AKHILVAANI: LIFE LESSONS-PART VI-LEARNING FROM "THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR"

June 22/23, 2021 Jamshedpur (India). Substantially revised on 28th June, 2021

So far in Parts I to Part V of the "Life Lessons " series. I captured the factoids big and small of the "Life Lessons" from my two years of the training period from the "Diary of My Life as a Probationary Officer" in the State Bank of India, the largest commercial bank of the country.

My Life-Learning from the Bank days are incomplete as of now and the remainder of that part (belonging to my last two years in the Bank as confirmed JMGS-1 officer) will be chronicled in at least three separate Parts in coming days.

But it is time now to take a small break and step back by three years.

And recount three stories of life between Circa 1979 to Cira 1981.

The first story is dated Circa 1979, the second is of the year 1980-1981 and the third is also a coterminous story of the same time zone - Circa 1980-81.

These three stories had direct import for my life as a Banker.

One of the three could have stopped me from my state bank journey before I started.

Let me posit that these narrative helped me accumulate, extraordinary life lessons and it is for this very reason that I have decided to chronicle them as Part VI to Part VIII of the "Life Lessons".

These narratives are critical precedent that beg to be narrated before I fast forward to my "Life Lessons" learnt the final two years in the bank and further to the life beyond the bank..

Here is the trailer-

Part VI-

This story is about the untold saga of distressing real life traumas which ordinary mortals do not experience even once in their life time. I solemnly pray to the almighty that no one, not even my staunchest enemy should ever undergo such experience of being roasted alive in the fry pan in their life.

Readers will find the narrative in this article revulsive, bone chilling and heart wrenching.

Also the happening in this part substantially could have ended my dreams young. And it did grandly jeopardize my plan to join the State Bank of India. It also had the trappings and full potential to deny me opportunity to get into any government job in the country including a clerical job.

This part of the sad story continued to rankle me well after I joined the bank, and it had a permanent blot on my life. It sends shivers down through my marrows even to this date.

I call this story the Life Learning: "From the Other Side of the BAR".

This is the subject matter of current article.

Part VII "Life Learning" will be the the next story. It will cover, something very close to my heart- Let me name it "My Romance with the Telegram". It was exhilarating surreal journey that would become a prelude to my joining the bank. It made my passage to the Bank possible in more than one way. The narrative as it unfolds shall narrate the birth, growth, decline and eventual demise of the telegraphy along with how my own life got intertwined with the telegraphy

The Part VIII of "Life Learning" is christened " It is Beautiful Up There". This part shall cover the story of the actual journey of life (Circa 1980-1981) that brought me to the Bank It is that part of the narrative of my early life which gave me wings to fly..

There are Life Lessons from all the three narratives.

Some will be happy and some will be sad learning.

But what follows here in this article is a once in a life time learning.

It is time to raise the curtain. Let the "Narrative" being with a life changing quote from . a towering persona - "Martin Luther King Junior".

He famously said once,

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of crisis, challenge and controversy.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr., USA Civil Rights Leader and Minister

The story chronicled in these pages, has all the drama, chaos, challenges, crisis and controversies that one can look for.

It is not a story- it is earth-shattering Lived Experience.

And it is the Live Experience of My Own Life.

So fasten the seat belt Ladies and Gentle Men, Boys and Girls.

Get ready to read the "Untold Story of My Life"- my "Life Lessons Learnt from the Other Side of the Bar".

Chances are high you have not read a story in past nor you may do so in future.

And let the beginning of this journey, start with the end point in a flash back manner.

When decided to bare these dark-secrets thus far stored in the silence of tower in a black-box within my heart, I had to answer two existential question- one was, was it necessary in the very first place to- "Dare to Bare and Bare it All".

This began a raucous quarrel between mathematical, rational and logical "Left hemisphere" and intitutional open minded emotional and creative "Right Hemisphere" of my three pound mis-wired southpaw brain. While the former wanted me to keep unholy mum and keep the secret of the secret within my underbelly, the later cried out loudly- "keeping the unholy mum will be a crime against the humanity"

Once I decided to open up the "Naked Naked Truth" of my incarceration, the question was from where to start- from the beginning or from the end. And I decided to start the narrative with a flash back- starting from where the story ended.

The story ended two year after it began. The person who ended this story was B. Pathak, He was then the judicial magistrate Patna. He pronounced the judgement on 20th February, 1982. Let me humbly begin with the path breaking judgement that freed me from the jail.

Here is what Magistrate Pathak Held in the operating part in his historic judgement-

Held,

“ From the perusal of records… the case of persecution could not be proved … under circumstances I find and hold all accused not guilty of any offence under Sections 143/448/ 426 of the Indian Penal Code.

Accordingly I acquit all of them under the Section 255(I) of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc).

They are discharged from the liability of Bail Bonds and "SET AT LIBERTY.”

-Signed, B. Pathak, Judicial Magistrate, Patna, 20th February, 1982

?In nutshell the above judgement decreed the State had no case rather the case of the state was false and that it could not prove its case (despite given many chances by the court the state could not bring even one witness in support of its case).

