[Book Review] Tales of Law and Laughter by Raju Z Moray

Lawyer and author Raju Z Moray’s latest anthology of anecdotal stories keeps up the mirth and excitement generated by his previous two works Court Jester and his collection of poems in The Locked Down Lawyer. You know you are in for a joyride, when early into the book, you are greeted by his playful and naughty “In lieu of a Disclaimer”. From then on, the smiles and chuckles never stop till you reach the end of the book, prompting you to keep it close for a second read.

This collection of thirty fictional reminiscences is supposedly set (or is it?) in the same “Gobble D. Gook” multiverse with shades of reality, giving the author a free hand to merge fact and fiction in an unrecognisable, but humorous alloy worth its weight in gold. Readers familiar with Moray’s stories first published in From the Lawyers Collective and continuing with his column Adalat Antics in the Leaflet would have read these tales at different points of time in their previous solo outings over the past 35 years.

Now collected for the first time, they present a funny and rich tapestry of tales involving lives of law students navigating their way through law college, budding lawyers chambering with seniors, young lawyers appearing before and sometimes surviving “Milords”, quirky judges with apt nicknames, and the all-knowing go-to court clerks and ever-helpful court staff. Peppered in between this cast of characters are the litigants who are lost in this maze, pavement booksellers who encounter these characters daily, and of course, our ever-watchful author, whose keen sense of observation and wry sense of humour turns the grayscale world of law into a wonderous hue of human tragicomedy.

Much of these stories exist in a time not yet populated by cell phones, tablets, digital research tools and, therefore, belong to an era we may never hope to see again, of a gentler, simpler world - and it is in this milieu that the author deftly brings to sharp focus the human quirks of the legal world. The illustrations by Farzana Cooper are spot on and capture the sharp, tongue-in-cheek humour.

As one progresses through the book and is introduced to the denizens of the Bar and the Bench, one realizes that the stories sometimes have a sweet sting-in-the-tail, and the reader who has been chortling away at the apparent humour of the yarn is suddenly hit in the gut by a realisation of things left unsaid. This is the author’s strength, and humour is the brush with which he paints a realistic picture of a world deeply in need of introspection.

These stories lend themselves well to be serialised as streaming episodes for OTT platforms and should be explored by producers of home-grown light-hearted legal serials. Young lawyers, brought up on a staple of foreign television shows that have no connection to an Indian court setting, will particularly enjoy this collection as well as the first two books. For the rest of us, this is cinnamon humour, perfect for curling up with your favourite beverage on a rainy weekend afternoon.

Mark my words, in the not-so-distant future, Advocate Raju Z Moray and his creations Gobble D. Gook et al will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Richard Gordon and Simon Sparrow, Henry Cecil and Roger Thursby, and John Mortimer and Horace Rumpole. Good times will continue to roll for us readers! Join the ride!

Advocate Tejas H Bhatt is a lawyer practising in Mumbai for more than three decades.