Chapter 2
Unfair prejudice
No matter how brave the front that Arzoo put on, holding on to that customary smile of hers as she answered Linda's questions, she could not deny that the echo of Sahir Sir's words continued to pound in her ears painfully. Perhaps he had sensed it too, that he had gone too far; at least she had felt so after he had shouted at her. She had noticed a softness in his eyes, almost akin to regret.
But the arrogance of course was intact, overpoweringly so. Sahir Azeem Chaudhary, the Shark, was always right. He could not even tolerate the thought of being questioned. He always needed to have the final word. But still, that gave him no right to try to make her feel so small, so insignificant.
For someone who believed that he knew it all, Sahir was, after all, hopelessly limited. He knew nothing at all about her, who she was, and where she had come from. And it was just as well, she decided. He was just a colleague. Just a colleague who felt entitled to belittle her in every possible way, on every other day. There were days when he would not even greet her if he saw her outside the office. They would bump into each other in Court and he would just look through her. Yet, in her determination to learn, she continued to ask questions, to initiate discussions and debates; and true to his resolve of deriding her at every step, he did just that, snubbing or taunting before she could even finish what she had set out to say.
In the beginning, she did not really mind. She knew him by reputation. He was a workaholic machine, whose entire life revolved around his work and career ambitions. She understood that he did not quite appreciate the need for such fluffy stuff as warmth and kindness. He was racing, constantly, against time, against himself and his own expectations for himself. She surmised that she was not so much a source of annoyance as an inconvenience.
And then she figured that Mr Sahir Azeem Chaudhary needed to learn to lighten up, to live a little. She took it upon herself as a mission. She would smile extra brightly at him, just to elicit some sort of grimace from him. She would insist doubly on discussing cases with him, so that finally he could bring himself to at least lower his eyes from the high horse he rode and take notice of the other mere mortals.
But it had been a mistake, she had come to realize after his outburst. He was best left alone, and she had to learn to not care about the unfairness of it all. She knew who she was, what she was capable of, and nobody could take that away from her.
Yet, she could not deny that his words continued to sting. Perhaps it was because the voice was his, but the words had been etched in her memory before he had uttered them. They were all the same after all. And suddenly she felt a burst of anger fill into her quelled tears, and decided that she needed no apology from the likes of him. She would show him alright.
It had not been easy, getting back to work and studies, after the hell she had been through. There were so many times when the barely discernible words would just swim around on the pages, refusing to make any sense, no matter how hard she strained her eyes to string them together into some semblance of coherence. Then tears would rush to her eyes, blinding her further in a flood of pain and frustration. There were so many times when her pounding head simply refused to take any of it in. Every piece of information seemed to take an eternity to seep into her murkied mind, and it was frustrating beyond words. But she needed no sympathy. She would make it, and she would show him, show them, that she was no nobody. She was Arzoo Nawsheen Khan, who deserved in every way, to make it as a lawyer.
She deleted the email that she had been drafting to Mr Malkani and Mrs Ahuja, the senior partners at the law firm, to excuse herself from attending the arbitration conference. She had no reason to avoid Sahir. If anything, he was the one who had to be ashamed of the way he had behaved. She had always been respectful and courteous towards him. It was a failing on his part if he decided to interpret her geniality as a sign of weakness. It would be his loss. She would no longer be hurt by the fact that he always misunderstood and underestimated her. Who the hell was he anyway? She had had enough of the likes of him, and decided she would not let him affect her thus.
And with that, she slung her jhola around her shoulder and walked out of the office, her head held high. It was a small errand that she set out on. She was only going to the Court registry to check the minutes of the proceedings and query about the notices that should have been served a week ago. She could have sent a clerk, but she had some free time, and in any case, Arzoo considered no job to be beneath her - everything was potentially a learning experience. If nothing else, she would at least meet people, make connections and ask them questions. There were clerks who had been working at the Court since before she was born, they may not have been lawyers, but they had a wealth of experience to share, if only one could be bothered to ask.
