Beautiful Friend Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

A Beautiful Friend
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan

On Jan 12,2022 this message landed in my mobile with a tinkle.

“ The rain drop from the sky: if it is caught in hands, it is pure enough for drinking. If it falls in a gutter, its value drops so much that it can’t be used even for washing the feet. If it falls on hot surface, it perishes. If it falls on lotus leaf, it shines like a pearl and finally, if it falls on oyster, it becomes a pearl. The drop is same, but its existence & worth depend on with whom it associates.” Always be associated with people who are good at heart.
Send this to all people with beautiful heart💓✋🏻Today is Vivekanand’s 158th birth anniversary.

Within minutes of this message, the next one was – K Jayachandran, son of K Krishnan, an advocate clerk’s beautiful heart stopped. And he was close to becoming a senior citizen. Not one just yet.Leaving behind his wife, young daughter ( slated to be married in 07.02.2022) and a son on the verge of completing his audio visual communication course in a college and above all his 90 year old mother.

Why him? And why now?

We all know there is never a satisfactory answer to Why Me?. There will never ever be.

Our clerk Jayavhandran was a gem of a beautiful heart. He lost his father at all of 17 years. His sister, elder to him got the compassionate employment in RBI. It was a loving and beautiful family and they all supported each other continuously. And thankfully continue lto.

A puisne judge of Madras High Court messaged, “ Your office was very lucky . To have such a lovely human being as a clerk. He was honest, sincere and dedicated and devoted. Let me tell you this, he too was lucky to have you and your colleague M B Raghavan and his father M B Gopalan as his seniors – not employers. You treated him with respect, regard and love, not the faculties advocate clerks’ are generally used to”.

We don’t know about that. When we heard that he was suddenly taken ill on 9th Jan,2022, after he came back from a visit to Kerala to invite his relatives and his friends, fir his daughter’s marriage, we were shocked. And when we immediately transferred a token sum of money to the daughter’s account, her response was even more beautiful than Jayacjandran’s beautiful heart: “ Uncle (s), we are comfortable in life. You have supported us well. We don’t need money. Could you please pray for his recovery”. Lovely. Lovely. And we prayed but the maker had other ideas.

We possibly never paid him adequately , in the early days, he was with us for three decades, because we ourselves were setting up our base. ( An excuse most of us advocates offered them, offer now and continue to offer). But we subsidised him but getting him to become a private investigator with several private/public sector insurance companies. We wrote a Template for his reports. We helped him get assignments. There were some beautiful hearts like S Giridharan, The Oriental Ins Co Ltd, who took a beautiful liking to him and blessed him with many an assignment. And Jayachandran did well by making more outside than inside, we confess.

Jayachabdran was a simpleton. Yes, I mean it. We protected him from being summoned to court as a witness to talk about his investigation reports. He was not smart enough to stand up. A couple of times, when we offered to be witnesses on his behalf, our friends in the Bar got the message and never insisted on his appearance. So Jayachandran could give his investigation reports and never troubled over it. Thanks.

He had a beautiful heart. So had no cunning conduct to survive in this cut throat world. He accounted for every rupee. He never played with it. He was willing to work 24×7. He wanted to support his young family. And when his daughter completed MBA, with a little, very little support from us , we got her a deserving placement in Cholamandalam group. And he was overjoyed to see daughter turn out a smart, loving yet mature entity, that he was not. He was not immature. He was just innocent and gullible. That was some years ago from which position she has advanced in her career by her own stint of hard work and fine well for herself and the family. Trust her marriage goes through well and she had a happy and prosperous married life. ( And we are absolutely sure that she is a New Age Woman with a beautiful heart, who will hand hold her brother and ensure that her mother and grandmother also were taken care of as well as Jayachabdran did). Bless her.

You know what she told her father, after a few years, into her promotion, “ Appa, You have worked since you were a minor. Now we are settled. Please take rest. Don’t have to run around”. Typically, Jayachandran refused. He said, “ It is my office. I am not working there. I need to train some. And seniors there, are not my employers . But my associates”. We felt good and proud. We always tried to encourage the talents of our associates. We are delighted that several are well parked outside and doing well, though some, to our disappointment may have missed out.

It is a pity that most of us advocates do not care for our clerks. We assume that they can make ‘money any which way’. We believe the worst about their ‘ways’. Sad and shameful. There are clerks who have ‘made it bigger and better than advocates’ as my Judge friend put it. But the majority need hand holding. More so, when there is no ‘ retirement benefit’ on offer. And advocate clerks’ fund gets them a paltry Rs. 4 lakhs or thereabouts.

We did our best to support our beautiful friend. And when I asked my judge friend whether we should talk about our support now with a more than decent help and continued payment of salary to his wife for at least a year, until the son gets a placement- the judge said, “ You must. Even if one more advocate office takes note, good for the clerks’ community. Don’t feel shy or reticent ”.

So we affirm it. Not revelation of chivalry or generosity, least of the faculties that one can associate with a selfish advocate community. Us all. ‘That comes with the territory’ as my senior used to allude to.

A beautiful heart, you had, my friend. We had a beautiful friend. And we have lost a beautiful friend. There may be never another of your genre.

You have a beautiful family. Don’t worry. Give them your continued beautiful love and beatific blessings from above.

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)

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