My Own Boswell Memoirs Of M. Hidayatullaha - 1374 Words

Book Review MY OWN BOSWELL: MEMOIRS OF M. HIDAYATULLAHA by M. Hidayatullah. ISBN: 978-81-7534-260-6 Publication year 2011 Pages: 304 Price Rs. 295/- Published By Universal Law Publishing Company Private Limited G.T. Karnal Road, New Delhi- 110033, India Reviewed by Prabhansu Gupta* The MY OWN BOSWELL : MEMOIRS OF M. HIDAYATULLAHA is the autobiography of an eminent Indian lawyer M. Hidayatullah who has won most of the prizes available to one of his profession in India. The title, he explains in the preface, was taken from the subtitle of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Aristocrat of the Breakfast Table: Every man his own Boswell. The author was born on 17 December†¦show more content†¦In the given interval he wrote several books and spent some time in the United States. The latter visit resulted in a book known as, U.S.A. and India. As there indicated, he was in residence for a week at Southern Illinois University School of Law and gave several lectures, one of which was published in the Southern Illinois University Law Journal. At the age of forty he was appointed by the Crown to be a judge of the High Court at Nagpur where he served for ten years. In the second year of that service he entered into a very successful int er-religious marriage to Pushpa Shah, and during the last two years he served as Chief Justice. Then, in 1956, the State of Madya Pradesh was recognized and his court was moved to Jabalpur. Chapter 19 discusses some of the problems arising from the reorganization and includes some sharp criticism of the politics involved. It also talks about author’s humour by specifying a difficulty arose in finding housing for the clerical staff. The district administration found accommodations in a large house where some families could be stationed, but there were complaints about the neighbourhood. The author and his two senior judges inspected the locale and found that the house was in the red-light district. One of them suggested that the bachelors dormitory might be shifted there, to the horror of another of the judges. Alternative arrangements, of