As the State had no case, the court rightly decided that the presumed culprits were innocent victims of police barbarism ( emphasis supplied by the author) and accordingly the judicial magistrate in his profound wisdom of Jurisprudence "SET YOURS TRULY ALONG WITH SIX OTHER UNDERT TRIALS AT LIBERTY.

Why this judgement is so important for the story in this article.?

And what existential relevance or connect the judgement has been for the author

Well hold your breath Gentle men and Women. Boys and Girls and Transgender readers.

[ the last often suffer the extreme of police brutality in the country]

Coming paragraphs will unravel the the mystery, one word at a time/

You are soon going to witness the horrifying drama that sends chill through my spine forty two years after it happened and it may possibly also upend your mind as you read it further.

You can stop for a while, and take the deep breath here as I step back and take us all down to the beginning of the twentieth century, precisely to the year 1902. That was the year when the "Second Indian Police Commission" made the following damning observation about the Police Force in India-

“What a wonder it is that, people are said to dread the police, and do all they can do avoid any connection with a police investigation”.

Now back to the present in Circa 2021, the above narrative of the interaction between police and citizenry has only worsened further and substantially so. Worse still, the continues to worsen by day and night. And horrifying is the case of my native state "Bihar", a state that has for decades developed the expertise in routinely stufiing innocents behind the bar,

The only crime of these hapless victims is that they did not commit a crime.

Nonetheless, in a naked display of the brute state power the innocents are incarcerated for years and decades as pre-trials or under-trial, often asking themselves the question="What crime in committed in the previous life,

Unsurprisingly then the dreaded criminals roam freely on the streets of the country.

Many of them also enter the temples of democracy i.e. Union Parliament State Legislatures

Law Breakers become Law Makers of the country

MACHANG LALUNG- THE ULTIMATE SYMBOL OF A FAILED STATE

The most shocking case of an innocent spending his full life in an Indian Jail that has come to my notice so far is that of "Machang Lalung of Assam".

[Photo Credit: Uploaded on the Facebook by:?Tiwa Cool Boys And Pretty Girls Of North-East India,?Mar 18, 2018[

Lalung imprisoned in 1951 was finally released in 2005, after 54 after years incarceration in an Assam Jail as pre and under trial. Lalung was not a murderer. Even the murder accused in India, except in the rarest of the rare cases get Life Sentence, which in judicial parlance meant twenty year. And even during the jailed period, the criminals get many paroles and furlough during the period they spend in jail.

None of these happened with Lalung.

For 54 years, he remained behind bars despite the fact that he was never charged under any specific Section of Indian Penal Code. He was imprisoned and forgotten by a failed state, by its law and every one else. no specific charges, forgotten by the law and everyone else. That he was eventually released after fifty four years in July, 2005 it self was a miracle brought by the investigative journalism of The Indian Express and taking up Lalung case by the National Human Right Commission (NHRC). The link below, is the breaking news story in the Indian Express

"Worse for his freedom Lalung was forced to submit stupid nominal one-rupee bail bond".

But his freedom was short-lived, as Machang Lalung, 80, died in the night of December 26, 2007 within two years of release from the jail. The young man who was imprisoned was old dying man when he was released from the prison and when the death engulfed Lalung, he was 80 years old

WHAT WAS LALUNG"S CRIME

The following excerpts from the news report of The Indian Express dated 27th December, 2007, tell the horrifying story. It was the "Journalism of Courage" of Indian Express that brought the Lalung story from the oblivion to the surface-

"Lalung, a tribal from Silchang in Morigaon district of central Assam, was 23 when he went missing. His family thought he had been whisked away by some evil spirit. The only available record in Guwahati Jail says he was booked under Section 326 of the Indian Penal Code. The section pertains to a non-bailable offence for "voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means". If found guilty, the maximum penalty under this provision is 10 years in prison.

But Lalung was never produced before a magistrate, nor did his case come up for any kind of hearing in the five-and-a-half decades that he remained in custody as an undertrial prisoner. And to secure freedom after fifty four years he had to submit one rupee bail bond.

LALUNG STUFFED IN THE ASYLUM

Within weeks of his detention, Lalung was dispatched to the was sent to the Gopinath Bardoloi Mental Hospital at Tezpur. ( It is a central mental health facility which this author considers as a mad-house, lunacy asylum personified.

All the evidences with this author has collected do not indicate that Lalung was such a madman to be stuffed in asylum. And to the credit of the Tejpur mental health hospital authorities, they wrote repeatedly to the jail authorities that Lalung was recovered and fit to be taken back to the prison, the history beckons that the jail authorities never responded.

His was so atypical of the fate that awaits prisoners in jail who show the symptoms of mental ill-health. This author over last one decade, has had the occasion to have more than the gallery visit of many mental health establishments in the country. This includes the Tejpur facilities.

The author considers himself blessed that in 2010, he was appointed member of the Government of India (GOI) Mental Health Policy Group. It gave him the license to did deeper in the existential conditions of inmates in mental hospitals - run by centre, state, private entities and the non governmental bodies.

