Two mohollas away from Seervai Vad, in a largish house, resided a tall gentleman called Meherjibhai Vakil, whose surname announced his calling. The Legal Practitioners Act, 1846 had attempted to regulate the mukhtars, pleaders and vakils in the mofussil (semi urban, rural) areas. Not much legal training was required; a character certificate from a local court generally sufficed. Of course, some went to England, to read law at one of the Inns and returned as barristers to practice in the high courts, then dominated by the English.
Meherjibhai was a bright lad in the local Tata boys’ school in Navsari; he......