Justice RM Lodha of supreme court set a beautiful example on Friday by telling a group of lawyers who had objected to the release of the film Jolly LLB that they should not watch the film if it offends them so much.  

The lawyers had moved court claiming the film showed their profession in poor light and thus sought a stay on its release.

The film’s trailers had shown the protagonist, Jagdish Tyagi a.k.a. Jolly LLB (played by Arshad Warsi), a struggling lawyer from Meerut, getting a rap from a judge (Saurabh Shukla) for misspelling prosecution as prostitution and appeal as apples. A group of Meerut lawyers approached the apex court against the Delhi high court's refusal to stay the film’s release, contending that the movie was defamatory to the legal fraternity.

Quoting Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure (“the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers”), justice Lodha said, “We are not using those words here but you don't have to bother about everything.”

“If the movie is useless in your opinion, don't watch it. You know you will not enjoy it, so don't go. You are giving undue importance to the issue. Let those go to theatres who want to watch it,” he concluded.

Justice Lodha’s words must serve as a guiding principle for judges hearing petitions against books, films and songs, which have of late become so numerous across the country that it almost heralds the end of humour and tolerance for others’ viewpoints. It is impossible to think of a movie release these days without a lawsuit against it. In fact, the absence of a lawsuit is a cause for worry and forces moviegoers to look askance at its makers.

Ditto with books.

That brings us to the basic question: are we losing our sense of humour/tolerance? A people without a sense of humour would be like a bower reduced to stumps — where everybody would be cranky and unable to take or crack a joke. And this would give us a world very, very different from what we inherited.

Coming back to the movie in question, which I watched on the day of release itself, it is not, curiously, the lawyers who have been the butt of the crudest jokes in the film: it is the judge (played by Saurabh Shukla) who has been shown breaking wind noisily in the middle of slurping his tiffin clumsily in his chamber and trying to pacify the two lawyers (Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani) who had a quarrel in the courtroom a while before.

On one occasion, the judge calls the lawyer (Boman) close to him in the courtroom and belches right in his face before he could say anything.  

So, lawyers, better get your jollies and go enjoy the flick.