For the life of her, Arzoo could not understand why lawyers insisted on being pompous and haughty all the time, just because they were privileged enough to sport a gown over their tailored suits. Their duty was to serve people in the ends of justice, and it made no sense to float a mile high above those very people's heads and look down upon them. It was one thing to maintain professional detachment to be able to do one's job as best one could, but it was quite another thing to consider oneself superior to everyone else. Arzoo had no such hang-ups, she found it petty and unnecessary to limit oneself to the four walls of one's air-conditioned cabin and ego.
The fresh (read, densely polluted) air had done her good. By the time she was back at the office, Arzoo had found that most of her anger had dissipated. Solitary walks had always been a source of comfort. That, and chai - she thought, and she made her way to the kitchenette to brew herself a cup of heaven.
She did not see Sahir for the rest of the day, and it was just as well. It gave her enough time to calm down and realize that, in the greater scheme of things, his hurtful words were perhaps not as harmful after all. There was obviously something that he genuinely believed she was not doing right, and he must have been right to some extent, given how much more he knew about the profession, as compared to a mere intern such as herself.
She knew her unconventionality and stubbornness sometimes stretched to extremes, and maybe it was a good thing that she had detractors in the form of people like Sahir, to keep her focus right and fuel her motivation even further in the right direction. It had been wrong of her to be so angry at him, to the extent of shunning away his perspective completely. His choice of words was wrong, his tone and the volume of his voice were wrong, but there possibly was some value to what he had said. Indeed, there was a need to consider the bigger picture and the practical issues. Idealism was not always the answer.
Of course her idealism came from a space so personal and innate to her that she herself could barely discern the points where it interfered with her professional life, but there would be another time to assert herself so strongly. She had to give him time to understand her opinions and why they mattered so much to her. Only then would he be able to engage with them with an open mind.
It was on the next morning that they met again, when she went to his cabin to get some documents signed. He looked quite hassled and restless on seeing her walk in. Definitely a first for Mr Overconfident. He stammered a few times, asking unnecessary questions about the files, and she realized that he was still thinking of what he had said to her. She wished he could forget about it. Bygones had gone by; a new day had begun. She took the files from him and began to leave his cabin.
"Arzoo," he called from behind her.
"Yes Sir?" she said, feigning nonchalance, as she turned to look at him.
"I... you know, what I said... yesterday... I -"
"It's okay, Sir," she interrupted, "You are trying to help me, and I appreciate that."
She could see from the surprised look on his face that she had hit the nail right on the head. And she had meant it. He was her mentor after all. There had to be some value to the way he perceived things. Even if she would always stand true to what she believed was right, that was no reason to discredit the differing points of view that existed out there. In fact it would be arrogance on her part to allow her ego and anger to cloud her away from the possibility of being shown the right path by others.
It had been childishness on her part after all, those light-hearted skirmishes with Sahir, to get him to smile or acknowledge her talent or hard work. If he did not like her, or even if he downright hated her... fair enough. There was no need to provoke him into changing his mind, as disturbing as it was that he made assumptions about her without bothering to get to know her. He was entitled to his opinions and what he thought of her should not have bothered her in the first place. Perhaps one day he would understand, or perhaps not. It did not matter either way.
She was there to work and learn. It was time she sobered up, at least while she was at work. She had a point to prove, a dream to achieve, and - he was right - it was not by prancing around like an idiot that she would be able to do it.
It was an odd space in which she found herself, riddled with self-doubt. There was so much uncertainty, around what she should do, and how; on whether she was right or wrong; on whether she had made the right choices or if these would come to haunt her later. She could barely see the path that lay beneath her feet and yet she kept walking, the only thing that kept her going being her drive to catch a drift of the positivity that lay in the bleakest of clouds. How else could she possibly survive otherwise? Stopping was never an option. She had to drift on. And perhaps one day she would find herself and be at peace. She would no longer need to fake happiness in the hope that she would attract positive things; she would truly be happy.
With a slight smile, she returned to the research she was doing, on investment arbitration. The Delhi conference was only two days away.
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Edited by _.serendipity._ - 10 years ago
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