F O R E WO R D B Y V I K R A M S E T H ‘A delightful read’ T he Hindu

ON BA L A N C E an autobiography

Leila Seth

PENGUIN BOOKS

ON BALANCE Leila Seth retired as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh in 1992, was appointed in 1995 as the one-member commission to examine the death in custody of Rajan Pillai, and from 1997 to 2000 was a member of the 15th Law Commission of India. She did arbitration work and was involved in human rights activities. She passed away in 2017. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK ‘[The book] is as much a sociological study of a time slipping by as of how to balance a full working life with an even more replete domestic life . . . An extraordinary account of a wonderful life’—India Today ‘A woman of many firsts . . . Her spirit shines through the pages, making [On Balance] a very interesting read’—Femina ‘The delicate humour and understanding with which she records her life . . . gains from her understanding of the political and judicial circumstances that she went through’—Hindustan Times ‘In a style both creative and simple, Leila Seth brings to life the events and experiences of her amazing life’—Deccan Herald ‘There is an easy elegance here, a fluid readability, and a lucid, completely unaffected, eloquence of one who is at ease with herself’—The Hindu ‘One of the most highly readable legal autobiographies to be published, [the book] recounts a life which is as eventful as it is interesting. [It] is made all the more enjoyable by the candour, objectivity and self-deprecating humour of the author’—Journal of the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association

F O R E WO R D B Y V I K R A M S E T H

PENGUIN BOOKS USA ¨Canada ¨UK ¨Ireland ¨Australia New Zealand ¨India ¨South Africa ¨China Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Published by Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd 4th Floor, Capital Tower 1, MG Road, Gurugram 122 002, Haryana, India

First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2003 Published in Penguin Books 2007 Copyright © Leila Seth 2003, 2010 All rights reserved 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by her which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same. ISBN 9780143101390 For sale in the Indian Subcontinent only Typeset in Adobe Garamond by SÜRYA, New Delhi

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. www.penguin.co.in

To Premo who gave me the space to grow and to Nandini and Anamika who are our future

It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one. Lytton Strachey

A Wo r d o f T h a n k s

M

any relatives, friends and others helped me while I was writing this book. I mention those I remember—please forgive me if I have forgotten to include your name, but I thank you all. Bina Aranha, Aloka and Gautam Chakravarti, Devkisan Chetwani, Maja Daruwala, Dayita Datta, Pradip Krishen, Siddhartha Mehta, Kuldip Nayar, Rajindar Sachar, Kamlesh Sharma, Kuldip Sood, Sheila and Trishna Tandon and Mohan Lal Varma for helping me with your expertise in diverse fields. Christine Cipriani, Poulomi Chatterji, David Davidar, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal and Aradhana Seth, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Ruma Pal, Gitanjali and Shantum Seth, Sashi and Usha Seth, Premo Seth, and Shanti Varma for reading the manuscript and so generously contributing your time, ideas and comments; as you read this book, each of you will recognize your particular contributions and realize how much your suggestions have helped to make On Balance a better and more cohesive book. Kamini Mahadevan and Vikram Seth, my two editors: I shall always be grateful to you; and whatever I say in words will not be adequate. You Kamini, for prodding and probing to get me to jog my memory and put things down on paper and for then giving these some semblance of sense and sequence; and you, Vikram, for painstakingly correcting the English and grammar that I taught you almost fifty years ago,

xiv

A Word of Thanks

for helping me recall facts about the family, and for giving the book a more coherent structure. You have both made what was ordinary into what means something special to me. Ravi Kumar Khattar, better known at Penguin India as Ravi Auto: for carrying, in the early morning and late at night, the draft pages for correction and typesetting between me, Kamini and the excellent typesetter, Rajinder Ganju, who carefully and speedily incorporated every semi-colon and full-stop. Granville Austin, for allowing me to use material from your book Working a Democratic Constitution: The Indian Experience and to quote from it; Graciela Iturbide, Robert Lamar and Tejbir Singh for letting me use some wonderful family photographs taken by you; Bena Sareen for designing the book jacket so beautifully; V.K. Karthika for carrying the heavy manuscript in the hope it is widely marketed and Hemali Sodhi for helping to sell it; and last but not least, Subhasis Ganguly for producing such a presentable book. Once again, I thank you, in legal parlance, both jointly and severally.

Preface

W

hy do I write? I wonder. Is it because I am over seventy and want to look back on my life? Not really, because I prefer looking ahead; there is still so much to be done, experienced and enjoyed. Now and then I have toyed with the idea of a memoir. Over the years, several young women have asked me what it was like when I started to practise law in 1959, and that too in a place like Bihar. They felt that my experiences would give them and others the courage and confidence to go ahead. Many young parents also asked me how I had brought up my three children to be such interesting young people. None of them do a nine-to-five job but they are all happy and successful. Others wanted to know how I balanced my home and my work. Early in 1992 David Davidar of Penguin Books India came to stay with me in Shimla for over a week. He wanted to read my son Vikram’s novel A Suitable Boy that ran into over 2,500 pages in manuscript. While David was there, both Vikram and he came up with the suggestion that when I retired in October, I should write about my life. But after retirement I was always far too busy. And somehow, at that stage, I was not inclined to look back at all. Perhaps this was for the best, as I had many interesting experiences thereafter, from which I learnt a great deal. At the end of August 2000, I was due to complete my term as a member of the 15th Law Commission of India. But early that month I met with an accident at a Penguin book

‘Simply one of the best life stories ever told in the otherwise arid annals of Indian autobiography’ Business Standard ‘A very readable account of a very accomplished woman’ Biblio

The first woman Chief Justice of a high court in India, the first woman Judge of the Delhi High Court, the first woman to top the Bar examinations in London: Leila Seth led a full life. In this autobiography, she takes us through her joyous as well as her difficult moments. Intertwining family life with professional, she describes her early years of homelessness and struggle, her straying into law while in England with her husband, Premo, and her happy marriage of over fifty years, including the experience of bringing up three remarkable children: writer Vikram, Zen Buddhist dharmacharya Shantum and film-maker Aradhana.

Autobiography

Intimate, intricate, charming and often amusing, On Balance presents a rich and heart-warming portrait of one of India’s most exceptional women, her family and her times.

MRP `550 (incl. of all taxes)

www.penguin.co.in For sale in the Indian Subcontinent only