And the author got doubly lucky to work for a year as "Mentor-Advisor" of Tata Trust in its "Udaan program" that worked to reform the conditions of inmates and working of the Regional Mental Hospital Nagpur, known to city residents as "Pagalkhana". The round about where Nagpur Mental Hospital is situated is officially called the "Pagalkhana Chowk"

From the cross sectional intersection with various mental hospitals ala lunatic asylums, the author, learnt many valuable lessons, the one considered central to what happened to Lalung are depicted below-

" The case of Lalung came to national mainstream accidently. But he neither was nor is the sole jailed prisoner to spend a life time in an Indian asylum. Every government run asylum has three types of inmates- long stay inmates and not so long stay inmates and the criminal inmates/ prisoners in Pagalkhana.

Most long stay inmates are left there by their relatives without a forwarding address. Most long stay prisoner pagals are dumped for life by the jail authorities, and are forgotten- left to languish Most of long stay inmates including prisoner inmates are destined to die in asylums for various reasons.

Lalung turned the Lucky One. He got Freedom for a while before Dropping Dead

It was only in July 2005 that Lalung was finally released, on a bail for Re 1. The Indian Express report on his case prompted a PIL, following which the Supreme Court of India directed the Assam government to pay Lalung an interim compensation of Rs 3 lakh apart from a monthly subsistence allowance of Rs 1000. The state government was also directed to arrange regular medical check-up and free treatment for him".

Alas! Lalung died within two years after being freed from Jail.

Thousands of obscure Lalungs continue to suffer the sufferance inside Indian jails

Lalung was a simple village tribal whose his life was destroyed by a cruel system.

And, the government records say Lalung is just the tip of the ice berg.

PLIGHT OF INNOCENTS IN INDIAN JAILS TODAY

A peek into how bad the situation is in the country.

After extrapolating and analyzing, the not so accurate data of National Crime Record (NCRB) , one hits at an astounding numbers of pre-trials and under-trials languishing in Indian jails. As per the official data, during 2002, three quarters of the people in Indian jails were undertrials- large number of this cohort also was also innocent.? Lot many like Lalung also had spent more time as an under trial than what could have been the maximum punishment meted out to them on being convicted under IPC Section under which they were charged.

The situation is not much different in Circa 2021

As per the most recent data, presented in the lead editorial of The Times of India, Delhi edition on 21st June, 2021, the present ratio of pre-trial/ under-trial (UT) population versus convicts in Indian prisons stands at 70:30.

When compared with the West, this number is 24% in USA and 16% in UK.

And let me posit from the personal experience, the numbers presented by "Times of India", at the best may be half truth, India which gave "zero" to the world is a "Big Zero" when it comes to properly counting its births, its deaths, its suicides and for that matter the number of innocents stuffed in its jails

True truth may be scarier than the most scary horror fiction,

But it is what it is.

It also stands out as the complete negation of the "Presumption of Innocence" the defining tenet and central maxim of Indian criminal jurisprudence system

"One is not Guilty till found Guilty".

A defendant/convict/accused has the right to be presumed?"innocent until proven guilty"?

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR

[Photo Credit--A prison sentence of life Life without Parole (nbcnew.com ]

Thus come the time to lift the curtain here from the stage- and tell the story of life lessons from the Other Side of the Bar. It has been a long preamble, but the.

In this story I am both the "Sutradhar" (The Narrator).

And as Narrator, I will be narrating the story of my own life.

Memory is vivid

It all happened Forty Two Years Four Months and Twenty Days ago

The date line was 8th February, 1979 -the day even now sends shivers down to my marrows.

As I narrate the story, it is possible that some cognitive flaws and survivor biases ( to use vocabulary of Behavioral Economists). It is possible I have forgotten- few facts and few of them have got distorted and inadvertently miss them out.

But I promise readers to present the truth of the story as truth-fully as I am capable of.

The date and key facts of the narratives in the pages below are real as the large part of them are chronicled in two legal document which have survived- Police First Information Report (FIR) and the judgement pronounced by judicial magistrate Pathak.

Also, there have been many eye witnesses to the story. I have urged my friends who saw my incarceration to share their version of the account. It was majorly due to fast-track spirited action by my close friends that in less than a week, I was out of the prison. I have requested those friends to share their remembrances of the events and few of them have already provided key input which I had forgotten. More such friends are expected to bring their version of the story as they witnessed and remember

As such this will be a dynamics story which will get corrected as and when new facts emerge and while doing so, I will follow the ?John Maynard Keynes dictum verbatim-

“When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?”

―?John Maynard Keynes

Despite all effort the article suffers from the difficulties of recalling excruciatingly painful moments from the abyssal. But truth beckons that one fine day in 1979 the following happened-

"SADLY, LIKE THOUSANDS INNOCENTS OF THE COUNTRY STUFFED INSIDE THE JAIL, I TOO IN THE YEAR 1979, ON A SUNNY DAY IN THE EARLY SPRING, WAS ARRESTED, IMPRISONED AND FALSELY IMPLICATED IN A CRIMINAL CASE THAT, DEBASED AND DEFILED ME FOR LIFE".

