For all his powers of persuasion, the attorney is easily swayed by the whims of his daughter who has just turned author
Shreevatsa Nevatia (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 20, 2015)

Harish Salve (58), Sakshi Salve (32)

Sakshi Salve's disposition can make any former Delhiite feel nostalgic for the Capital. Her voice has a nasal ring to it. Her gestures are animated. Her candour can border on the brash. In Mumbai to release her first book, The Big Indian Wedding, the 32-year-old narrates the story of its inception without any affected pause. "In 2009, I happened to emcee for a friend's sangeet. And you know how the sangeet has now become a veritable concert. I just wrote a script and after the event, I had people telling me I should do this professionally. I was supposedly that entertaining." Soon enough, confesses Sakshi, her emceeing talents were being sought by the many intersecting circles of Delhi's elite. "In 2013, I was the entertainment in charge of eight weddings. Aunties wanted selfies with me. I was able to captivate an audience of 1,000 people. They laughed at my jokes. I must confess, it was a rush."

It was during her sister Saaniya's wedding in February 2014 that Sakshi saw her abilities to master ceremonies truly manifest. "There were these sets, these lavish performances, and me at the centre," she boasts, if a little bashfully. Her account of the events that month do, however, seem to be at some odds with reports that the Goa wedding was largely unostentatious. Sitting beside her, Harish Salve interrupts, "You don't have to be opulent to be classy."

The lawyer goes on to admit he was caught in an emotional tailspin all through. "The idea that my daughter was getting married was a huge trauma inflicted upon me. I stopped at three vodkas. One more and I'd have been howling."

Sakshi continues by saying that with her sister married, she felt a sudden void overwhelm her. "I missed sitting and thinking of lines. I missed writing. But I also started absorbing what I had witnessed. There were bachelorette, bachelor parties, there were youngsters going to Ibiza. I just had to document this madness."

Plugged as an 'ultimate guide for dummies', the tone employed by The Big Indian Wedding is almost uniformly tongue-in-cheek. But as she takes down the 'Karan Johar proposal' and the shenanigans of a wedding DJ, Sakshi's obvious derision of excess seems more juridical than jocular. "I'm what Harish Salve would have been like if he were a little girl," she laughs.

Harish Salve is quick to rewind back to 2000, a year when he was the country's Solicitor General. "Sakshi had always seen me as her dad in a T-shirt and jeans, who would blow dry her hair. I decided to show her my other persona. She would come to the Supreme Court at 11:30, although my meetings began at eight. At one, my juniors would take her to lunch. She'd come back at 2:30 and use a couch I never used. At 4 o clock, she would go home extremely tired." Salve says his elder daughter had all that it takes to become a good lawyer, the verbal skills, a head for figures, but what she lacked, he chuckles, "was industry". Insisting that he has always encouraged his children to chase their dreams, Salve adds, "If my father could have bought me a yacht, I'd have been a jazz pianist. But here I am, struggling to buy a better car." His self-aware levity offers an opportunity for investigative prodding.

According to a recent news report that listed the legal fee of India's top lawyers, Salve is said to charge Rs 6-15 lakh for an appearance in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court. "There are a few factors at play here," he explains. "Under the UPA regime, the government shrunk and the headlines started coming out of the courts. Since lawyers are the ones making headlines, this focus is natural. Besides, you now have Rs 50-100 crore riding on a case. I feel Rs 7 lakh would qualify as reasonable."

Mukesh Ambani was one of the many prominent faces visible at the star-studded launch of Sakshi's book on Wednesday. Much was made about the amount earned by her father when he defended the industrialist against his brother Anil during the Krishna Godavari Basin gas dispute. When asked if this public confrontation was proof of the changing institution of family, Salve, who now practices as a barrister in London for six months in a year, said, "Family businesses all over the world have fallen apart. We no longer live in a world where the elder brother is like a father. This is true for the Ambanis too, but I'd add that whenever Mukesh and Anil fight, the nation's assets first get wasted."

Renowned in the legal fraternity for his powers of persuasion, Salve at home is easily influenced by the will of his daughters. They forced him to shed 30 kilos. They have coerced him into adding David Guetta and Deadmau5 to his jazz playlist, and Sakshi even claims to have prodded her father into defending Salman Khan on May 6. "I was in London. I woke up to news reports about Salman Khan being sent to jail. He was my first love when I was six. I immediately texted my father saying he couldn't let this happen." Salve clarifies that he was in Mumbai to appear for Vodafone when Khan's lawyers briefed him. "The case was a sitter. The law says you can't send a man to jail without a copy of the judgment. That's why I needed only 10 minutes notice." The 58-year-old lawyer seems almost impervious to righteous public fallout. "When people ask me about why I appeared for a vilified someone, I have a pat answer. Good guys don't need lawyers. Healthy people don't go to doctors."