A Prisoner's Diary I : Novice at Arthur

The pain had made him all the more vulnerable and hollow. His heart stood cold and motionless. The deathly silence only seemed to make the ambience more penetrative. There was nothing that he had spoken during the past week. He walked across the room like a zombie – without a sense of purpose. He was confused. He had never before encountered such a state of mind. He felt abandoned.

Every now and then, a policeman would ram his baton on to his prison gates. He was getting used to that clanging of doors. He looked into cop’s eyes. They were hollow. He felt a sense of shrillness running across the room. He looked at people differently now. The trust that he could see in a person’s eyes was just replaced with a heightened sense of paranoia as to when the person was about to desert him. He couldn’t believe that he was the same guy who would trust people – not just with money but with his life. It was all more important for him because such was the profession he chose. In a career, where your success is determined by the number of people you trust rather than the money you have. He locked his sight on the constable. A distinct sadness ran through his face. “Abe good hai kya? Chal! Chal! Andar ja”, burbled the policeman and went ahead with his mundane check-ups.

It had been just one week since he made his way to Arthur. With umpteen ups and downs, his life had been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. He had followed just one philosophy throughout his career – ‘Never cross people the wrong way. You can get away with time, money and destiny but never with people.’ And in the line of business he had chosen, his philosophy made sense. With his uncanny people-skills and shrewd mind, he had made his way right to the top from the streets. He did not think anything wrong about what he had done in his short ‘career’. He believed in one thing - One man’s wrong is other man’s right. But they say – ‘Time is a great leveler’. His ‘career’ came to a grinding halt. He made the fatal mistake that he vowed to avoid – Crossing people the wrong way. And he landed up in Arthur. He always thought of himself as guy who would never sulk about his past. But that was not to be. An ‘air’ that surrounded him seemed to have vanished during the past month. He was all alone - cornered into a 6x8 rotten mouse-hole that the people called prison.

Suddenly, he turned around. He heard something on his back. He zeroed into the corner of his room. It was dark. He looked closer. It was just a cockroach making its way through the window. He grinned at himself. Indeed, it’s strange. When you are all alone in a vacuous state of mind – you would invariably hear and see things, which you normally would not have. “Welcome friend, hope you are my roomie for rest of the night”, he sulked.

The clock struck 10. “Everyone back to their beds”, commanded the warden in his burly voice. Warden Mishra had kept his steely reserve over everyone at Arthur. Everyone supposedly was under his nose. Not a person protested. It was as if these men had surrendered themselves to his might. “Go to your bed - No 118 “, the warden ordered. He retreated - controlling his protest.

That macho inside in him was gone. He was looking for some inspiration in the darkness that surrounded him. He was broken inside. He was aghast at the mere sight of wrecked relationships around him. All of them had deserted him when he needed them the most. He felt home-sick. He had not felt that for a long time. The warmth he felt at home was replaced by the coldness that surrounded this place. He dozed off with a cockroach as his companion.