[EMPHASIS SUPPLIED- "I" HERE STANDS FOR THE AUTHOR]

?

Such an inhuman act of dehumanizing police barbarism took the joy out of living from my then young life, and I was left with the mourning of lamentations.

Worse, its taint shall part me only after death.

?LIFE LESSONS IN THE JAIL

Life in the Jail was a monumental "Living Hell".

[ And to do full justice to my days in the jail even one full book will not suffice]

But it also gave me first-hand life lesson in what it meant to be “On Other Side of the Bar.”

Let me start with a hypothesis-

An average Indian, who does not know what losing freedom means cannot fathom the trauma of innocents languishing inside prisons. But I can today empathize with such innocents in jail- “with their mind, body and soul mutilated”.

?

DAY ONE IN THE JAIL

It is Thursday, 8th February 1979- indubitably the most forgettable day of my life.

Last night, more than three hundred thousand Indians slept inside the jail.

Tonight will be one more - “it is me”.

And, scars of its deep-seated wounds will fester for life. They will never heal. ?

1030 HOURS

On 8th February at 1030 hours I leave Patna Science College campus on a cycle rickshaw with one of my friends (name withheld to safeguard his privacy. He had reluctantly boarded the rickshaw to give me company. My destination is supposed to be Magadh Mahila College abutting Patna Gandhi Maidan where I have a pre-fixed appointment to meet Chandrakala Kala Rajgarhia, the head of Mathematics department of the college .

Rajgarhia has been helping me pro-bono to prepare for final graduation exam.

I reach Girl’s college gate in 30 minutes. Alas! A different fate awaits me there.

Before I can disembark from the rickshaw, a police-posse drags me down, beats me mercilessly, handcuffs and stuffs me inside a police van.

[ Photo Credit: Hindustantimes.com ]

Soon I find myself locked inside the Gandhi Maidan police station with six others.

I am-“bewildered, shocked, shattered and angry”. ?I am rage filled.

I am also helpless

The story later unfolds inside the Gandhi Maidan police station lock-up. I and my friend who accompanied me on the cycle rickshaw might have been innocent but we were where we were because other five co-accused had committed a crime. Those were the days, when ever examination paper of a subject was tougher than what was the comfort level of students, students would tear off the copied and walk out of the exam hall- the ring leaders would ensure that it was enmasse walk-out.

This is what had happened that morning. Male students of Patna Science college after boycotting the Botany Honours exam, had descended to the Magadh Mahila College. Once there, they forcibly entered the examination hall, drove the girls writing the exam out, tore their exam copies and vandalized the hall furniture.

It was their way of ensuring that there was re-exam of the subject in which the paper setter had set difficult paper.

Angered at what happened in the college, Magadh Mahila Principal called the police- both anger and frustration was at work. Within minutes. a posse of police force arrived from the nearest police station and arrested five of miscreants before they could run away from the scene. The ring leader Munna Singh and his other smarter cohorts had already fled the scene by then.

Me and my friend got caught in the quagmire. The destiny had destined that way.

As the above image shows, the police jeep had just come out of the Magadh Mahila college and started its journey to newly opened Gandhi Maidan police station at the east- south corner of the Maidan. Then the police inspector sighted a rickshaw entering the Mahila College from Gandhi Maidan side.

That was enough for the police party to stop the rickshaw, drag me and my friend, beat us, hand cuff us and stuff us inside the police van.

It was one cruel act that defines the basic character of police in India

For the police- "Seven culprit were bigger reward than the Five they had arrested earlier from inside the college".

May be it was my fate. Or it was my Karma.

Or still worse I was paying for some sin of this life or my last life.

But it was what it was

After this article was published, my close friend Bishwanath Jha who worked in Indian Revenue Service and retired last November as Principal Chief Income Tax Commissioner, brought to my notice two critical missing ingredients. First was that I had managed to call him from police station asking him to get some support from his bureaucratic father to get me released from police custody.

Once Bishwanath reminded me, suddenly it also occurred to me that I had also made a second call from the police station- to another close friend - Shamita Sharan (Shamita is based in USA since late nineteen eighties) requesting her to visit Cavendish house to alert our hostel friends that I was picked up by police and was locked at Gandhinagar Police station. Shamita too has now clarified through a comment on the original story that she visited Cavendish on my call. It was brave on her part because it was a strict era of male-female divide in Patna University hostels and it was prohibited for girls to visit boys hostels

1130 HOURS:

I am re-reloaded inside the police van with six other.

And my one-way journey to the hell unfolds in slow motion.

The van takes a left hand turn and soon the historic Gandhi Maidan is behind me now as the van enters the famous Fraser Road from the corner where Hotel Maurya is situated . The police-van crosses the landmarks of All India Radio and Bhartiya Nritya Kala Mandir, then takes the straight road crosses and crosses my favourite book stall- The Reader's Corner and the office of then Patna news paper daily- "The Indian Nation". It also crosses two of my favorite restaurants- the Amber and The New Pintu

It looks so surreal, different and distorted the from inside.

