From left, my sister Pallavi, Rambhai and the Dalai Lama
“Scamp and scalawag are my two words of the day. What are yours?” Rambhai asked me.
“Mine are gimcrack and gasconade,” I replied.
On hearing the news of the demise of my cherished brother-in-law, retired Gujarat high court judge Harshvardhan Antani, whom we called Rambhai, at age 72 yesterday, this was the instant recall for me.
Come to think of it there could not be a more fitting reminiscence of someone, who quite like me, loved to read the dictionary. Incidentally, scamp means a person, especially a child, who is mischievous in a likable or amusing way, scalawag means a person who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal, (The two can be broadly called synonyms), gimcrack means flimsy or poorly made but deceptively attractive and gasconade extravagant boasting. They are all American slang.
It is a great tribute to Rambhai that my first memory on his passing was that exchange from 1978, about a year after he married my sister Pallavi in May, 1977, when I was 17 and he 29.
As I think about Rambhai over the last four decades, it is hard for me to decide what he loved the most, absolutely top of the line mangoes, obscure words, Test cricket and within that Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards and Alistair Cook, every top of the line international news, science, travel and sports journal that he subscribed to unfailingly for decades or jurisprudence. Let me make it easy for me by saying all those in equal measure and top it off with his genuine love for great newspapers. There were times when I used to joke that Rambhai singlehandedly kept the newspaper and magazine business alive—be it Wisden, The Economist, Nature and at least a dozen or so more apart from as many newspapers regularly.
Speaking of Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards and Alistair Cook, for as long as I remember one could not say something even remotely negative about the three great cricketers, especially the first two. Gavaskar, in fact, became Rambhai’s friend whom the latter hosted at his Ahmedabad home and corresponded with. As for Cook, my sister did something heartbreakingly touching in Rambhai’s final but fully alert moments. Apart from showing him his parents, Bindubhai and Harvidyaben's photograph, Pallavi showed Rambhai Alistair Cook’s photograph. He was that fond of Cook.
Here was perhaps the most steadfast admirer of the Test cricket format of the game that I know of in the midst of the testosterone-fueled T20/Indian Premier League world. Rambhai would watch the five-day game being played anywhere with great relish. Separately, he was an excellent mimic of cricket commentators, including Tony Cozier, Vijay Merchant and so on.
Endowed with a naturally joyous temperament, Rambhai was a serious judge of unimpeachable integrity and rectitude. He was always steadfast in recusal even at the slightest hint of a conflict of interests. Not given to flashy flourishes he leaned more on the sober, scholarly side of things in his chosen profession, first as a lawyer and then as a judge who rose through the ranks to become a high court judge in Gujarat. He could have easily ended up on the country’s Supreme Court but for combination of retirement age and some amount of political play. He brooked no interference in his work irrespective of who was doing the interfering. Whether or one likes to admit it, that approach is counterproductive in the Indian judiciary when it comes to rising on the basis of pure merit.
The only child of a well-placed bureaucrat in his father, Rambhai made the best of all the professional opportunities that came his way. His post-retirement life became intensely busy as he become a much sought after former judge in matters of arbitration.
Rambhai and my sister Pallavi, whom we call Bebli, made a wonderfully happy couple who have had no children. They would have loved to have children but that was not to be.
There is a great deal one remembers of Rambhai and his substantive life but what still remains vivid is the passion and enthusiasm with which he did his vegetable shopping. He insisted on doing it himself, subjecting each mango or a potato or a tomato or an eggplant to meticulous scrutiny just as he would do to every magazine that he bought making sure there was not a single page bent or askew. He preserved his favorite journals, such as Nature, National Geographic, Wisden and other expensive travel journals properly bound and neatly stacked. The latest issues of the dozen or so magazines would be displayed in a special built magazine holder on his drawing room wall.
Here is to dear Rambhai and his often great sense of humor.