Friends advised me to go to Bombay for some time in order to gain experience of the High Court, to study Indian law and to try to get what briefs I could. I took up the suggestion and went.
In Bombay I started a household with a cook as incompetent as myself. He was a Brahman. I did not treat him as a servant but as a member of the household. He would pour water over himself but never wash. His dhoti was dirty, as also his sacred thread, and he was completely innocent of the scriptures. But how was I to get a better cook?
“Well, Ravishankar,” (for that was his name), I would ask him, “you may not know cooking, but surely you must know your sandhya (daily worship), etc.”
“Sandhya, sir! The plough is our sandhya and the spade our daily ritual. That is the type of Brahman I am. I must live on your mercy. Otherwise agriculture is of course there for me.”
So I had to be Ravishankar’s teacher. Time I had enough. I began to do half the cooking myself and introduced the English experiments in vegetarian cookery. I invested in a stove and with Ravishankar began to run the kitchen. I had no scruples about interdining, Ravishankar too came to have none, and so we went on merrily together. There was only one obstacle. Ravishankar had sworn to remain dirty and to keep the food unclean!
But it was impossible for me to get along in Bombay for more than four or five months, there being no income to square with the ever-increasing expenditure.
This was how I began life. I found the barrister’s profession a bad job—much show and little knowledge. I felt a crushing sense of my responsibility.
III
The First Case
Whilst in Bombay, I began, on the one hand, my study of Indian law and, on the other, my experiments in dietetics in which Virchand Gandhi, a friend, joined me. My brother, for his part, was trying his best to get me briefs.
The study of Indian law was a tedious business. The Civil Procedure Code I could in no way get with. Not so, however, with the Evidence Act. Virchand Gandhi was reading for the Solicitor’s Examination and would tell me all sorts of stories about barristers and vakils. “Sir Pherozeshah’s ability,” he would say, “lies in his profound knowledge of law. He has the Evidence Act by heart and knows all the cases on the thirty-second section. Badruddin Tyabji’s wonderful power of argument inspires the judge with awe.”
The stories of stalwarts such as these would unnerve me.
“It is not unusual,” he would add, “for a barrister to vegetate for five or seven years. That’s why I have signed the articles for solicitorship. You should count yourself lucky if you can paddle your own canoe in three years’ time.”
Expenses were mounting up every month. To have a barrister’s board outside the house, whilst still preparing for the barrister’s profession inside, was a thing to which I could not reconcile myself. Hence I could not give undivided attention to my studies. I developed some liking for the Evidence Act and read Mayne’s Hindu Law with deep interest, but I had not the courage to conduct a case. I was helpless beyond words, even as the bride come fresh to her father-in-law’s house!
About this time, I took up the case of one Mamibai. It was a “small cause.” “You will have to pay some commission to the tout,” I was told. I emphatically declined.
“But even that great criminal lawyer Mr. So-and-So, who makes three to four thousand a month, pays commission!”
“I do not need to emulate him,” I rejoined. “I should be content with Rs. 300 a month. Father did not get more.”
“But those days are gone. Expenses in Bombay have gone up frightfully. You must be businesslike.”
I was adamant. I gave no commission, but got Mamibai’s case all the same. It was an easy case. I charged Rs. 30 for my fees. The case was not likely to last longer than a day.
This was my début in the Small Causes Court. I appeared for the defendant and had thus to cross-examine the plaintiff’s witnesses. I stood up, but my heart sank into my boots. My head was reeling and I felt as though the whole court was doing likewise. I could think of no question to ask. The judge must have laughed, and the vakils no doubt enjoyed the spectacle. But I was past seeing anything. I sat down and told the agent that I could not conduct the case, that he had better engage Patel and have the fee back from me. Mr. Patel was duly engaged for Rs. 51. To him, of course, the case was child’s play.
I hastened from the Court, not knowing whether my client won or lost her case, but I was ashamed of myself, and decided not to take up any more cases until I had courage enough to conduct them. Indeed I did not go to Court again until I went to South Africa. There was no virtue in my decision. I had simply made a virtue of necessity. There would be no one so foolish as to entrust his case to me, only to lose it!
But there was another case in store for me at Bombay. It was a memorial to be drafted. A poor Mussalman’s land was confiscated in Porbandar. He approached me as the worthy son of a worthy father. His
