The Hindu Business Line : Went up the hill to fetch a bail

CASES pile up not only in courts but also in news bulletins; and advocates file appeals for bail without fail. Courts hear arguments, and grant temporary respite and conditional freedom, even as there are fears of fresh fetters arising from new charges. For most of us, things may become just too much to track like a mega serial with too many sub-plots, and like the accused, we may, after all, come to terms with a long `bail'.

For instance, Ketan Parikh who had conned a co-op bank of nearly Rs 400 crore was granted bail in 2001 on the condition that he would repay his dues in by 2004. Neither has the money been paid, nor is KP around, so the Gujarat High Court has asked the CBI to declare Ketan an absconder.

Bail is a temporary release of an accused person awaiting trial, sometimes on condition that a sum of money is lodged to guarantee his or her appearance in court, as Concise Oxford English Dictionary explains. It traces the word's root to Latin bajulare, meaning `bear a burden'. True, the surety who stands bail for the accused carries a load.

"Call in my sons to be my bail," pleads York in King Henry VI, though Queen Margaret doubts if "the bastard boys of York shall be the surety for their traitor father."

In Measure For Measure, Pompey fondly wishes, "I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail", but Lucio is unmoved: "No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage."

The word also refers to the money paid as security for bail bond. In The Comedy of Errors, Adriana tells Angelo, "I sent you money, sir, to be your bail," of a sum that didn't reach. Everybody's Legal Dictionary states that a judge may decrease the bail amount "if the defence attorney shows that the defendant is unlikely to run (for example, he has strong ties to the community by way of a steady job and a family)."

To bail somebody out, you need not go to court or jail, because the phrase means `rescue from difficulty', such as the bank bailing out a sick unit by giving loan.

Pompey says confidently in Measure For Measure: "I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a friend of mine."

Bail out is also the emergency parachute descent from an aircraft, but there have been instances of offenders who, when out on bail, jumped onto aircraft to vanish. In Australia, if you're `bailed up', it means you're forced into conversation.

In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the first meaning of the word is "a container used to remove water from a boat," from Latin bajula or water vessel, "from feminine of Latin bajulus".

A quote cited by Webster Dictionary is R. H. Dana's: "By the help of a small bucket and our hats we bailed her out." There's a deadly bail of Captain Cook: "The bail of a canoe... made of a human skull." If bail is a pail, one may rephrase the old rhyme and say, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a bail of water.

Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage bails out a common confusion: "Bail is right, and bale wrong, in the sense throw water out."

Bail is also a hinged bar for holding paper against the platen of a typewriter or computer printer, or the usually semi-circled handle as of a kettle or pail, possibly from a Scandinavian word meaning `ring'. Bails are the small cross pieces that sit on top of stumps in cricket, though as per Law 8.5 on www.lords.org, "umpires may agree to dispense with the use of bails, if necessary" — such as when strong gusts of wind would remove even heavy bails.

According to Wikipedia each bail is made of a single cylindrically shaped piece of wood that has two smaller cylinders of wood protruding from each end; "the large central cylinder is called the barrel and the smaller protrusions are the spigots."

Bails are also bars that prevent horses from running out of enclosures, and frameworks that secure cows during milking; for these, the origin is Old French baile, or enclosure.

Similarly, bails are supposed to restrain the accused from fleeing, but there is always the probability he jumps bail and fail to appear for trial. Normally, a reward is announced to nab the ones on the run. Bail enforcement agent or `bounty hunter' goes in hot pursuit; "in the US, bounty hunters catch an estimated 30,000 bail jumpers per year," is a statistic on http://en.wikipedia.org.

Bail to mean restraining mechanism, as in the above words, is from Latin baculum meaning `stick' or rod. Eerily, though, www.bartleby.com tells us how bacillus, "any of various rod-shaped, spore-forming, aerobic bacteria of the genus Bacillus that often occur in chains and include B. anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax," is a diminutive of Latin baculum, rod.

Bailiff is not about the many ifs in getting a bail; the word means a court official who maintains order in the courtroom. He may also carry out arrest, or act as agent of a landlord. "I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff," is a quote from The Winter's Tale of Shakespeare. Bailey bridge, named after its designer, is a temporary one, rapidly assembled, as the one that Army Engineers laid to link Ayirumthenngu and Alappad in Kerala, post tsunami. The Old Bailey is the Central Criminal Court in the UK, and the word bailey means `part of a castle'.

"Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, but then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail," is a line from the Bard's sonnet talking of heart matters. But Saturninus's words from Titus Andronicus may be more appropriate: "Thou shalt not bail them: see thou follow me. Some bring the murder'd body, some the murderers: let them not speak a word; the guilt is plain; for, by my soul, were there worse end than death, that end upon them should be executed."

Let me wrap with a quote of Lewis Mumford that may suit the current predicament: "A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need bail."

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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