History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c97.24

v7.c97.24

I had substantial legal work from 1919 to about 1949. For the benefit of those who made inquiries and of those who desire to pursue literary studies while working as lawyers, I shall briefly state how I saved time for literary work The High Court worked for five days in the week I always utilized all holidays for literary work, Saturday and Sunday have always been my busiest days. There were always two Benches (sometimes three Benches also) on the Appellate side of the High Court Often ten appeals were placed on the board for each Bench every day, since the practice of the Court has been that if an Advocate had two matters, one in each of the different courts and he was engaged in one court, his case in the other court was kept back till he became free So when an advocate had even one appeal in one court and that too very low down in the list, even then he had to be present in court from the beginning, since appeals lower down on the Board might be taken up by the Court if the lawyers therein were available. Most lawyers when free spent the time in chitchat in the Advocates' room. I spent such time in the Library for preparing my briefs that were likely to be taken up in the next few weeks. I hardly ever read my briefs at home. Therefore I could devote every day some hours in the morning and evening to my work on Sanskrit studies. I always worked for eight or nine hours a day and sometimes ten to twelve hours from 1911 to 1948, except when I was not in Bombay. I have never slept or even taken a nap by day from 1904 to 1958; even when I went to see a drama at night and came home at 2 A.M. I awoke at 6 A.M. and slept a little earlier on the following night. After the mild heart trouble in 1958, I tried sleeping a little by day, but not being used to such a thing I gave it up in a few months. For fifty years I have been taking morning walk for about one hour on the Chowpati sea face in Bombay and at the Hanging Gardens since 1912, but stopped going to the Hanging Gardens from about 1956.