Naini is a very oppressive place in the middle of India. Especially for us people of the hills, we missed the cool breezes of the day and the chilly cold of the nights where we would snuggle under a blanket. In reality, the heat was so strong that if we kept an uncooked egg outside, then by the evening it would become hard-boiled. This was not all, every day the prison guards taunted us and insulted our religion whether Christian or Muslim. If we tried to protest, the warders locked us up in our single cells. Later they would take us out one by one and thrash us with long bamboo poles called lathis until we begged for mercy. Each of us were confined in a single cell 5x15 feet in it we had to eat sleep bathe and answer the call of nature. Each day we were allowed to go out for an hour to exercise in pairs. If I were lucky then my partner would be a senior leader whose words gave me the courage to carry on despite all the difficulties. As each day passed, frustrations of being cooped up alone in a cell began to take a toll on our patience. One-day two elders got into a tiff over a game of chess. It may seem hilarious now but at that time, it was a sign of our frayed frame of mind. If elders were in the verge of losing it then you can imagine the impact of the daily psychological torture that was being meted out to us.
It is impossible to recount each and every instance of this daily harassment but Ill try to recount some. There were two loudspeakers on each end of the corridor where we were being kept. In the morning at five o, clock they started blasting the songs like, vande mataram and Jana gana. If you were not found to be, standing in front of your cell for any reason you would be bought out, threatened with a lathi, and made to sing the vademataram standing in attention. After that, the whole morning was spent getting our eardrums manhandled by the constant blaring of the speakers with songs of Indian devotion and Indian patriotic songs.
The food was nothing to write home about, for breakfast lunch and dinner we had a pound of half-burnt chapattis each, some watery stuff with moong dal bits floating on it and the specialty of the day a mushy and unidentifiable green thing called chaurahi in their lingo. This was our fare all three times of the day. It was the same from the beginning to the end except two eggs a week, a dollop of ghee every Wednesday and on special occasions like government holidays or religious holiday’s meat or fish.
In the beginning, every Sunday, families of the authorities in Allahabad came to look at these strange creatures called ataankwadis from the fringes of Indian occupied Kashmir and Nagaland.
The kids would point towards the bearded Kashmiris and gawk at them saying “ Itne bade bade dari”
Then it was the turn of the Nagas, being bare chested as it was hot and short we came for special ridicule. They pointed gleefully at us and said” Yeh toh bunduron jey sahe lagte hain “. This went on for weeks until at last, a brave comrade could not stand it any longer and the next time as soon as the families with their kids entered, he stripped naked and stood in front of the gate of his cell in all his naked glory.
And glorious it was because even if we were in shackles we could defy our oppressors and as a result, these so-called Babus never brought anyone as long as we stayed at Naini Central Jail. It was the jail where the British for demanding their freedom once incarcerated Gandhi and Nehru. I hope like them our suffering in this jail will be rewarded. These thoughts and our small defiancess made us stronger and because our leaders always made us see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I once remember the international Red Cross was to come and see the Kashmiris. To see if they were being treated as per the norm, according to international standards. Unfortunately as we, Nagas were not a part of the itinerary we were shifted to another cellblock where some mental and dangerous prisoners were being kept. The building was in shambles with half the roof missing. The inmates were mostly crazy and living in filth. Some of them even drank from their own loo and never cleaned their cell. When we went in, we tried to make things better by cleaning our surroundings and persuading the other inmates to clean themselves up. Mostly we were successful but some were beyond reasoning. All in all, we made it through but those were interesting times.
The days passed by slowly but surly and soon it was time for the holiday season. Everyone in those days was blue and melancholy. Thoughts of our homes and land were on everyone’s mind. At night sometimes, you could hear someone quietly sobbing and everybody who heard it also had tears in his eyes. So, as the day to our savior’s birth neared we decided to do something. In consultation, with our Kashmiri friends we gave up our weekly quota of meat and eggs so that we could have it all together on Christmas day and with some of the money, we had stashed away, we bought candles and candies. On the night of the 24th at around 11 o’clock with the permission of the warders, we including the Kashmiris stood at our cell doors to await the advent of Christmas by lighting our candles. But at 12 o’clock as we prepared to usher in the Christmas with a prayer the warders began singing Hindi songs to disturb our prayer. No matter how much we protested they would not relent so finally we knelt down in our own cells and prayed and gave thanks to the lord of our fortune in being at least able to praise his coming when many of our friends were no longer with us. With a heavy heart, we lay in our cells hoping that the next day would be better.
The next day as all of us were still thinking about the advent earlier a warder came up to us and said that we had visitors, that all of us were to be let out of our cells. Some Christians from nearby Allahabad and Jack, a Canadian smuggler we had earlier met came with cakes and a guitar. We felt blest for this turn of events and together we celebrated Christmas as we have never done before in the company of fellow Christians, the Kashmiris, and the by now more accommodating warders.
Temjen
Dimapur
