Monday, January 8: Although we’re a little embarrassed to admit it, we didn’t leave the hotel until dinner time today. In our defense, we worked out in the hotel gym and spent some time finalizing our presentation for Tuesday, but in all honesty, jet lag had kicked in and we spent most of the day in bed and treated ourselves to massages and manicures. We did manage, however, to get up for our 7:30 dinner engagement.
Wanting to be good dinner guests, we called the concierge to order flowers for our host. When given the choice, we decided to go with the small bouquet and arrived in the lobby to find that the “small” bouquet included over two dozen long-stem roses and was elaborately wrapped in cellophane and ribbon, making it almost bigger than Mimi.
Mr. Bhasin and his driver picked us up to take us to the home of Ashok Desai, the former attorney general for India, for dinner. Mr. Desai’s home is in Defence Colony, a ritzy area of Delhi originally built for military officers, but now home to many of Delhi’s upper class residents. Mr. Desai’s home, with a spectacular fountain in the entryway, was lovely, and the guest list at dinner read like a who’s who of Indian legal society. In addition to Mr. Bhasin and his wife, who is one of the few female attorneys in India who argues before the Supreme Court, we were joined by several other prominent Delhi attorneys. Mr. Desai’s wife was in Mumbai, so his sister joined us as the hostess.
We started with cocktails and appetizers in Mr. Desai’s home office, a room lined with shelf after shelf of Indian law books and classic works of literature. Upon our arrival, he showed us one opinion of the Indian Supreme Court that filled an entire volume of 1006 pages and suggested that the court could use a lesson in concise writing. When several of the guests did not arrive until close to 8:30, Mr. Desai assured us that it is was typical Indian custom to “toddle in” at one’s own pace.
For dinner, we moved upstairs to the dining room, where each place was set with a large tray containing at least ten different dishes ranging from homemade samosas, to a potato curry, to cucumber salad, to a variety of dishes we could not identify, each one tastier than the next. The cook and his assistant made constant rounds around the table refilling our plates practically after every bite. For dessert, we retired to the living room, for strawberry yogurt served in a chocolate shell.
Throughout the evening, we learned quite a bit about our host and the other guests, from the fact that Mr. Desai’s daughter and grandchildren live in Issaquah and that he visits Seattle annually to the fact that Mr. Desai had authored an article, entitled Public Interest Litigation: Potential and Problems, which he gave us copies of, to the fact that to the fact that Justice William O. Douglas liked to trek in northern India.
Tuesday, January 9:
After yet another delicious breakfast at the hotel, we were picked up by Mr. Sudan, the Officer on Special Duty, for Amity Law School. We rode in a midnight blue Mercedes limo out to the Noida campus of the law school, a half hour outside the city center. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by about a dozen faculty members and administrators including the Director of Global Legal Education, the Director of the Law School, the President of the University, and the Senior Vice President for the University’s International Affairs Division. After tea in the visitor’s lounge, we proceeded to the auditorium, where about 150 students were gathered for our presentation. As we entered, the students rose to their feet and applauded. After the requisite preliminary introductions and greetings, we conducted a four-hour presentation covering an introduction to the U.S. legal system, writing concisely and clearly, and writing persuasively, among others. The students were eager and engaged, and Laurel practically had to break up a fistfight during a debate on the use of plain English v. legalese. After the presentation, we met with the faculty and administration to discuss possible future relationships with Seattle University.
At the end of our visit, we were each presented with a lovely embroidered shawl, which can be seen in this less-than-flattering picture.
And we returned to the hotel to learn the best news of the day: the last of our luggage had finally arrived!
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