Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra met journalists covering the Supreme Court to engage in a free-wheeling conversation where he discussed subjects as varied and vivid as work amenities at the court's press lounge, Diogenes, 'Waiting for Godot', and the actual meaning of the word "tea".
Dressed in a formal suit, Chief Justice Misra arrived at the press lounge accompanied by Supreme Court Secretary-General Ravindra Maithani, Public Relations Officer Rakesh Sharma, Registrars, and other staff.
As soon as he entered the lounge, the Chief Justice shook hands with the journalists present, and took a quick glance around the room before asking whether something needed to be done to better the working conditions. Immediately, a senior journalist pointed out that the walls needed a fresh coat of paint.
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In a few minutes, everybody was on the same page about changing the furniture but not the long, heavy wooden table, the centrepiece of the press lounge around which generations of Supreme Court scribes have sat and worked.
A round of tea was ordered from the court’s canteen next door, which took its time to be delivered.
When asked by senior journalists if he would take questions, the Chief Justice said “the day would come”, in the not-so-distant future, and on that day, journalists may ask him different kind of questions from what, he believed, they were probably thinking of asking him now.
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When asked whether he was trying to “deflect” questions, Chief Justice Misra responded by asking the gathered journalists if they were familiar with Samuel Beckett’s existentialist play Waiting for Godot . He briefly described the characters Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for a third, Godot, to arrive. While they wait, they talk about their lives.
‘Yes, he may’
“Does Godot arrive?” asked one of the journalists.
“Yes, he may arrive... sometime,” the Chief Justice replied.
Some journalists wondered whether they [the journalists] were like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for the Chief Justice with their questions. The conversation drifted to what the word “tea” actually meant to each one of the journalists. The answers ranged from “addiction” to “habit” to “relief”. The Chief Justice said that, for him, tea meant “attraction" — a time when people, friends or strangers, enjoyed a brief lull from their hectic schedules, over a conversation.
With this, the Chief Justice rose to leave just as quietly as he entered the room.