The van then reaches the Patna junction railway station round about where we are caught in the traffic ham for more than an hour.

[ Photo Credit- Decongest Patna Station- Hindustan Times ]

It takes more than an hour to negotiate the unruly traffic snarl at the Patna Junction railway station roundabout but finally the van finds it way, It takes a U-turn, moves for another hundred meter and then takes a left turn. At a twenty meter distance is an imposing gate red gate with a small tiny opening. The gate reads Bankipore Central Jail". It is bounded from four sides by tall red brick walls.

The police van screeches to an abrupt halt and the realization dawns to me-

I have reached my new home, Patna Central Jail- “ the abode of most dreaded criminals of the State of Bihar”.

1300 HOURS:

The Rear Gate of the police van opens and handcuffed along with others I am herded out.

The sharp pain invades the spine.

Feeble voice comes from within- “I am about to lose freedom”.

Worse, I am unsure- “when if at all I will breathe the fresh air again”.

The tiny opening of the imposing outer Iron Gate of the Jail opens and sucks me in and finally shuts back behind me..

My beautiful brave world is left behind.

But I am not yet inside the prison. I am in the office area where jailor and his staff sit.

Fifteenth in the long pecking order, I sit at a dirty bench inside the office area, waiting for my turn to be stamped. Glum faced I watch others being disposed of-most have hardened faces. My turn comes after two hours. I am finger-printed, paperwork is done and I am frisked-my watch, small cash, belt and even pen are taken away.

[ @bishwanath Jha also reminds me that from the jailors office, before getting stuffed inside the jail, I again managed to call him for help. I do not know how I could manage it, but managing to make three calls two from the police station and one from the jail office looks today life a fairy tale story]

I am an inmate now, ready for the “Life in Jail” or suit your word "Life in Hell".

The taint is yet to register ".

1530 HOURS.

The second (the inner) imposing gate of the jail finally opens and and takes seven of us, inside the prison’s sanctum sanctorum- “ this is the branded place for punishment.”

I am punished for my innocence.

Also, the welcome question from other inmates befuddles me-

“What brings me in? Under which section of Indian Penal Code, I have come inside the jail?”

[[ {I am clue less-police who picked me from the road should know better.

Before sending me to the prison, I was denied the basic human right to defend my innocence- neither police nor a magistrate informed me either of the charges against me or my right to defend through an advocate.

NOTE:

[Even jail has a rigid caste and class system. Dreaded murderers and dacoits rule even inside the jail. Small time pick-pockets and thieves are mostly the personal servants of the Bahubalis and rapists are despised even in the jail. At least this is the impression I got in my days in jail. It is because of that, the specific section of the IPC under which you are jailed either as undertrial or convict decides where you will be in the pecking order]

1630 HOURS

I reach my new home- it is a dark 10X12 unventilated cell, bare walled, bereft of bed, mattresses, fan, toilet or sink and infested with multitude of disease bearing vectors on the ground floor in the left-hand corner of the jail. It is supposed to accommodate me and six other co-accused

The above picture shows the outer wall of the Bankipore Central Jail facing the Fraser Road. My cell was just behind this wall, facing the large Pipal Tree whose branches can be seen from here. ?

The inside of the cell is worse than a pigs-sty, unfit to be a human habitat.

But it is what it is.

Now formally, I am inmate of one of the most notorious jails of India that is overcrowded. understaffed and where custodial deaths, inmate suicides and violence-inmates against inmates and inmates against staff is the norm. The jail is also dilapidated, unkempt, and unhygienic, nineteenth century 150x150 meter square-shape jail with ultra-low per-square feet per-inmate space.

"Ironically, during the freedom struggle of the country Patna Central Jail which was also called the Bankipore Jail had been the abode of noted freedom fighters- Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad, Srikrishna Sinha, Acharya Kriplani, Maulana Mazharul Haq and many other."

?One can get a peek on what it was to be jail in 1979, from the following extracts from the latest India Today article dated June, 4, 2011 titled- Right to Justice bill: Helplessness, psychological disorders torture Indian prisoners""

"The article says- What's worse, 70 per cent of the total 300,000 inmates in India's 1,356 prisons have not been convicted of any offence. They are undertrials, most of them victims of police high-handedness and a grindingly slow judicial system. Of them, nearly 2,000 have spent more than five years behind bars without being convicted of any crime. If one juxtaposes these figures with the overall conviction rate in the country-a measly 6.5 per cent-the injustice of the system stands starkly exposed"

When I was arrested and imprisoned without committing a crime in 1979 the situation was so horrifying that after the release of the jail for years in the night i would wake up perspiring and screaming with fear with the strong glares of hardened criminals prying shamelessly at the hapless me- i was barely twenty then.

It is worth noting that when I was sent inside a prison I was a juvenile- I was not an adult- I would become adult only after one year and two months

1730 HOURS:?

Helpless and powerless I cry in desolation. It is tragic physical existence- psychically it is worse.

The sun set is an hour away but the Darkness pervades deep within me.

