I wouldn’t say I liked being in prison, behind those four empty, pale walls, behind those unrelenting, iron bars, but I had given up the fight. I didn’t have it in me to go on. Now and then I would see a young man, talking big about prison rights, fair pay, and what not. But I had seen many. They all shut up after about 3 months or so. More than me being part of the prison, it had become a part of me. I had started believing that even god had given up on me. It was unbearable. The food, the stench in the cell, the hard floor, the cold nights, the loneliness, terrible. Nobody came to visit me, because no one knew where I was. The police had just picked me up one day, without letting me even inform my parents. I would feel helpless. I wanted to get in touch with my parents, but the prison staff would not relent, they wouldn’t even hear me out. I kept crying, banging my head against the bars, but to no avail. All I would get was only bumps and bruises across my forehead and a hoarse throat.

I started counting my days in prison, but after a few years I stopped doing that. I worked, ate, slept and worked again, till this routine became a way to retain my sanity. Now and then I would try to look at the huge, imposing prison walls, and wonder how it would be to step out again. I would keep staring at the birds flying across the horizon and envy them, till I would rudely hit and awakened from my reverie by the baton waving guard for not focusing on my work. During my early days I would stare back at him, only to receive more blows for disobedience, but over the years I had stopped letting these things bother me, because I realized it didn’t make any difference to anyone.

It all started when the Gorkhas in Nepal were being subjected to oppression by the people belonging to the upper class. The movement that started with a murmur quickly snowballed into a full fledged protest, involving almost every Gorkha in the country. Everyday hundreds of people would die in the crossfire between the Gorkhas and the police. The violence had reached its crescendo. I was young, 23 to be precise and naïve. My blood boiled easily. I couldn’t take the fact that my people were not being given a fair treatment. I joined the movement. I blindly followed all the instructions given to me. I would break into homes and steal. I would threaten shopkeepers to hand over their day’s earnings. I would kidnap children and ask their parents for a ransom. I did everything with the higher purpose in mind, and that was to win Gorkhas the rights they deserved.

Then during one of our group’s regular meetings, my leader personally met me and instructed me to do whatever it takes to teach the upper class people a lesson. I was over the moon because my chief had asked me to carry out this important operation that will decide the future of our people.                

A new wave of determination took over me and I walked the streets with a purpose. My mind was busy churning out ideas to make the mission work, when a commotion caught my eye. I saw two men, one of them being Mr. Biswas, both belonging to the upper class getting out of their car and beating up a Gorkha with sticks. I could also see Mr. Biswas’s daughter who didn’t get out of the vehicle, but didn’t try to stop the men either. Although the Gorkha was being mauled by those men, he was trying to put up a brave fight. An unbelievable rage ran across my body and I charged at the oppressors like a mad bull. When they looked at me, I could see their nerve swiftly disappearing. The prospect of facing an equal fight had scared them. They quickly got into their car and drove away from the scene. I rushed to the aid of my comrade and after ensuring that he was comfortable made my way towards the house of Mr. Biswas.

I calmly knocked at the door. I think he sensed who it could be, so no one answered the door. I knocked again, much harder this time. I could clearly hear nervous whispers. I was seething with anger. I went around to the backside of the house to look for an entry. The slanting coconut tree arching over the terrace offered the easiest access to the house, but the climb wasn’t as easy. After failing quite a few times, I finally managed to scale the tree. When I went down the spiral stairs, I saw Mr. Biswas, his wife and daughter all huddled in a corner.

Fear of uncertainty loomed large on their rich, brown faces. I loved it. I loved the power I had at that moment. I loved what my presence was doing to them. I could feel the expression on my face changing. I grabbed Mr. Biswas by his collar and slapped across his face. His wife and daughter screamed in fright and begged me to let him go. I kicked him in his stomach and could feel the wind leave his body. I hit him on his with the butt of my gun, breaking a few of his teeth, when Mrs. Biswas held me from behind and pulled me back by my hair. I turned around and saw her retreating immediately, regretting her short lived attempt at heroism. I pounced on her, and pushed her down on the floor. I dragged her by her leg and locked her in the kitchen.

Mr. Biswas’s daughter who was quiet by then, charged at me with a crystal vase in hand. She threw it at me with force, but missed, and crashed into the kitchen door instead. The crash immediately drew a wild reaction from Mrs. Biswas who started screaming for help. I picked Mr. Biswas’s daughter and slammed her on to the bed. The devilish streak in my eyes had perhaps already warned her of the impending threat. She covered herself with the bed sheet tried to hide behind the wall of pillows stacked on the bed. I shut the door behind me, pulled the bed sheet away from her, threw the pillows on the floor and jumped on her. She kept begging me to let her go, but all her pleas just ignited the anger in me to the hilt. I would never forget that look on her face when I left her naked and violated on the bed. She didn’t move, didn’t try to cover herself up, didn’t say anything and didn’t cry. She kept staring at the ceiling.        

