And now for something completely different.
“So, Arnab Goswami finally met his match?” Bangalore-based advocate KV Dhananjay told us earlier today on WhatsApp, adding:
You could be forgiven for taking this video to be some ‘Comedy Show’. It isn’t, sadly. It is supposed to be a very serious discussion over a matter of national concern. Instead, it is a fitting reminder of 1) the broken and neurotic state of our television media and of 2) the empty defence that scamsters and fraudsters often manufacture through their ‘pricey’ lawyers.
Indeed, as Dhananjay points out, the exchange (see video below) is hilarious but that aside, Aggarwal, court- and TV-craft no doubt schooled by years of dealing with hard-of-hearing judges, demonstrated a textbook defence against the classic Arnab Goswami attack pattern.
And, after 14 minutes of shouting at each other Aggarwal had worn his opponent down sufficiently to where he managed the unprecedented feat of speaking nearly uninterrupted at Arnab for minutes, after the latter had run out of steam.
Fight night
In the Republic TV corner, standing and gesticulating from his TV studio in Mumbai, Arnab Goswami. He needs no introduction of course.
In the other corner, Vijay Aggarwal, lawyer to disgraced jewelry playboy baron Nirav Modi, recording via video link presumably from his office in Delhi.
Aggarwal is not unused to controversy of course. He defended several 2G scam accused, such as Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, as well as winning anticipatory bail for troubled AAP legislator Somnath Bharti.
In 2011 he faced a complaint from then Bar Council of Delhi member Rajiv Khosla, for allegedly practising chartered accountancy and law at the same time (Aggarwal claimed that while he had a CA degree, the CA website under his name was not his).
Learning from Arnab 101
Proceedings start out as usual for Republic TV, with Arnab shouting at his guest (unusually, in a head-on-head split screen without any other guests). Arnab, desperately trying to establish the presence of Modi, shouts repeatedly: “He’s in Hong Kong, I know he's in Hong Kong, you know he's in Hong Kong, in whose home is he hiding? You know he's in Hong Kong. Is he a fugitive, is your client a fugitive.”
Aggarwal responds with eloquence, repeating phrases like “you have to stop, then only I reply”, or “after asking your question, keep quiet”, or “go quiet” dozens of times until Arnab stops shouting, or starts exasperately counting the number of Aggarwal's repetitions.
In a lull in Arnab's onslaught at around the 1:30 mark, Aggarwal says: “You may be hard of hearing, Arnab, I am not.”
“You may be hard of basic intelligence, I am not,” Arnab rebuts.
“I never learnt so much in court as I've learned from Arnab,” says Aggarwal. “You are spoiling me, I'm learning it from you.”
Desperately, Arnab begins to punt “breaking news”, that Nirav Modi is indeed in Hong Kong - you are not denying he's in Hong Kong, says Arnab, which the exclusive headline text ticker dutifully mirrors. “It's your duty to answer on behalf of your client,” tries Arnab.
“You just keep quiet I give you an answer,” Aggarwal keeps repeating in response.
“I have a live poll on social media right now,” Arnab desperately tries as a strategy of controlling Aggarwal, unsuccessfully. “78% of people are saying you have not answered the question.”
“There is only summons, not even bailable summons against him,” says Aggarwal.
You are a lawyer who has made his reputation in court by being “pugilistic, pugnacious and aggressive”, Arnab says, trying to regain the initiative. “Vijay, a simple question to you is,” starts Arnab.
“Would you give me fee?” asks Aggarwal, cheekily, adding that Arnab couldn't even afford him.
Arnab doesn't take this lying down. “I am not bothered about you, you've even filed cases on me, you know I can fight you till many years to come. I am not worried about you and your legal threats.”
After a while, Arnab begins shouting: “He's running away from my question viewers.”
Aggarwal: “I am sitting here, I am not running away, I am sitting here.”
Schooling Arnab
At the 8:18 point, Arnab starts getting more visibly irate. “Vijay come on, I thought you were an aggressive lawyer, why are you avoiding my question man. Tell me, tell me, tell me now, don't run away from my question.”
“Go quiet, go quiet, go quiet,” Aggarwal keeps repeating at Arnab again.
Arnab: You look nervous, have some water Vijay. “Come to my studio, I'll offer you water.”
You are not interested in a dialogue, says Aggarwal, truthfully.
“Shell companies in Hong Kong,” Arnab then starts repeating, over and over and over, ad absurdum.
But, incredibly, faced with immovable object Aggarwal, Arnab then runs out of steam and lets Aggarwal talk for minutes.
Other banter highlights
Aggarwal, after his earpiece falls out: “With the pressure of your voice my earphone fell off.”
Aggarwal, when asked when he last spoke to Modi: “You may not believe me, but I do not even maintain a diary of my conversations... I am not a foreign counsel who bills according to the number of conversations.”
Arnab: “He's running away like a rat, like a scared sparrow, hiding somewhere behind a bush...”
“I have a very poor IQ compared to yours,” says Aggarwal disarmingly.
Aggarwal: “I am not here to perform in front of you, you don't pay me.”
Aggarwal: “There is only one word, an excellent Hindi adage, for you totha jhana, baje chana [Hollow lentil makes more noise - those who are not capable of delivering talk more], that only describes you very well.” 20:36 mark).