?I am frightened at the collateral damage that imprisonment will cause to the life. I am also worried about its impact on my family

Also, I am clueless, how long I will remain incarcerated. Freedom is a bridge too far.

1830 HOURS: ?

I sit below the Pipal Tree outside my cell, watching the sun slip by, sentenced in dis-quiet. I tuck these moments away in my heavy heart where they fester into messy images.

The setting Sun mocks at me.

Sun will rise tomorrow morning again- "but my life is eclipsed forever".

1900 HOURS:

The jail bell rings- and leads to stampede. It is the dinner time. Bahubalis have first charge at the insufficient food-unruly mille, sight and smell of inedible food kills my appetite.

Crying hoarsely, I recoil to the dis-quietitude inside the cell. And first night in the jail is spent twisting and turning empty stomach

2000 HOURS:

Lights go out inside the jail. It is pitched dark now. But darkness of my soul is darker than the outside darkness.

Nambardars lock our cell from outside.

To attend even nature’s call, one now will have to wait for the morning or if the natures call is extreme will have to relieve him on the corner of the cell which a couple of my cell mates did.

Except occasional shouting of the jail guards and the glare of search lights, silence of the grave pervaded now.

2200 HOURS ?

Bone tired, tears streaming down the cheek for hours, I try sleeping on the naked hard surface floor, in the small room stuffed with six other inmates.

Mosquitoes mock at me. The sleep eludes.

With life suspended, petrified I recite Hanuman Chalisa.

But succor does not come- " even my most trusted God too has failed me".

The realization sinks down the heart that in the dark and dank dungeons of an Indian jail, life is a killer, mentally and physically

Even then the only thing which makes me spend the night fully awake is my faint conviction that this "Time to will pass" and my unflinching faith in Lord Hanuman.

I am starkly aware of the life long taint and stigma that my being a jail bird is going to bring to me. I know I will be judged now from different lens, an abominable yard stick of being branded both legally and morally deviant.

If that is not all my family too is going to suffer the stigma of my incarceration.

The fact that I have been arrested in a criminal case and has been jailed, means that all the doors for promised future- of a good government job to be a locomotive for the family train is disrupted for ever.

This is my biggest lament as I negotiate through the night fitfully.

When i was arrested by the police I was a wounded lion by the time the first night ended I was a lame lamb.

I also had this new realization- there was nothing like a moment of privacy in the life of a jail bird.

DAY 2 IN THE JAIL, FRIDAY

0500 HOURS.

I spend the first night in the jail, staring blankly at the dark roof. ?

Tears dry up. The pain has just gone deeper.

Morning bell leads to the commotion. It is chirping time for both- "birds and jailbirds" as the cells open.

The first rush of inmates is to the toilets- they are too few for too many of them.

My faint remembrances say at best one waterless toilet for over hundred inmates.

My chance comes after hours- but the filthy toilet, its fetid smell, human fleeces on the floor and walls are nauseating to say the least.

?I throw out on the toilet floor. ?

1100 HOURS.

Sitting for hours below the Pipal Tree, I befriend an elderly inmate. A life-convict he hails from my native district. He recounts his tragic story-he is serving the life sentence for killing the monster rapist of his young daughter.

He leads a lonely depressed life inside the jail while his daughter leads a shattered existence in the cruel unsafe outside world.

This inmate is immensely respected by both inmates and the jail staff.

1500 HOURS.

Frightened at the prospect of turning a long haul under trial, I am losing my mind-battle.

Quite often the mind is rattled by the return of the my old trusted friend- "persistence and pervasive suicidal ideation. But with no privacy in the jail, either inside or outside the jail it evaporates finally.

Suddenly, returns my combative self and I decide to start the Gandhian Satyagraha, “Fast unto Death” against the illegal detention. But the elderly inmate and the co-accused dissuade me from taking the extreme step inside the jail- they fear that my act of diffidence will further attract ire of the jail staff and will bring more trouble to me.

I am told to try for bail- but there is none to bail me out. I am sure that even i am granted bail there is no one to take my surety

1900 HOURS: ?

Visiting hours are over in the jail. Co-accused had visitors. No one came to meet me.

[ Errata: As reminded by one of my friends I did get two visitors- one was based on whose memory I have written Errata to this article. One of my friends Bishwanath visited on the third morning in the jail during the visiting hours of morning nine to twelve hours. He remembers that I was so famished that I requested him to bring Poori Sabji for me. He indeed bring my favourite Puri and Sabji from the New Pintu Restaurant from the other side of the Jail. Another friend who visited me in jail - I am not sure he came which day- is Ashok Kumar, Kuru Bhai who would ultimately pay my bail bond for the release from the jail on bail.]

Life in the jail was nauseating and crippling-my innocence and dignity was butchered permanently during the incarceration.

The only food in jail that i remember eating property was the one which Bishwanath brought. My new friend elderly inmate too got some totally unpalatable lunch. Which i could not eat. Now I can recollect that seven of us were provided with a cook and some ration. if my memory serves me right the cook a resident of Jehanabad was an undertrial under Arm's Act.

