“Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.”

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

The name “Arun” is a majestic name which means “charioteer of the sun” or “beautiful dawn” or “stunning morning star” symbolising strength, passion, and courage. I had the good fortune of having intimately known Arun Jaitley for over 49 years, virtually since the time I joined Delhi University in the year 1970 to study BA (Hons) in Economics from Hindu College, which had been established in the year 1899 by Krishan Dassji Gurwale with the motive of providing non-elitist, non-sectarian and nationalist education to the youth in the backdrop of our freedom struggle against British rule. Arun had joined Delhi University that very year to study B Com (Hons) from Sri Ram College of Commerce. I met him for the very first time in August, 1970 at the YMCA Freshers Debate on the subject “This House believes that the individual must live for the society” which took place at the New Delhi YMCA Tourist Hostel in Jai Singh Road cheek by jowl with the historical Jantar Mantar Observatory.

I stood first in that debate and Arun got the third prize. The stunningly beautiful Kiran Sethi (who was a legend of her time, both as an amazing painter and enchanting fashion model, but is no more in this world) from Miranda College won the second prize. Arun used to spend a lion’s share of his student days in Hindu College and the Hindu College Hostel and Canteen were undoubtedly his favourite haunts. He particularly relished the lip smacking “Chole Bature” at the Canteen! He was an ardent cricket aficianado and never missed on a single Hindu College vs St. Stephen’s College cricket match in the Delhi University cricket ground when he unhesitatingly used to support the Hindu College team vociferously. Whilst we were undergraduates in Delhi University, Arun and I used to travel to various places in India by bus or train to participate in debates and elocution contests. In the year 1971, Arun and I travelled by bus to Roorkee to participate in an All India debate in the University of Roorkee (presently the “Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee”). The very evening we arrived in Roorkee, we went to watch the 1970 Bollywood film “Sawan Bhadon” starring a pompous Navin Nischal (who happened to be my senior in Delhi Public School) as Vikram, a wealthy man, and a lean and lanky Bhanurekha Ganesan, popularly known as “Rekha” (she made her Bollywood debut in the film!), as Chanda, a village belle, and produced and directed by Mohan Segal in a ramshackle cinema hall called “Neelam Talkies” in the Civil Lines area.

The seats were not only stiff and uncomfortable to sit upon but their tattered upholstery was infested with pernicious bugs who made our presence in the hall a truly harrowing experience. And to add to our misery, the audience comprised of a bunch of unruly local boys who even went to the extent of frenziedly whistling at two pretty lady students from Loreto College, Lucknow, who had also come to Roorkee for the debate and had voluntarily accompanied us to the cinema hall..smitten by Arun’s good looks! The whistling got rather intense when Asha Bhonsle’s playback song “Ankhiyan Na Maar Mundia” came through the multi-cracked speakers creating a miserable cacophony of sounds! Arun and I were most disgusted and we hastily left the hall in the midst of the film with the two embarrassed damsels in tow! In a moment of helpless nostalgia, my mind travels back to an amusing incident way back in 1973 when we arrived in Chandigarh in the early hours of a cold wintry morning and were desperately trying to locate an auto-rickshaw driver who could take us to the venue of the debate on “This House believes that the entry of China into the United Nations will wreck the organisation” in Chandigarh University. Some of the auto-rickshaw drivers were in a foul, abrasive mood and began hurling abuses at us in rustic Punjabi without any provocation whatsoever. Arun was totally unperturbed but I reacted strongly and told Arun in no uncertain terms, “These guys have a sour tongue.” Arun was never tired of repeating this incident to his friends and comrades! Arun was an indefatigable fan of Bollywood films and used to regale his friends and comrades with Bollywood hit songs in his deep, resonant voice.

His repertoire of Bollywood songs was stupendous and he knew all the songs by heart! Significantly, Arun was also a class mate of mine at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University, where we both enrolled to study Law in 1973. Since those days, he affectionately used to call me “Professor Bose’ or “Dr.Bose”. In fact, Arun, who was then the elected President of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU), was arrested in my presence on 26^th June,1975 (a state of emergency had been declared under Article 356 of the Indian Constitution just before midnight on 25^th June,1975!) whilst we were savouring hot, sizzling coffee and delectable masala omelettes on toast in the iconic United Coffee House in Delhi University. He was thereafter incarcerated in the infamous Tihar jail where he spent 19 long, pathetic months of “preventive detention”.

One of the determining factors that brought me close to Arun was the fact that I could impersonate Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the hilt and was never tired of delivering Nehru’s speeches at the drop of a hat. On the occasion of the wedding reception of the former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi’s younger son Samir in Delhi in March,2017, Arun asked me to recite Nehru’s famous “Tryst with Destiny” speech in the presence of many personages, including politicians, lawyers and media persons. Right from the very moment I got to know Arun, I conceived a deep and abiding admiration for his razor sharp intellect, his unwavering love for clean and unobtrusive politics, his tireless zest for work, his discernible pertinacity, his innate simplicity and his disarming personal charm. Arun was an exceptional man with a brilliant and wonderfully incisive mind. He was the perfect combination of intellect, integrity, humanity and humility. He was a rock of principle, not starry-eyed about the law but conscious that it reflected deep values that we abandon so recklessly at our peril. Like my old departed friend and well wisher Lord Alfred Denning who lived a full life of more than a century, Arun combined “a love of liberty with a passion for justice.”  Fair, robust and principled, he was the embodiment of what we imagine the ideal lawyer to be all about. To me he was a great man with a towering legal acumen and a good and steadfast friend whose humanity was as evident in his good manners and treatment of his opponents both in court and parliament. Arun, by his charm, his personality, his example and his bearing for so many years had endeared himself to all of us in a truly magnificent manner. One of the most remarkable qualities Arun possessed was his complete lack of prejudice and the warmth and affection with which he spontaneously received not just old and trusted friends, but anyone and everyone, including political opponents and detractors, who visited him at his office or home.

None of us could enter his presence without being aware both of his grace and warmth, not to mention his superlative oratorical and political skills. It is said that behind every great man there’s a great woman…and not without cause! And behind Arun stood his most charming “bestest half” and cheerful ministering angel Sangeeta (popularly known by her nickname “Dolly”) who hailed from Jammu and was with him and for him over the years of his triumphs and tribulations like the proverbial Rock of Gibralter. I am highly emboldened to pontificate that Arun had probably been deeply inspired by the immortal words of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill –

“The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.” I am really going to miss my dear friend Arun and here I turn to the words of Alexander Pope, the monumental English poet, in a melancholy vein – “Good God! How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.”

Arun will live long, mellow and gracious in the hearts and minds of all those whose lives he touched in some way or the other as well as all of those like me who knew him and loved him in this world and in the annals of the tumultuous times in which we live like those long extinguished stars whose fires still give us light. I am irresistibly drawn to the words of William Shakespeare from his timeless play Henry VIII – “He gave his honours to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.” I pray to the Almighty that Arun’s noble soul may now rest in eternal peace, bearing in mind the timeless message of the Bhagwad Gita :

“Acchedyo yam adahyo yam akledyo sosya eva ca Nityah sarva-gatah sthanur acalo yam sanatanah”

“The soul is indestructible, the soul is incombustible, insoluble and unwitherable. The soul is eternal, all pervasive, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial”

Here was a Arun, when comes such another?

ANOOP BOSE

Advocate, Supreme Court of India

E-mail : [email protected]