We've never had a good experience with lawyers. Way back there was the one whom we had contacted when we wanted to get married – we wanted to get her to register the marriage. She quoted a cost of some Rs. 25000, of which she claimed the bulk would be bribes paid to sundry people. We decided we weren't that rich and went for the direct route and accomplished it in the grand sum of Rs. 650 or so. Then last year there was a shocking incident in which some high-falutin partner in a legal firm's car hit our car from behind and he tried to bluster and bamboozle us into paying for his damages, threatening that he was going to keep us tied up in a court case for years so we could neither repair nor sell our car if we didn't pay up. And now, last Thursday's incident.
Our driver was driving Chubbocks home from the gate of the colony after school. As a treat, Chubbocks was sitting in the front passenger seat, since this was a drive within the colony compound and the speed limit within our colony is 15 kmph. Suddenly a Maruti 800 came speeding out of nowhere, bang down the middle of the road. Our driver was alert enough to pull our car as far to the side of the road as possible, but even then the Maruti 800 banged our Baleno hard enough to make dents in the bumper and the side. If it hadn't been for our driver's presence of mind, both he and Chubbocks could have been badly hurt, if not worse. The 800 then went on to bang itself into a light pole and was quite badly smashed.
It turned out the 800 belonged to a resident of our colony, a Mr. Thakur who is a Supreme Court lawyer. The car was being driven by his 15 year old servant who had no training in driving. As soon as I heard of the incident I went across to this lawyer's house, and A visited him the next morning. Both times, his whole concern was to say that he has no liability since the liability is vicarious as he was not driving the car himself, and that the servant was underage so he could not be charged. There was no 'sorry about the incident', no 'I understand your concern, your child could have been killed', no acknowledgement of the fact that we had a right to be angry.
There's no human side to this man at all. Just constant bluster coupled with irrelevant information like the fact that his son is with KPMG and his daughter with Penguin. I mean, I wouldn't care if his daughter was a penguin, how is that germane to the issue that you first of all have an underage servant working in your home in defiance of labour laws, secondly that this servant got away with your car keys and caused what potentially could have been a fatal accident. Just the endless legalese about how he doesn't need to offer to pay a penny for repairs to our car because he has no liability. With lawyers like that I can totally understand how our legal system is so messed up.
And now, A and I are scared to have Chubbocks ride his new cycle around the colony or walk by himself to the park, because we don't know how many other neighbours have underage servant joyriding recklessly.
