant alumnus of the Government College.

to be continued...