The first time I fell in love with law
was in my primary school days. There was this Pears advert- Yes the same old
baby Pears- where a little girl had taken her mother to a kiddies court for
denying "baby and her the joy of Pears". The face of the kid-judge struck on my
young head as he/she asked the accused mother whether she was guilty or not. The
idea of a court grew with me from then onwards. I would insist that at least
one of my Christmas outfit was a corporate fit. Together with my parents'
support I tailored my studies towards satisfying my life dreams.
I love law. I remember when I prepared
to go into university and I told my friends that I had no other course
preference except for law. Some of them wondered what I would do if I was not
offer law in the university while others felt that with the passage of years I
would change my mind if I was not admitted.
Inspite of my love for law, I knew very
little about it. But it did not bother me. I knew my higher institution would fix
that for me. So off to school I went.
The first thing I enjoyed about law was
the colour. It was mainly dark and sombre. Usually with a tincture of white but
that that did take it away from being sombre. Swaying in these colours did not
excite me as much as the comments friends from other departments made in
admiration. The distinction these colours gave was also awesome. However all
these became boring to look at with time. Call it familiarity or what you will
but by the time I was leaving the university the colours were nothing but dark
to me.
I still love law. I brag about this to
anyone who would ask. I remember my Call. The hall had been decorated with
black and white ribbons and balloons looking so 'lawyerly' but when the
commentary was being run, the commentator described the hall as beautifully
decorated in those colours. New meaning definitely. I had never ascribed that
adjective to those colours.
Then practice began. Pride was in those
colours. One day something different happened. I met a lawyer who was angry at
a female colleague who dared to wear a red-coloured camisole underneath her collaret.
Even if was not visible to the court, the lawyer in question, who was male by
the way, queried the effrontery that made our female counterpart disregard our
revered colours.
When I left that scene, I did not think
much of until I had cause to be in another court, a superior court according to
the law. Proceedings that day were long as usual and I had to kill time
somehow. I started looking for a
familiar face to chat with and soon found one. I was chatting away when somehow
my eyes fell beneath the chairs and I saw socks in different colours. I was
amused and surprised all at once.
“They do it these days”. My friend
answered to my - whatever happened to our revered colours question. I quickly
clicked on my phone's camera and snapped away. As I did that I that I thought to
myself, we definitely need more colours of balloons and ribbons.
Keep faith.