But I cannot eat- have no appetite though have not eaten a scrub since entering the prison except one morning food brought by my friend

My mind is always crying hoarse of the punishment which the man and the God have meted to me for the unknown crime- make no mistake Incarceration in Indian jail is such a punishment particularly if you are young and vulnerable which I was that its scars become permanent.

They rob you of all the dignity of the human existence.

2200 HOURS

I am bone chilled.

My old friend has arranged dirty mattress and dirtier blanket. It gives some relief-but I am both sleepless and restless. Later all seven of us will get the mattresses and blanket

Second night too goes without sleep.

DAY THREE IN THE JAIL SATURDAY

I am resigned now to the Life in Hell.

Trying in vain to deflect the attention from woes, I spend the day, visiting different parts of the jail and am hit by few existential truths of the jail life.

First, the Jail is overly overcrowded. It accommodates four times of the rated capacity, if anyone knows what the rated capacity is.

Second, while the jail is existentially tough for all inmates, it is living hell for vulnerable- children, adolescent and women ( yes if at at all I was an offender, I was minor and should have been sent to Juvenile Correction Centre and not to the one of the most notorious prisons of the country.

Third, vulnerable groups- lowest castes ( scheduled casters) and minorities ( read Muslims) had more than their fair representation in the jail population

The fourth realization is the most horrendous-

"I find that every second inmate of the jail is listless, dragging carcass of a human body in the need of urgent psychiatric care. But the jail medical clinic is woefully inadequate even to treat physical ailments. Psychiatric help to depressed prisoners is farthest from the mind of overworked jail staff. These are base animals fit to die. Inmates’ suicide too is not so uncommon".

The situation of lack of psychiatric care in Indian jails pretty much remains the same even today

Before the day ends- there is a faint glimmer of hope.

There is hush-hush talk-we may be out on bail.

But my hope for freedom remains elusive- I neither have surety nor the money for the bail bond.?Also, fourth day in the jail falls on Sunday-even those who get bail will be out of the prison only a day after.

[ It has come to my knowledge only after i wrote this article from the comments of my friends Bishwanath Jha and Shamita Mohan and from the input given by Kuru Bhai that after Shamita visited Cavendish, our friends in Cavendish House, started a fast-track "Mission Rescue from Jail" for me. Shamita does recollect now going to Cavendish. And Bishwanath recollects how apart from our hostel friends even our Cavendish Hostel Superintendent S. K. Roy the Chemistry Professor, also put his might behind my release and lent moral support to my college friends]

My next exam paper of graduation examination is less than a week away. And here am I fighting for life in jail. Bishwanath has put the precise date in his comment to the article. The day I was arrested and sent to jail, our next Honors paper was ten days away. That meant I had remained incarcerated for ten days it would have been the end of my scholastic dreams

DAYFOUR IN THE JAIL -SUNDAY

Enfeebled, famished and desolate I spend the day and night inside the dark cell sobbing.

All is lost.

No respite is in sight. Spending life in the looks life the larger agenda of God as part of punishment of my past sins of this or the past life.

Life in the jail is the destiny now.

DAY FIVE IN THE JAIL-MONDAY

I have turned inanimate damaged by five days of crying without sleep, brushing and taking bath. Also for much of the stay i have gone famished.

One more day is spent in the fetal position inside the cell sobbing. Unable to sleep I spend the night restless, gasping, and petrified amid worst nightmares

With no control over the present and future- the mind and the body collapse.

Suddenly, two wild incidents terrorize me- in a show of brute power one life convict brutally assaults an inmate who narrowly escapes death. Another fails to hang himself.

Fear for my own life now grows manifold. I am mortified to marrows.

I am back to desolation of the dark cell crying inconsolably sitting in fetal position as i am terrified by the prying piercing gaze of hardened inmates on my hapless body

And I count my luck. Keep praying. God keeps me alive. Though barely so.

1500 HOURS

I am hauled up and taken with other co-accused to the office area of the jail.

I am told-the court has granted us bail, on a surety and bail-bond of Rs. 10000, a huge sum.

For long I was unsure who gave my surety and the bail bond. I presumed probably it was advocate brother of a co-accused. But in March 2017, one class mate of mine Ashok Kumar (we fondly call him Kuru Bhai) Chief Conservator of Forest Tripura, confided it was he who signed my bail bond. How we got bail has also been now chronicled by Bishwanath Jha in a series of three long comments by him to this article.

It was- Mission Release by the Cavendish Friends

And the man who led the mission was none other than Kuru Bhai

Couple of hours goes in completing paper formalities. I get my belongings back except my watch-"it is a small price to pay for the freedom".

I emerge from the prison sad, hurt and desolate.

The experience has been terrifying but also humbling.

Also, it has been instructive in many ways. ?

I head straight to the Hanuman Temple near railway station. During five days of incarceration I regularly recited Hanuman Chalisa so as to retain a semblance of sanity in such insane moments not to lose mind completely.

I am set to freedom in the broad day-light- “but the light is sniffed out of my life permanently”.

