Famous prisoners' stories

Book review of 'Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India's Most Famous'

BEHIND BARS 

Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous

Sunetra Choudhury

Roli Books

266 pages; Rs 395

Prisons make for one helluva story. Ask anyone who spent time inside, rightly or wrongly – hardened criminals or political prisoners, strugglers for a decent living or those whose wealth puts many a monarch to shame – and you will find the stories never end. Most of what happens inside rarely comes out in the media except as “colour” stories on “special occasions”. Investigations have established most prisons as hardly the best places to reform convicts. It is only a rare person held guilty of gruesome crime who comes out a hermit. 

Tales of the dehumanising character of prisons have also been depicted on numerous occasions in cinema, both popular and art house. Yet, there is no dearth of ways in which accounts from prisons can be presented. The book under review adds significant material to the available literature and establishes that when it comes to the well-heeled, the ease with which things can get “fixed” while “outside”, does not end within the precincts of a jail.

 The initial impression one gets from the cover is that the prisoners whose tales are told here are celebrities or “big names”. But one should never either buy a book or review it on the basis of a cover. Though the book holds a significant chunk of jail-house profiles, it also has several stories about people who should be written about if only because of the injustices heaped on them by the state. The author painstakingly tracks stories, provides adequate background of the case but takes care to go beyond to life in confinement. The people profiled cooperated but there are several instances when information shared has been supplemented with details from secondary sources. There are several instances when this reviewer wondered whether the narrative would be contradicted or not. But being a seasoned journalist, Ms Choudhury would have ensured accounts were backed by evidence. Moreover, publishers run manuscripts through legal combs.

The complicit nature of jail officials and the system comes out starkly. Considerable effort was made to get the “protagonists” to agree to share information and provide time. She narrates a delectable tale on her failure to get (“Saharashri”) Subrato Roy’s nod because, as his aides forewarned, he had a three-book contract already. The meeting took place, after he secured bail, in the presidential suite of a top Delhi hotel. It ended on a note of disappointment, for he refused to be clubbed with those who committed crimes. There was not even a single FIR against him, he claimed. This possibly explains why prison officials provided facilities that were not given to “even Indira Gandhi”!

Several featured in the book are well known because of the higher social profile or nature of crimes: Manu Sharma, Sushil Sharma, A Raja, Amar Singh, Anca Neacsu Verma, Pappu Yadav, Kobad Ghandy, Somnath Bharti and, of course, Peter Mukerjea. But we also come across a character like Avatar Singh, the inmate who runs a canteen inside the jail. One would have liked greater details – how he managed to run a canteen and its logistics – but neither is Mr Singh the main character in this account nor is the book intended as an expose on the corrupt prison system. There is a Nepali inmate who is made to serve tea to officers. The crime for which he is jailed? Murder of his employers when working as a domestic servant.

Most of the prisoners in this book are inmates of the Indian capital’s Tihar Jail and a few of them have not been identified, either at their request or because doing so may compromise their post-jail life. The book is a warehouse of delightful details — for instance, Sushil Sharma, when out on bail, likes espresso and French fries in a plush Delhi eatery. Or that Anca “hired” maids in jail or the night her husband, Abhishek Verma, was released, they were joined by Rajpal Yadav, the film actor, for a lavish dinner because the actor “helped” when he spent time in jail after being hauled up on the charge of defaulting on a loan. 

These details, however engrossing they make the book, do not take away from the melancholy of prison existence and the sensitive depiction underscores the moth-eaten character of the country’s jails. The rich and famous buy their way to privileges to which they are not entitled. But what about those who can raise resources after family and friends on the outside choose enormous hardships to provide them a modicum of comfort? What about those who cannot afford any of this? 

The author compels us to confront the agonies of people who are hauled up on charges of terrorism. But there are others too, who have been released and may be broken in body but not in spirit after several years inside. They come to life in these pages as evidence of injustice and failure of the system. Sensitive TV reporters in India have to confront daily their stereotyped image. This book demonstrates that many in the industry are capable of much beyond.