Most legal fiction is written from the outside, by people who have watched lawyers and done extensive research on topic, rather than been one. Manini Brar’s debut reflects her own experience as though it was written from inside the court corridor. The narrator is a first generation lawyer , Malti Jakhar. Her team is her clerk Chandan Pal and her junior Charu. At the heart of the book is her defence of Gola Pitthan, a twenty-year-old from Pitthoo village in Chitrakoot district. The prosecution charges him with murder the killing of Santhaan Shah, a sixty-three-year-old goatherd. Gola’s own account is that he struck a djinn.
The legal core is serious. In the verdict chapter, the judge asks whether a standard of reasonableness can be removed from the context of time, society and circumstance, and finds he cannot identify one. He draws on Bhawoo Jiwaji v. Mulji Dayal and Emperor v. Abdool Wadood Ahmed. He holds that Gola, a tribal man living deep in the forest and entrenched in a belief system of gods and spirits, cannot be judged as an ordinary man of “a calm and philosophical mind.” For a criminal practitioner, this is the most satisfying part of the book. The doctrine is dramatized rather than lectured.
What makes the book readable for non-lawyers is the voice: wry, self-deprecating, and very recognisable. Chandan Pal is the book’s great creation. He insists the narrator look busy before a client is sent in. He predicts that a judge won’t care about case law, and he is proved right. He also has a nose for “intrusting” cases. Anyone who has worked in Indian courts will recognize his archetype.
The courtroom scenes carry the comedy of real practice. In one suit, the dispute is over a painting titled after a Bollywood song. The narrator pleads with more sentiment than evidence, while a parallel divorce runs in the background. Her Ladyship ignores the case law, grants two weeks, and warns counsel she is hanging by a loose thread. The sessions court is sketched with a slow fan, a judge glancing at the clock, and three Ashoka lions above an ordinary man. The institution feels grand and bureaucratic at once.
The book changes register in Pitthoo. The villagers move in eerie unison, matching their steps and the rhythm of their chisels. They deny any knowledge of the killing in the same synchronised way, and that silence builds real unease. Gola’s account is the emotional centre of the book. It is a quietly devastating passage.
The phonetic rendering of Chandan’s English (“phirst,” “bheri,” “ijj”) and Gola’s broken English is affectionate, and though some may have reservation, this is what actually makes the book relatable in terms of how same language is spoken differently. The shifts between office comedy and village mystery breaks monotony and makes it realistic.
Taken as a whole, this is a warm, witty and legally honest debut. It asks a question that reaches well beyond the courtroom: whose idea of “reasonable” does the law really enforce? I recommend it for lawyers, law students, and anyone who enjoys a mystery with a conscience.
