``He is good and is always available,'' says an advocate, fighting shy of being identified in the media, ``One snap of the finger and he is there.'' The library on the original side of the Bar is Alok's major customer with most of the books procured through him. For the advocate, if it is not there in the library, the book is with Alok.

It would be difficult to imagine the beehive activity of the High Court unless one weretold that advocates and lawyers literally devour books, but are considered almost a class apart. Strict rules and conditions are laid out for them in the Bar rooms and chambers, where nobody apart from the black cloakwallahs are allowed entry. Young boys trying to make a break in their careers selling law books have been seen caught by their collars and ordered to march out of them.

Booksellers, however, can be spotted in the corridor leading to the rooms of the appellate side of the bar, where men stack their wares and stand against them for long hours. To that extent, Jain who has been at it for the last 19 years, has it easy. He can sit outside the library, and rest on his laurels - in this case - his pile of books. It is also a measure of the gratitude that leading lights of the city's judiciary have for him that one of the foremost judges in the court has allowed Jain to store his books in his chamber.

``I suppose it is the service that I render that is different,'' says Jain. This includestravelling the length and breadth of the country to help one lawyer get his library up to date with all the Supreme Court cases since 1950, when there were only six judges in the apex court as against today's 26. Says the grateful lawyer, ``I don't even know where he got those books from.''

Jain himself is in awe of the advocates and lawyers. He hopped off the local train recently when he saw a picture of former finance minister P Chidambaram with advocate Soli Doctor in a business daily somebody was reading. Chidambaram was appearing in the Bombay High Court regularly regarding a case he was appearing in. Jain bought the paper, cut the picture, had it laminated and presented it to both the lawyers!

It was perhaps a quirk of fate that brought this intern-pass into a business of bookselling while his brothers and sisters went on ahead and are busy writing them. His brother Jyotindra Jain is the well known Indian art critic and senior director of the textile museum in Delhi and both his sisters arejournalists. Fighting his frustration, Jain takes pride in his closeness with the movers and shakers of the judiciary and the numerous certificates obtained from luminaries like advocates Atul Setalvad, H M Seervai and Justice S N Variava.

What marks him apart from the breed is his keen interest in the cases going on in the courts. He prowls across courtrooms and if there is a latest book on it for the lawyer, he has it the next day. However, Jain works in a field gradually thinning out in profits because of the largescale entrants in it.

``Others are offering tremendous discounts, which is becoming difficult to keep up with,'' he laments. For a man who is called an institution within the institution of the High Court, that should sound as fatalistic. But Jain still has a long way to go. He displays the quintessential aces up his sleeves: Rare books like the History of the Bombay High Court - 1862 to 1962, Law and My Life by Motilal Setalvad and Roses in December by M C Chagla. He spells out the namescarefully, knowing full well their value. ``But I shall keep them for some more years, they will appreciate further,'' he says with a smile.