Jln Murthy

My office is up on the 10th floor of Gaganvihar, right across from Gandhi Bhavan on M. J. Road here in Hyderabad. It’s quite a climb if the elevators are acting up, which happens more often than I’d like. I work at the International Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution. It sounds very formal, but day-to-day it’s mostly just me, Jln Murthy, and a few others surrounded by piles of legal papers and old books. The view from the 10th floor is actually pretty good; you can see a lot of the city traffic down on M. J. Road. Most of my time is spent reading through documents or talking to people who are trying to settle their differences without going to a full court. It can get pretty tense in the meeting rooms when people are arguing, but we just try to keep things moving. The office itself is a bit of a mess with files everywhere. I keep meaning to organize them, but more always seem to arrive. We have a lot of tea and spend hours debating fine points of law or procedure. It’s not a flashy lifestyle. I usually stay late, watching the lights come on across Hyderabad. People come here when they are stressed out, so I try to just be a calm voice in the room. It’s a lot of listening and a lot of writing. I’ve been in this building for years and I know the security guards and the tea seller downstairs by name. It is just how it is.