On the 1st of July 2021, I complete 50 years of qualifying as an Advocate. After completing my study of law, I joined my father, Mr. Harbans Lal Sarin, Senior Advocate, a veteran of 40 years then, on July 1, 1971, with the hope of being able to help society at large, as a lawyer.

Being an idealist, intellectually inclined, I tried to visualize all the professional challenges that lay ahead.

” You can’t survive on the reputation of your father.  You have to make one for yourself “ I was told.

How true that was.

The journey over the last half century has been incredible. So satisfying and constructive.  I got an opportunity to handle all types of cases, from the smallest to the ones that made newspaper headlines. (Far too many to innumerate).

I was delighted and honoured to be designated a Senior Advocate and INVITED to be Advocate General of Punjab (twice) and of Haryana (once); becoming Chairman of the Bar Council Punjab and Haryana (my father was the first and I the 18th).

During my professional career, I had the opportunity to donate blood 115 times and motivate tens of thousands of others by organizing regular camps at the High Court; to become the highest income taxpayer more than once and to protect our City Beautiful, Chandigarh and the environment by filing various petitions in public interest.

For the above, and for promoting Indo- French relations, I was honoured twice by the Government of France under Presidents Jacques Chirac and Hollande with the Chevalier (Knighthood) de Palm Academique & Chevalier de Order Nationale du Merit, for which I am eternally grateful.

The last one dozen years have been extra special with Nitin, my younger son, joining me in the profession and our establishing the Leiden Sarin International Air Law Moot Court Competition, the first in air law in the world.

During the same half a century I got married to a friend, Niti; was blessed with three beautiful children, Nikhil, Malini, and Nitin, who with their self-chosen partners, Divya, Vivek and Kismet, have given us our most delightful grandchildren – Kismet, Samarth, Mihika and Vera. I am so lucky and blessed to be in the small percentage of people who live beyond 70.

If someone asked me if I would do anything differently if I were to relive these 50 years, my answer would be an emphatic NO.

I would live them the same way……after all, I did everything my way.