The Covid-19 lockdown unlocked the hidden potential of many of us. For Justice Shivaraj Patil, it became an opportunity to become a writer, going down the myriad memory lanes of his own long and illustrious life and penning an autobiography. The 400-page Time Spent Distance Travelled was released on January 21 and is also available in Kannada, titled Kaleda Kala Nadedha Doora.
There are already five biographies on Patil, three in Kannada and two in English, but this is the judge’s inspirational life story in his own words, as the poet laureate of Karnataka, the great Kuvempu, had said: “I shall unroll before you, O preceptor, my inner spirit, hiding nothing.”
At 84, Justice Patil has many glorious chapters in the book of life to leaf through and tell the world about. He was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of India in 2000 and since his retirement in 2005, has served as the acting chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of India, and as Lokayukta of the Karnataka government.
The many cases he fought as a lawyer and judgements he delivered as a judge of the Karnataka High Court and the Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court would make for essential reading not just for those in the legal profession but the regular reader with an interest in the country’s legal system. But what makes the biography stand apart is the story of plain, old hard work trumping life’s adversities and clear conscience and a solid set of morals as the guiding principles.
Justice Patil was not born to privilege, in fact, far from it, in a farmer family in a dusty village in Karnataka, studying by the light of a lantern in the village. “Poverty is not an abstract concept for me; I have experienced its hardships during my formative years.