Prison memoirs are the most distinctive of all autobiographical literature. They take us to a completely different world permeated with themes of destruction, violence and liberation. Despite their plight, or perhaps because of it, prisons have proven fertile sites for the production of confessional writing. They are at once a record of the institution’s bondage, therapy, escape, and subversion.
Mahmood Farooqui’s players of tihar It’s all this and more. It differs from many of the best prison accounts published in recent years: Sudha Bhardwaj’s hanging yardAnand Teltumbde’s cell and soulKobad Gandhi’s fragmented freedomArun Ferreira’s cage colorsAnd first, Iftikhar Gilani’s my days in jail. This is because Farooqui was a different kind of prisoner. He was sent to prison not for his political views but on the charge of rape, the most heinous of all charges. He denied the crime and was eventually acquitted. Arrest and imprisonment on political grounds bring cruel hardships but not humiliation. Memoirs of political prisoners are written by people who are confident in their place in the world, while also being confident that the wider society does not condemn them. players of tihar Is of second order. Deprived of all middle-class dignity and prestige as a man of the arts, abandoned by friends and followers – always in abundance in his glory days – condemned by both the mainstream and alternative media, aware of his own failures in personal life, Faruqui recalled his prison stay in a period of intense weakness. But instead of making him self-absorbed, this experience makes him aware of the weaknesses of other people around him. The result is a memoir of powerful and singular poignancy.
divided into two parts, arrival And returnEach with its own rhythm and mood, the memoir begins mulahiza (After the prison ward for prisoners for the first time). Here, the wound of humiliation is raw, the confusion and fear (for his future, his sanity and his family outside) is palpable. His entry here is compared to an excerpt from “the jaws of Sheol… where the living are swallowed into a kind of oblivion, where you do not burn but disappear”. The reader learns about the ward’s initiation rites designed to show new entrants their place, their ‘status’, the shame of being stripped and searched, and the sudden degradation of body and spirit that the prison imposes on prisoners.
Faruqi never for a moment loses sight of his writers’ observation, or humanistic desire for empathy; The story of his fellow prisoners and Tihar unfolds with its own tragedy. Tihar is a network of prisons rather than a single prison – each one its own universe. The reader becomes familiar with Deori, The range through which prisoners are repeatedly subjected to barracks, cells, Fatta (The narrow strip inside the crowded cell where the prisoner has to fit his body and sleep), the Mill (a two-room suite with a brother’s room around it), the dizzy (a tropical version of the Panopticon), elaborate system of wards: repeaters, guilty, old man (housing elderly prisoners), the convicts’ ward where all the factories and workshops are located, and Kharja, Holding area where prisoners wait their turn in the courts. There is also a bureaucracy of unnecessary cruelty, from the warder to the superintendent, whose mere twitch of the eyebrow is enough for his henchmen to hang a prisoner upside down, beat him up or drive him away from the jail. Kasuri Ward. Below the prison officer is an army of prisoner workers who oil the prison machinery: clerks, assistant clerks, sevadars, petty police, desk-jobbers, runners and general attendants and cleaners.
This efficiency only creates more suffering and more despair. Farooqui predicts, “One day, all the despair accumulated and buried here will leak out, destroy and engulf the entire city of Delhi.”
In this despair, Faruqui finds the idea of ​​suicide strangely life-affirming. But three things intervene to save him: Faith’s quest, the writing instrument, and the wealth of the prison library. Having been a long-time atheist, he temporarily begins reading this QuranThen prayer, and then fasting (and its quick abandonment). “As I prepared to fast, I began to look forward to tomorrow with an impatience that I had never felt since entering prison: for the canteen, for the register, for the pen.” A “silly happiness” envelops him when he touches the Urdu books in the library, which becomes his refuge from the noise and filth of the ward, giving him a glimpse of his past life, at least for a while. Their faith is as generous as their sources story. he reads Geeta Rosa in the barracks, wrapped in a newspaper, and chanting a Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum After asr namaz.
