Chandigarh lad who did it his way

Mac Sarin, who had moved to Chandigarh as a six-year-old with his parents, releases his autobiography

An autobiographical coffee table book, “I Did it My Way”, by senior lawyer Manmohan Lal Sarin, also known as Mac Sarin, was released here on Tuesday.

Lawyer Mac Sarin during the launch of his book, “I Did it My Way”, in Chandigarh. (HT Photo)

Supreme Court judge justice AG Masih, former chief justice of Allahabad high court justice SS Sodhi, Mac’s elder brother IAS Jawahar Lal Sarin (retd), his childhood friend Noni Chawla, and motivational speaker and author IAS Vivek Atray (retd), released the voluminous book at a well-attended function.

Sarin had moved to the city as a six-year-old with his parents Nirmal Kanta and Harbans Lal Sarin, a lawyer who had followed the post-Partition route from Lahore to Shimla and then to Chandigarh.

Among the early settlers of the city, Sarin borrowed his title from Frank Sinatra song “I Did It My Way”, which he said, “was perhaps my toughest ‘brief’. “Yet I have presented

my case with downright sincerity and utmost humility and have tried to keep my storytelling honest, relevant, candid, precise, and positive,” he added.

Sarin said he wrote the book over a three-and-a-half-year period. While he had originally planned to limit it to only professional anecdotes, the process of revisiting his life led him to rediscover “the rich legacies” of his ancestors, their struggles, successes, passions and the values of life. He then chronicled his seven-and-a-half-decade lifespan.

A legal luminary, Sarin has also been actively associated with the Blood Bank Society, the St John’s Old Boys Association, and the Alliance Francaise.