At this, the crew in Arnab's studio appears to erupt in audible laughter.
The exchange ends with Arnab repeating “9 o' clock tonight, 9 o' clock tonight, you will face me at 9 o' clock, thank you thank you thank you”, as Aggarwal repeats: “Wherever, wherever, wherever, wherever, wherever.”
Of course, neither journalists nor lawyers come out of all this looking great, but we think it's fair to score this one as a decisive win for the legal community: Aggarwal 1 - Arnab 0.
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Life's too short to be serious all the time.
In terms of competition, I am very content for LI to do its own thing, as it always has.
Live Law and Bar & Bench have been doing great work when it comes to court reporting, but I have found that there is only little value to add there over and above the national papers (besides possibly beating them on speed, and sometimes on analysis). It's also not possible to compete there without heavy investment in court reporting resources, without any obvious major value addition.
However, I believe we have maintained our lead in reporting in corporate and legal education, and hope to continue innovating on that front.
Also, we're the only publication that doesn't always take itself too seriously, and I'd think the only one that isn't scared of picking some of the harder fights.
In terms of traffic, I'm not sure how the others are doing but we've been pretty stable at around 2 lakh unique visitors per month.
Unfortunately, when we did cover the Supreme Court with original reporting, for instance, this did not translate to any significant bump in traffic, so I think it's best if we focus on what we're good at.
And that includes occasionally entertaining our readers :)
Cheers
Kian
The Indian media would have been in a pitiable state because of low IQ naive people like Arnab Goswami, if it was not for others who maintain a balance.
Have similar interview with Bimal Patel GNLU. Though you will win because he is nothing in front of you.
Have it once.
Will be a great show...
P.s - doesn’t hurt to have some fun sometime- am sick of reading the same old stuff about partners playing musical
Chairs with law firms, and people overworking themselves just to close another multi million dollar deal!
While I believe he's an intelligent man, I do worry that these daily antics will one day drive him insane or give him a heart attack... It's impossible that this constant shouting doesn't take a toll somewhere on body and/or mind... :(
He is being paid huge sums of money & perks to promote this Republic channel. It's this fat pay packet which gives him the energy. It's no more the neutrality or righteousness he showed earlier as a unbiased journalist. He's now a totally biased one now.
In the meantime, he protected his client by not revealing ANYTHING (whether about Hong Kong or anything), rebutted several points like the 11,000 crore figures, and got a primetime news / entertainment slot for 21 minutes, plus Arnab didn't cut him off and even invited him back.
If you're even a semi-regular watcher of AG, that is unusual (and perhaps unprecedented).
Preposterous .
Bar & Bench = Poodle of Law School VCs.
To the idiot praising B&B: It is LiveLaw and not B&B that can be said to be a strong competitor to LI.
There is a big loophole in our legal and judicial system. Fraudester and corrupt people like Nirav Modi mould the laws by hiring highly paid and bigwig lawyers who can bend the law for their corrupt client and Fraudester like Nirav always challenge the system these corrupted corporate house have nk fear od law amd order.
Our system is not capable to give pubishment these fraudester.
Trurh is that law is blind only for those who have abundance of money and power.
Arnab a paid spokesperson of bjp, was wasting aur time and trying hard to show that he is grilling Nirav modi.
He could have questioned Nirav proximity to Fenku.
Why the Choksi is not in forefront of this drama. Hee the papu is the real player of all this.
so he can avoid his questions ..
U seriously need to change the hedding of this article... It should have been *Arnav facing a dumb lawyer who doesn't know how to talk*
ka aur ek bikau lawyer ka
He is an idiot.
He is absolutely irritating.
I am happy i don't have republic news channel. I read news on mobile and saw this video.
Shame on you .... For being happy that defender of a criminal , yes I will say Neerav and CHAUKSI as criminals, thing to not answer Arnab questions and reviews revolving things round in circles ....
THAT ATTORNY WOULD BE PAID OUT OF MONEY THAT NEERAV HAS LOOTED FROM THE COUNTRY
Agarwal didn't disclose anything compromising on his client, threw out some helpful facts (ED has only issued summons, disputed the 1100 crore figure) and even got some sympathy for people getting arrested. Sure, as the general public Agarwal should infuriate us and he hasn't won any popularity contests with this. But if I was the next Nirav Modi, I would want to hire him. And on that count, he's definitely done well for himself in this interview.
Arnab, in fact, ends up looking a little silly. He gets iterated when Agarwal uses his own tricks at him. He gets laughed at. And he actually lets Agarwal respond to a couple of questions which is quite a lot for Arnab. More importantly, he gets nothing from the interview. Nothing, no sound bites, no utterances that he can condense and throw around in social media.
Sadly, all it proves is that you have to be utterly shameless and act like an petulant imbecile to get your point across with Arnab. Sigh!
Marijuana or ganja..??
Also a small update for our regular readers, to explain all the random guest comments: bizarrely this totha jhana article has just clocked up more than a lakh hits...
- Hardly heard DoorKnob CowSwami earlier live on TV, as it seems to be a complete waste of time
- Though I watched this clip from beginning to end, felt it would have been a better use of my time (& had more fun) if I'd read the comments first :)
- The lawyer did manage to get couple of points in the discussion, which is very commendable given the verbal diarrhea!
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