Justice Leila Seth talks about integrity, education and her life post retirement

It was without pronounced style, yet it was the most pleasing thing I have seen. In the garden there are chairs, a table, a wrought iron chaise-longue, a swing, a lily pond and scattered pots and tubs of green. We would spend a lot of time after the interview talking about the plants. She would break into Bengali to make me really understand (I had pointed to a small tree and called it a shrub). Her enthusiasm in pointing out plants is rivaled by her excitement when she talks about her grandchildren and education. In her still-graying bun, there is an yellow rose tucked in. Her frail face is deeply lined–it is a joyful face. It is an experience, meeting the first woman judge of an Indian High Court. After reading a few effusive testimonials, I was prepared to be dazzled. I was, by her temperate answers.

It is a truth universally known that former Justice Leila Seth took to law because of “mundane reasons”; the course did not require compulsory attendance. She was then a young mother (her first child being renowned author Vikram Seth), and though her first born was back home with his grandmother, Seth barely had time for a full-fledged course. So she bought a career encyclopedia, read it thoroughly and law seemed to be the way to go. The classes she opted for were held at Seven Stones, figuratively a stone’s throw from Lincoln Inn. Classes were optional and the course entailed its students to attend some “dinners” (yes, dinners). Her’s were to be “held” at the Lincoln’s Inn. Before law she had completed a Montessori training class but never got to teaching children, a decision which on the hindsight seems reasonable as it takes far too much patience to deal with young children. “I may not have had it (patience),” she says with an amused chuckle. Her father had promised to send her to university abroad but he died when she was barely 11 years of age, after she completed her graduation. Another restraint was the finances–what seems to be a lot of money in India, shrinks in England–“We were not really well off, so I had to choose carefully.”

One of the courses that Seth opted for was divorce law, its classes were held later in the evening. One fateful evening she stayed on and came back home later than usual to find a sulking husband. “It was the first time he had returned to an empty and dark home. He had to switch on the lights. Well, I never went for the divorce law classes after that, it could have led to a divorce,” Seth says with a laugh. In case you are thinking of passing a judgement here, Prem Seth (Premo for his wife) is a an example of a supportive and loving husband. During her later years, Prem Seth was often the inspiration behind her courage. “He was the one who would tell me I could do it even when there was an iota of self-doubt. He was the one who believed I was intelligent enough to take a new case or a course.”

“I am low on my own perception of what I am capable of. So, I expected to fail. My husband was more confident of my abilities. On the day of the results he went out, bought whiskey and two glasses to celebrate. We were supposed to come back to India soon after, so we went off to visit a few friends of Premo. In those days, results came out in the Time office and on our way home we headed there. Just before we reached the office, there was a traffic light. One of my classmates, Kazi spotted us. The moment he did so, he jumped on top of a car and we heard him shout stop, stop. What he was saying was ‘top, top’ that I had topped the examinations. Later, I remember, we went to a shop to buy some clothes and the gentleman there turned towards my husband and asked him, is your wife here a law student? When he said yes, he turned towards me and told me that he had seen me in the papers. It was the first time that a woman had topped the Bars.”

Seth returned to India soon after wards, specifically to Batanagar. Prem Seth was a Bata employee after all. Then the family moved to Calcutta and finally to New Delhi. In between there was a small Patna stint. However ever, both Seths understood that in order to establish a practice, Leila had to be established in a single city. Delhi was to be the choice. “Of course we did something foolish, we never bought a house. This (her home in Noida) happened much later. We were never inclined to pragmatic, materialistic ideas it seems,” she says straightening the an “unproofed” book and a newspaper on the table. “In the meantime, for a an year-and-an-half we travelled back and forth. I would visit him once and a month and he would come and visit me once a month. Afterward, he took a transfer to Faridabad.”

“All my career I was trying to establish that women could do everything. So I consciously stayed away from the women centric cases. I took criminal law, IT law and property law. When I became a judge a lot of women lawyers did have a pet gripe that I would never do ‘my bit’ for the women. How I see it is that I was a judge. My duty was to uphold law. Not just those which dealt exclusively with women. I did not wish to be known as the judge who dealt with women cases only because there is a tendency across the world to compartmentalise people. I did not wish to be put into a niche.”

One of the cases which Seth remembers vividly is one involving a railway driver. It was when she was a judge in the Patna High Court, and there were more people travelling on roofs of trains than as paid travellers. On one such journey, one train entered a tunnel resulting in the death of several (illegal) passengers on its roof. “Apparently when the passengers and onlookers shouted to the driver to stop the train he heard nothing. When I handled the case I talked to strangers and acquaintances alike asking them about engineering facts, if they had any idea about trains. I went to the library and read up about engines and how they functioned. At the end, it seemed that it was impossible to hear a noise or a shout or collective shouts over the din of a railway engine. So, the law acquitted the driver. I still remember his face and the fact that he continued to feed his family after the incident. Though I have forgotten his name, I have never forgotten his face or his gratitude.” From the multitude of cases that she dealt with as a judge, this one case seems to be clearest in her memory. Why?

