Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Yesterday I went to Family Court for my internship. I was told to meet Marilyn, one of the lawyers from my internship at 10:30. In true "Emmy" form, not wanting to be late I gave myself WAY too much time to get there and ended up getting there around 10:00. I ended up waiting nearly an hour for Marilyn, but I spent most of it outside, because I had no idea how to get inside. Yes, I knew where the door was, but everything was written in Hindi and I had no idea where I was gong. Around 10:45 I finally mustered up some courage and decided to try "door number 1" lucky me! I was right and got into the elevator to head up to the sixth floor where I was told to meet Marilyn. It turns out Marilyn wasn't there yet, so I just sort of wandered around the floor for a bit.
I've only been inside one court building in the States, but I was sort of shocked at how dingy and messy this place was. Essentially it was one big room with a couple of rooms off to the side. In one room was the "official" court room but the whole place was poorly lit, with benches lined up for people sit on and all on the wall were little sayings, like "better a lean compromise than a fat lawsuit."
Around 11:00, Marilyn and Rachada (the other lawyer) showed up and they checked what number their first case was. Then we sat. And we waited. The first case was a "Mutual Consent" divorce, in which both parties want out. In some ways you would think this would be simple, but no. First they have to file for divorce, then they have a case with the judge, then they meet with a counselor, and then six months later they are divorced. It can take a while, and both parties have to agree how everything will be divided, and it all has to be divided perfectly equally. After that case was settled up, both parties met with a counselor, we went to have lunch. No one is allowed inside the court room, except for the judge and the innvolved parties.
After lunch, we were doing a case filing, for another person. Normally case filings happen in the morning, but "M" was not able to drop off her kids until the afternoon so thats when we met with her. The first step in the process was to put stamps, pay the legal fees, on the petition for divorce. Normally this means just going to the building across the street, but this wasn't a normal day. So Marilyn and I jumped in a rick and went to try and find stamps somewhere else. Then we came back. Then three photocopies of the petition had to be made. Then we had to get the original copy of the petition stitched, like needle and thread, stiched together. Then we raced to the court clerks office (I'm guessing) to file the case. The case almost was not accepted because it was so late in the day, but we managed to get it filed.
My intital reaction from the site visit was total impatience, it felt like a lot of sitting around and waiting for nothing to happen. Especially because I can't speak Hindi, I had little to no idea what was going on. What I could see was many people standing outside the court room, looking anxiously in. They were waiting for their daughters and sons, or maybe for themselves for their fate. Some people looked bored. Some looked scared, some looked terrified. Divorce in India is still a taboo, so anyone there was risking a lot to get out of a marriage. People normally only do it in the most extreme of circumstances. I hope I get a chanace to go back to the courts, I think I would benefit from seeing everything again.
Peace, Love, Elephant Kisses- Emmy