Every year, on December 6, Javed felt lighter.
He enjoyed the attention he got on his birthday. His colleagues phoned to wish him, his friends visited for a cup of chai, he received gifts from clients and in the past few years it was the only day his wife gave his ‘diet’ a break. He was free to eat anything he wanted on his birthday. “I feel like a child,” he used to say. 

This year, though, a heaviness weighed him down. 

Was it because he was turning 60? Age, he had always maintained, was only in the mind. Such a sweet lie to repeat all your life. The faster one runs, the faster age catches up.

Was it because he was would retire today? No more black coats, no more white shirts, no more fighting couples on the verge of divorce and no more celebratory weddings. He would miss the courts and all its din. 

35 years ago, when Javed had asked Asha to marry him, he had promised to retire at the age of 60. After which, they would go on an all-India tour, he had said. Kashmir se Kanyakumari tak. Pakka promise. 

He intended to keep his promise. After all, he practised family law, he told himself. He didn’t represent the valiant protestors who were falsely accused of sedition or the students who fought for their right for a just tomorrow or the farmers who were accused of inciting cessation from India, when they were filling the stomachs of the whole country.