In prison, like life, time also stands still. In the absence of watches, time can be estimated only by hunger and orders. The odds are high and the whole point of prison life is to “kill this time.” And it’s full of small fights, hearing a lot of abuse one after another, waiting meeting, Or any news of all developments in the case of someone, but above all Nonsense, Nonsensical ‘timepass’ jokes that give “the illusion of normalcy, of being alive, of occupying some casual, familiar space”. Within that space, Faruqui sarcastically says, “My presence as a foreign director and an entertaining storyteller gained value”.
Even in such a desolate landscape, the author never fails to be impressed by the small things of life and love: the sight of two bulbuls sitting on a tree, his cell mate, Ajay, taking care of injured cows and birds, the setting sun one evening, unexpected acts of tenderness, the ready witticisms of sinners. Even the absurdities of Tihar do not escape him: the decree to hang clothes without ropes, to clean toilets without Harpic or Lysol, to whitewash barracks in heavy rain, to free pigeons on 15 August (“dummy freedom for dummy pigeons, who flew back into the coop”). Other absurdities are far more cruel: the constant transfer and shifting of prisoners to cells and wards that keep them on edge, the withdrawal of even minor consolations like canteen meals, new officials with new ideas and new executive orders.
Both mulahiza And The Journalwhich is made Part One: Arrival The section displays a feverish, nightmarish quality, reflecting Faruqi’s inner turmoil in the early days of his captivity. The Journal ends with his conviction. The reader is sure that this will lead to Farooqui’s disintegration. Part Two: ReturnHowever, it has a double meaning: Faruqi’s return to the jaws of Sheol, but also a return to the depths of his troubled soul. When he returns to prison, it is with a sense of despairing resignation, but a transfer to his old ‘home’, Prison Number 3, invigorates him and he then throws himself into teaching and pursuing theater productions. A reformist DG approves and supports him hard work (The rigor required of all guilds) To train a group of enthusiasts into a theater group. Time no longer stretches as meaninglessly as in the past, but is now structured by approaching deadlines, working on scripts, creating props from materials available in the prison, and crafting actors from people who had no training in theatre, and often no literacy either. Premchand’s IntoxicationSwadesh Deepak’s court martial (The history of its creation is aptly titled, gold from dust), Ramlila And charandas thief (For which Farooqui miraculously secured permission to let the prisoners out of the women’s prison!) – Farooqui chooses stories that run on themes of justice and fairness that will resonate with the prison audience. It’s all delivered with a rare chutzpah. Sample this: “Basantlal played Ravana’s brother Kumbhkaran, and I knew he would, after waking up from his sleep, bring the house down by demanding mutton, mutton and more mutton in the pure vegetarian jail! Then I roared at him boldly and told him that if there was a shortage of liquor, get it from the Superintendent’s office”.
In contrast to the depressive air of the early sections, a sense of determined purpose pervades the second half of the book. Shailendra’s song, ‘If you are alive, believe in the victory of life.‘ (If you are alive, have faith, life will triumph over death and decay) becomes the running leitmotif. It was during this phase that Faruqui composed his magnum opus, Dastan-e-Karna, based on Mahabharata. It has now been performed to great acclaim around the world, but the author says that the session at Tihar, where he first recited the opening lines to his theater students and the superintendent about how the great epic was written, remains imprinted in his heart.
Farooqui writes that life in prison took away his desire to take decisions and achieve morality. He comes to believe that no one is worse than another; A person’s accusations and crimes do not destroy his personality. There are some very tender and heart-wrenching portraits of fellow prisoners: Haji Sharafat (a fellow consumer). brain medicine or psychiatric drugs) accused of beating his wife with a belt; Pure-hearted and talented Bhanu Raghav, a wedding cameraman, is accused of murder over a feud; Badal Farazi, a Bangladeshi who was implicated and convicted in a murder committed before entering India, educates himself and even argues his case in English in court.
players of tihar Witness the devastation caused by large prisons. It makes an impassioned appeal for alternatives such as open prisons and allowing prisoners to repent with dignity and a modicum of humanity.
Tihar has got an incomparable memoirist in the form of Mahmood Farooqui.
Manisha Sethi is the author of Kafkaland: Law, Prejudice and Counterterrorism in India (Three Essays Press).
