Nijel Akara alias Vicky is now a changed man. He is calm, composed, hardworking and honest, the opposite of what he was a few years ago. Vicky was convicted of murder and kidnapping and served life imprisonment at the Presidency Correctional Home at Alipore. Akara was released early for his good conduct — a lot of which he attributes to the dance therapy conducted by danseuse Alokananda Roy.
Referred to as “Ma” by the jail inmates, Roy has been teaching dance to the prisoners of several correctional homes in West Bengal. “I was requested by B D Sharma, Inspector General of Correctional Services, West Bengal, to impart dance lessons to the inmates,” recalls Roy. She was touched by the lassitude of the prison and the body language of the young men walking around inside. Perhaps they had nothing forward to look at in life? “It struck me instinctively that any one of them could have been my own son,” she says.
Roy began her lessons with Marshall dance and folk dance. “The masculine movements of Marshall dance and the mellifluous rhythms of folk dance attracted the prisoners, as it broke the monotony of the prison.”
Initially the prisoners were not keen to attend the dance lessons, and kept away. So Roy began to involve the jail staff in her lessons. “I tried to bridge the gap between the staff and the inmates,” she says. Ultimately the inmates came around, and themselves fabricated the costumes and props.
The first successful public performance, Brotherhood beyond Boundaries, with 55 performers, was a huge hit.
“That instilled confidence in me and I started to look at myself differently,” recalls Akara, who was known for poor behaviour and was often kept in solitary confinement.
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Over time, the behaviour of other prisoners changed. Roy graduated from “Ma” from “Madam”, as she became more than a teacher.
The next performance was Valmiki Pratibha, a dance drama by Rabindranath Tagore based on the metamorphosis of a dacoit into a sage. “I could see my Valmiki in Vicky,” says Roy, of Akara’s gradual transformation. This show, too, was a hit and received a standing ovation at Santiniketan.
The crew have successfully conducted 28 shows in two years. “We do fundraisers for the Prisoners Welfare Fund, which empowers and benefits the family of the inmates,” she says.
Akara was a graduate student of St Xavier’s College, but became a gangster and was arrested while he was in second year. He sat his graduation examination from prison.
Even after his release, this 32-year-old failed to find a job. “I appeared for six interviews and was turned down the moment I disclosed my past.” But Akara stuck to the truth.
Today he runs Kolkata Facilities Management, a firm that supplies security guards, housekeeping staff and office boys, and does specialised chemical cleaning.
He helps rehabilitate jail-leavers through an NGO called Touch World.
The “Ma” who is transforming the lives of others like Akara says, “I appeal to society after every performance that these people must be given a second chance, if not a third one.”