Because it was such a basic one. And it is one for which she worked the hardest; because she was constantly reminded of the harsh reality that his family would not survive without him.

“It is in my nature to work hard. But I do not remember researching so much or so extensively, for any other case. The whole personal element of my involvement (the driver came to her begging for his family’s welfare) is etched in memory. It is not a very important legal case, but it is a most important human case.”

And in all her cases, what is that one thread of logic or principal that guides her work? “Integrity to work, to any principal, is important to me. Without integrity I believe that rest of the value system falls,” Seth says while taking a sip from her “drink”. A note here: do not be alarmed if you are offered a “drink” in the Seth household very early in the morning. The lady who makes the tea, refers to all beverages (hot or cold) as a “drink”. When a straight faced Leila Seth had asked whether I would like a “drink” at 11am, I had suspiciously peered into her cup. The steaming lemon honey tea seemed innocent enough.

A laughing Leila Seth explained that lemon honey tea is her favourite and what she likes to have in the evening with her husband who actually gets a drink then. So for the lady who serves both, the hot beverage is also a drink. While we enjoy the tea in winter sunshine, Seth also points out “its us on our 60th anniversary on your cup”. It is the same photograph of Prem and Leila Seth that we spotted in the living area along with two photographs of their grandchildren.

Always the retired judge, Seth recently quizzed her eldest grand kid about a situation where three characters—a flute maker, a boy without any means and a musician—lay claim to a flute. Who should get it, Seth had asked. Nandini apparently thought for a while before answering, it had to be the boy. The flute maker could make more. He knew his craft. The musician could play any flute because he knew his art. But the boy who had nothing, the possession of the flute could open up a new path.

The morale of this story? Children understand the concept of want, not having and wanting as clearly as adults.

Seth’s two grand children are currently in two residential schools. Formal education, rather holistic education, is a conscientious topic in the household. Seth has penned a children’s book explaining the Preamble and as the above example shows, she believes that brought up with the right ideology, the next generation of Indians would work even harder.

Her second son and daughter-in-law believe that education is too rote in India. The hunt is now on to get the “right” school. At the mention of her grandchildren the conversation veers towards parenting; is there a proper way to do it?

“My children were allowed to do what they wanted and the way they wanted to do it. I believe that a lot of parents believe that they can control what their children do or wish to do. I believe it to be untrue. I had a Bengali friend, who told me that if you keep an open palm and a bird sits on it to fly away again, then there is a possibility for the bird to come back. But if you close your palm and make the bird captive be sure that the bird will never come back again. My idea of relationships and especially with the children has been dictated by this vision. Children will do what they wish to do. Naturally, I have been worried about them especially there was a time when I was worried about Vikram (Seth). But Premo always believed that we should let him be. He told me that we as parents should have as much if not more faith in him.” Vikram Seth’s first book—A Suitable Boy—took seven years to shape up and in that time Seth family was famously described by one who knew them as of three “weird children”—one who wrote all the time, one who sat in a mud hut at the end of the garden and a girl who was always out. But the three “weird” ones are all grown up now—Shantum Seth is the foremost teacher to sites associated with the Buddha. A Buddhist practitioner, he is an ordained teacher (Dharmacharya) in the Zen tradition of a Vietnamese Master. Daughter Aradhana is a production designer, photographer, director and an installation artist. And Vikram Seth, well, I am hoping everyone has read one of his books.

As the talk again veers off towards child education and especially towards girls’ education (one of the three mugs on the table has a sketch of a girl headed to school, a mug that her daughter Aradhana finds ‘particularly silly’) she talks of how people in India are now fed up of doles. “India is full of people who aspire to be better. My driver took his child out of government school and put him in a private one. When I asked him his why, he said if the child stayed on in a government school he might grow up to be like his father. If he went to a private one then there’s a possibility he could grow up to be like you (Seth). We always wish to do better in life and we don’t—whatever people may think—want to take a short cut. Because hard work always pays. As I told my daughter, the reason why I love the cup so much is because it touches upon this topic of how a small gesture can go a long way. You give your daughters mobility and means to reach school and they will be educated.”

Talking about schools and bicycles, I recommend a film. Wadjda by Saudi Arabian film maker Director Haiffa Al-Mansour which is set to make waves as the first film to be made in Saudi Arabia, by a woman and to have won a nomination in the Oscars. “How did you see it?” Sheepishly I explain piracy. “Maybe it was illegal (most definitely it was).” I am greeted by a frown followed by laughter. At least for this crime, I am being let off the hook.