As I was leaving, I saw Mr. Biswas crawling towards the bedroom to check on his daughter, while Mrs. Biswas kept banging at the door asking to be let out. I walked out a satisfied man, turning around the lives of a family forever. When I informed my chief about my achievement, he hugged me and told me continue my good work. I came home, exhausted and went straight to my bed. I don’t know why but that night, a sad, miserable face kept me uneasy in my sleep. It was the face of Mr. Biswas’s daughter. The expression that she had when I was leaving, kept haunting me day and night. I didn’t go to work for a week even after my chief’s men came to my home repeatedly. I just couldn’t get out of my bed. It seemed to me that I had stolen something irreplaceable from her. It had become impossible for me to think of anything else except her. The thought of what she would have gone through, the emotional scar, her agony, completely overshadowed my day to day activities. I was shocked at the suffering I had caused to that girl and her family.  

I became irritable and would snap at people for no reason. The guilt was becoming too much to take. I finally admitted this to my chief, who told me forget about it and move on. He said it was just the first step towards our freedom, and I shouldn’t let such small things bother me. I left the office extremely disturbed. I went straight to Mr. Biswas’s home, who on seeing me rushed in and shut the door. He still had a heavily bandaged jaw and head. I knew he wouldn’t believe me, so I put my gun through the window and begged him to hear me out for a minute. When I put forth the proposal of getting married to Sudhi, Mr. Biswas literally kicked me out of his home. But surprisingly after about a month, Mr. Biswas came to my home one day and told me that his daughter had accepted my proposal, and he would like to get us married. I was so happy that my tears wouldn’t stop flowing. But Sudhi’s only condition was I had to give up this futile fight and stop hurting innocent people. Although I was a little apprehensive of my chief’s reaction, I agreed to it. He told me that the 20th of next month was an auspicious day to get married, which left us exactly 15 days to make all the preparations.

As I expected, when my chief heard the news, he threatened me with dire consequences and termed me a traitor for marrying into an upper class. True to his word, just 2 days before my marriage, I was intercepted by police, who didn’t give me any option but to get into their jeep. Once inside prison, the police would beat me up every time I would gain consciousness. No one knew where I was, including my parents and Sudhi’s family. The day of marriage turned out to be the saddest for me. I shuddered at what Sudhi must be going through and what she must think of me. The question that how would I ever tell her that I did not want to break my promise, that I love her and wanted to marry her tortured me. It felt like I was being eaten alive by a pack of rats, bit by bit, parts after parts. Both the families involved would have had to face humiliation. The invitation cards had been printed, the hall had been booked, the caterers had been fixed, the relatives had been invited, everything had been done. Only I didn’t show up.     

The funny part of my story was that the law didn’t care when I was on the wrong side, but got hold of me when I wanted to clean up my act. Using his influence and power of money, my chief made sure that no one fought on my behalf. The public lawyers, who approached me, vanished the very next day. The long list of cases filed against me by the police included, threatening people with dangerous weapons, causing disruption, stealing, and being involved in terrorist activities. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years and years became decades. For 60 years, my case didn’t even come in front of the magistrate.

My dreams, my hopes, suffocated and died behind the iron bars. My once upright, sturdy posture, bent like a weak branch of a dying tree. My once taut skin, hung loose like mammary glands of an old woman. My vision, my hearing power was quickly waning too. Finally, at the age of 83, when my body was ridden with all kinds of diseases, a bunch of fresh law students fought my case and bought to light the sheer problem of the rotting Indian judicial system. I was released on a bail of Re.1. As a goodwill gesture, the government promised me a regular pension of Rs.1000 every month for my upkeep and free of cost treatment at any government hospital.
 
When I stepped out of the prison gate, my younger brother and sister came running and wailed against my chest. On the way to our home, they told me all that they went through when I disappeared. They told me how my mother died of shock and my father died a few years later. I expectantly asked about Sudhi, to which they replied that her father married her off a wealthy man from the neighboring village the very next day despite her protests and she is a grandmother now. They also told that she had secretly come by one evening and asked about my whereabouts. When she got no answer, she rushed home in tears.

After spending about two days at home, my coughing got worse and I started spewing blood along with my sputum. My family admitted me to a hospital.  When my brother and sister came back after talking to the doctor, I could sense that I don’t have much time to live. I split between them the Rs.10,000 I had made in prison over the past 60 years. That was the least I could do for them. My coughing got so bad that they had to call in the doctor, who checked me, sighed, looked towards the sky and left. What a life I had led. While I breathed my last, I made my brother promise me that he would go to Sudhi and tell her that I loved her, still do and wanted to marry her. “I am not a bad person. I am not. I…”