WHEN JOURNALIST TURNS LAWYER AND LAWYER FACES 'CROSS-EXAMINATION'

WHEN JOURNALIST TURNS LAWYER AND LAWYER FACES 'CROSS-EXAMINATION'

1. Keshab Bhattacherjee was caught on quite a sticky wicket as Kunal Bose bowled his top-spinners relentlessly at him. But Keshab Babu defended his wicket well right till the end gracefully.

2. Kunal's 'cross-examination' of Keshab Bhattacherjee was simply brilliant today. The lawyer defended his line, though, but not quite convincingly.

3. The lawyer passed through the same ordeal which he makes the accused in court pass through. But the silver lining was that despite inconclusive and widely deflected answers given to pertinent questions posed by the interviewer who was in the mode of deadly grilling of his interviewee, the latter came out triumphant through it all, not quite in terms of providing satisfactory answers but in the grace and good humour that he exhibited throughout the interview, even commending Kunal in the end for tough-questioning him which, he said, helped him to answer that much more, that is, bring out a plethora of facts to the fore.

4. But Keshab Babu's assertion about Netaji living right till date and his conviction that he will appear riding the crest of a Third World War seemed more founded in a fervent hope than on concrete evidence or reason. However, here at least one sees a gentleman who does not hide his face behind others projected ahead by him and has the courage to articulate in clear unstammering terms what he believes to be true despite the odds being stacked heavily against it.

5. This interview seemed more one-pointed than the dilute versions earlier where the interviewer seemingly was apprehensive of asking too many tough questions in too persistent a way. However, it does seem that Kunal is catering to an audience and is mindful of his viewership, for one saw in today's interview a different tenor and tone which was seemingly the attempt to quell the criticism he has recently faced about presenting absurd propositions about Netaji in his shows. That Keshab Babu with his good graces and legal experience fitted the bill well to rationalise the whole affair was amply evident in the manner Kunal went about grilling him throughout the show. It was as if he was hell-bent on redeeming his erstwhile 'fallen status' as a gentleman of rational sufficiency. No harm in that, too, as the highly sporting and supporting lawyer helped him on with his affable answering, even if off-track, over-elaborated and rationally untenable so often.

Written by Sugata Bose