I hope you have heard the famous dialogue by Sunny Deol. Tareek Pae Tareekh means a date after date (i.e. day/month/year). That’s the fate of cases in India. Here is a take on that:

He rose, he sprang and then he spoke

A dialogue in unmistakable baritone:

“Tareekh Pae Tareekh, Tareekh Pae Tareekh”!

And legendary became his shriek.

(I salute Sunny. His only hit?)

Till one day one judge

Rose and sprang and

Began to speak animatedly

On “Tareekh Pae Tareekh”.

You may, said he, look at me and my kindred

Stultified are we (Our numbers are few)

And then you besiege! (That is so lewd)

To end Tareekh Pae Tareekh?

The lawyer is ill, I adjourn the case.

The lawyer is fine, his compatriot is late.

Arrgh! This disease and tricks so cheap

Keep up Tareekh Pae Tareekh.

These lawyers read a famous author (Frost)

(The lawyers read? Good. My Lord!)

The author’s words they carefully tread

Wherever they should (yes even in woods).

And before they sleep

They will go any miles to keep

The promise of Tareekh Pae Tareekh.

Yes on horses the lawyers ride (covering acres)

And Like Bloodhounds they hunt cases (a massacre).

They accumulate cases in a pile.

The pile which now is justifiably riled.

The ‘how’ of the appeasement is a mystery.

The ‘how’ of the appeasement is the history.

The history says that a body is one

And with five cases in five courts

(Without Voldemort’s Horcrux)

To two the lawyer goes; the fate of the three

Is Tareekh Pae Tareekh.

A brave judge he chose to reform.

The Bar rose, full of scorn.

The reform died (no one mourned)

And the bar remained low (shameless, forlorn)

To the judge’s fight, a deathly blow.

And the bench broke (A Bench so weak)

And in the courtrooms, it echoes still:

(Echo courtesy the glistening Teak)

“Tareekh Pae Tareekh, Tareekh Pae Tareekh”.

The summer vacation (a great concept),

All vacate courts and take rest

In countries and destinations wide.

The numbers rise and they speak in no uncertain

Terms of the lovely holiday he spent, that glutton-

Enjoying cakes, wine, beef and mutton (nice taste)

Leaving cadavers and skeletons (of people on his plate)

Delicious kebabs and delicious seekhs

(Lambs and Kids crying for justice, for relief

From a pernicious Mr. Tareekh Pae Tareekh)!

A junior is sent for a case (on whims)

(Well, at last, some work for him)

And when he returns (for a while he lurks)

The senior then asks him the result

In a short sentence: ‘Which date’?

Not who won and who lost,

But a number (depends on fate)?

Who loses is we and who wins is

Mr. Tareekh Pae Tareekh.

Tribunals come, Lok Adalats come

‘Success stories: a case study’.

Success stories come and fun they make

Of the difference between real and reel

Reel is pleasantly sunny (Sunny?)

Real is Tareekh Pae Tareekh.

Legal Poet