Very sad to hear the demise of Prof NR Madhav Menon . Salutes to the founding director of the National Law Schools in India and a great academic administrator and exponent of legal education in India , who began the five years professional law education in India. He was an institution builder ,an academic leader and a gentleman to the core. His passing away is a personal loss to me. He was a mentor in my youthful years of restlessness.
I personally owe a lot to Prof. Menon. We had such a warm relationship and in many ways he was like a Guru to me. Last time we met at the Trivandrum Airport and had a long discussion on issues of our common interest . In many ways it is a chance meeting with him in March 1993 that changed my life for ever and helped me to rediscover and re-invent myself.
I don't have a formal degree in Law. However I have always been interested in the study of Constitution and public interest Law. And in the early nineties , that was a passionate topc of reading and even considered completing Law and practising in the Supreme Court of India.
It is a chance meeting with Prof Madhav Menon in one evening at the lobby of the guest house of the Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai that changed my life for ever . During those years I wanted to become a a first rate Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy in one of the best universities in the world and almost got in that track of realizing my dream . But it is due to few sheer coincidence that I ended up meeting Dr Madhav Menon at the TISSS. He was reading the Times of India at the lobby . I was looking for my room in the guest house where I came for an interview and unfortunately I missed the interview due to wrong date in the Telegram asking to appear for the interview at the TISSS. . As I was never even hopeful about getting a very senior job , I was not disappointed . I already had a ' permanent ' job as an Assistant Professor in a constituent college of the North Eastern Hill University .
As I missed the interview I wanted to compensate for the missed opportunity by watching a film in Chembur. So I asked the gentleman sitting in the lobby , in a gentle way, about the floor of the room allocated to me in the TISS guest house so that I could dump my bag there and rush for the first show. He asked my name . I asked his name . We ended up discussing an article in EPW I read about the quality of legal education in India written by him. Those years I used to read almost all articles / papers in EPW and made notes and also published in EPW.
The gentleman was Prof NR Madhav Menon. He asked me where did I study Law. And when I said I never did LLB , he was amused .When he said he was there to recruit the head of advocacy studies , I asked him ' By the way sir what is advocacy ? He was amused again. He then called someone and talked about an ' interesting young man ' in front of him. He then asked me to stay on for the interview next day and also told that I would have to write an essay the next day on advocacy as a part of the selection . It was one of the best interview panel I met.
Despite the fact that I was the youngest at 27 and least academically qualified among 200 applicants for the job, just because of that one essay and one of the best day long leadership selection process , I ended up as the chosen one to kick start the National Center for Advocacy Studies, the first of its kind in India. I was not sure of advocacy , a totally new area to me. Without a formal degree in Law , it was not my cup of tea. Prof Madhava Menon assured me that I would do very well as the field in multi disciplinary and my aptitude is the exact ' fit in ' for the job .That changed my life for ever . As he predicted , I ended up as a well established name at the global level in the field of advocacy . Though I did not study law , my my first boss was Justice PN Bagawati . All those opportunities to meet and work with some of the best leaders in the world began with that chance meeting with an academic leader named Prof Madhav Menon.
Salutes to a great mentor , institutions builder and father of Law Schools in India . We will indeed miss such people with conviction , commitment and passion to make a difference. His work will outlive him. As long as there are National Law Schools in India, he will be remembered. That is a much more important tribute than the Padma Sri he got. He touched my life and hundreds of others . He made a difference with his life and work. Salutes to Prof NR Madhav Menon . There is much to celebrate about your life, Sir.
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