Goel wanted to join the Indian Civil Service after graduating from the Government College in Lahore. However, his parents made a mistake in his date of birth, which was given as June 1910 instead of September 15, 1910, in his school records. ``I went to the municipal corporation to get it checked and was surprised to find my name listed as `Jawahar' in the record!''

His family informed him that they had subsequently changed his name from Jawahar to Jaishi, but the necessary correction had not been made in the official records. Goel smiles and says, ``Both mean the same thing, but Jawahar was a better name.''

By the time all the corrections were made, it was too late for him to take the Civil Service exam. ``It was my last chance that year. I couldn't ever take the exam again as I had crossed the age limit,'' says Goel, the regret poignantly echoed in his voice even after all these years. Goel needed to start earning. Married at the age of 13 to Gangadevi, who was a year older than him, he had a family to support. His father died when he was just six months old and his mother and grandparents passed away when he was seven.

The extended family became his immediate concern and law seemed one of the few options left to enable him to earn a living.

He graduated in mathematics and started studying law in 1935.

``Circumstances so compelled me that I had to study law. I never wanted to. But so many things are unplanned in our lives. There are so many things that we are forced to do.'' Goel started practicing in Lahore in 1937, worked as a pleader for three years and finally made it to the High Court. It was civil law from the very beginning and his clients were mainly bankers and stock brokers. ``Criminal law was not an option for me. In criminal cases, you have to be dishonest, and that is not my way of life,'' he says.

The advocate wanted to be a writer. Goel has written one book -- The Treasury Of General Knowledge which was published in 1935 in Lahore. He says that he wrote another one on the social sciences. He went to the Department of Education with a copy of the manuscript and left it with the director. That was the last he saw of it. ``I was shocked to see the same book published subsequently in the director's name.''

He pauses to jot something down on a yellowing writing pad. There is a slight tremor in his hand. When he looks up, there is a twinkle in his bright, grey-blue eyes and the perennial hint of a smile on his lips. But then he talks about the Partition and the sparkle vanishes, almost involuntarily.

``Lahore was burning and the military asked all the Hindus to leave immediately. I refused to do so until they provided me with a truck, and we finally got one for Ferozepur,'' remembers Goel. Just outside Lahore, their convoy was stopped by the military. ``All of us were frozen stiff with fear. We didn't know what they would do to us. But their chief approached our truck and said: `Do not worry. I am H, they are M.' He wanted us to know that no harm would come to us because he was a Hindu in charge of a Muslim contingent.''

While the journey was horrific as the Goel family witnessed the carnage around them, nothing prepared Jaishi for the violence in Bahadurgarh. They reached their ancestral home on August 15, 1947. ``Our house was full of people. We had given shelter to more than 80 refugees from Pakistan. Then the trouble started. While the Muslims began firing indiscriminately, the Jats took to looting.''

Goel had the choice of moving to Shimla as the High Court had been shifted there from Lahore. But he left his family in Bahadurgarh and followed his clients to Delhi.

The month of May in 1948 marked a kind of homecoming. He returned to Lahore for the first time since the Partition, in the faint hope of retrieving the library which he had left behind in the manic rush of fleeing. He also had to collect the family jewellery from various safe deposit lockers.

``I went to Krishangarh to salvage my things. A Muslim from India was staying in my room and he had kept all my books very carefully. I was so touched,'' says Goel with a feeling of quiet contentment.

Now on the last leg of an eventful life, Goel's main concern is to finish his pending work and get his youngest son married. Jaishi and Gangadevi had five sons and four daughters. ``My eldest son died in a car accident, another died of leukemia. But the rest are well settled. I only worry about the youngest. He must get married for he will be all alone after us.''

Goel cannot stop working, there is always so much to docases to argue, places to go, people to see, clients to cater to. ``If I retire and stay at home, I will be sick. So I continue to work for the sake of my health. I am not suffering from any illness and my wife is also in good health except for mild arthritis. I have no work stress, for, if you do your work honestly, then you are happy.''

His approach seems simplistic and there is an almost child-like innocence about him. But ask him about the state of the profession today and he flares up. ``The profession is not good anymore. The new lawyers are incompetent.

Those who come here have been rejected from other professions like medicine and engineering. They adopt bad means, they cheat clients.''

Goel picks up a battered black file and has one last piece of advice to offer after spending a lifetime dealing with bank officials and stock brokers: ``Always remember that a broker will cheat his own father.'' The twinkle returns to his eyes.