THE POLICE BRUTALITY RELIVED

Patna police had arrested and falsely charged me under frivolous sections 143/448/426 of Indian Penal Code [ Section143 (un-lawful assembly punishable for six month), Section 426 (causing mischief punishable by three months) and Section 448 (house trespass punishable up-to one year imprisonment ]

If convicted I could be imprisoned up-to one year if the sentences ran concurrently and upto one year nine months if the sentences ran sequentially depending upon the mood of the judge.. ?

Charges were motivated, malicious and false.

Babuji, my father was forced to bribe rupees one thousand to just get the copy of the police "first information report (FIR)".

To get a free FIR copy was my basic human right.

After wrongfully implicating, police next falsely filed charge sheeted against me and charges were framed in the court in my presence when the magistrate read the charges against me and other co-accused

Suffices to add here that I was subjected to extreme case of falsification of police records. Police locked me in Gandhi Maidan police station but booked the FIR in Kotwali-station. They stuffed me inside the jail same day but forged the case diary to show they had produced me to magistrate who had remanded me to jail. ?

In the egregious case of the police fraud, the innocent in me was wronged.

I was also stamped for life.

I had a new name- “The Jail Bird”.

?

Even the fellow co-accused knew I did not belong to their tribe.

Investigating police inspector knew I was not guilty but he asked INR. 5000 bribe to give the not guilty final report. Neither me nor my family had that kind of money.

Also, before charge sheeting me the law required that my statement was recorded in the police case diary. No such curtsey was extended. ?

It was nerve-rattling, humiliating and demeaning to compulsorily give attendance in the court standing in the accused box every fortnight.

Worse, the mere act of framing the charges in the court dragged in for months, because one of the accused Md. Arfin who was son of a wealthy and powerful local police officer never presented him to the court though he roamed freely in the city as a leader of the youth wing of Congress-I.

?

I was finally found not guilty and set at liberty under Section 255(1) of CRPC

But it was preceded by a high-octane court room drama.

Outraged at the compulsory fortnightly court attendance, I pleaded with the judicial magistrate Pathak, who was trying our case to permit me to defend my innocence, as I could not afford advocate. For every court attendance I had to tell a new lie in my new employment, the State Bank of India. I had falsely written in my state bank employment application form that I was never arrested, and no criminal case was pending against me.

Finally the luck smiled. Magistrate Pathak allowed me to defend my own case.

And the rest is history.

"In mere two hearings there after-my submissions of how, I was falsely implicated, and how police barbarism killed my innocence, moved the magistrate, who restored my honor, setting me free [ Pathak orally reprimanded other accused –because of me, they too were being set at liberty. But I dare say my friend too who was on the rickshaw with me was as innocent as me]"

But the searing pain has assumed permanence-“I cannot erase the life truth of having been a jail-bird”.

FREEDOM AT LAST

Out of jail, I reclaimed freedom. ?

But the nightmares of unremitting grim battle with deadening depression began shortly thereafter. For nearly two months I was muted and catatonic, sobbing incoherently curled up in fetal position.

I tried studying for exams but not much registered.

Desperation ran so deep, the choice of ending life resurfaced again

It was now moral duty to terminate deranged life, full of depression, despair and unrelenting pain arising out of illegal incarceration. One day, filled with hopelessness, I threw myself in-front of a speeding bus on Ashok Raj Path.

I survived, with fractured right hand and bruised legs.

I lived in constant terror and wrote the balance papers of graduation exam in terrible mental state. Acute Depression left after three months-intermittent many months later.

The pain has lessened with time but not will go only with death.

And the taint is permanent.

?POSTSCRIPT

At the venue of old Patna Central Jail also known as Bankipore Central Jail today stands Buddha Smriti Memorial and Park, where Dalai Lama, inaugurated the three days international Buddhist Sangha Meet in January, 2013. But the Pipal Tree outside my cell, where I desolately sat for hours as a prisoner those days, still stands tall as a grim reminder of my incarceration

The horror of arrest, incarceration, and charge-sheet coupled with long court-battle should have been enough to send life hurtling to long depressive pit.

But, these were my fighting years.

The acute depression left after few months.

Incarceration made me man out of a child. The adolescence was lost in between.

I had fought long-war against ill health, unsuccessful dabbling in student politics, close shave from Naxalism, imprisonment, depression and humiliating court battle.

But I dreamt only “To get the university first rank, to be the Gold Medalist in the Graduation Examination”.

I had opted for the Math Honors in graduation as I did not get Physics. But my love for pure mathematics was ignited early in 1974 after reading 1937 E.T. Bell Book “Men of Mathematics” at Faraday House.

Graduation results were finally out later in 1979-despite despair of incarceration and fitful depressive bouts- I was declared the university topper, Gold-Medalist in Mathematics (Honors)-the lost glory was restored after three-year battle with deprivation, failure, imprisonment, body ailments and mind maladies. ?

In the first two years of college life, I had failed to live up-to burden of expectations for Roll Number-1 that I was of Patna Science College in my batch. In next three years, body, mind and soul sprang back to victory once again.

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?