Second thoughts

Saza-e-Kalapani

The Andaman & Nicobar islands float in splendid isolation in the Indian Ocean, off the Bay of Bengal. This haven of blue waters, tropical rain forests and breathtaking natural beauty was once the home of British prisoners of war. During the Indian War of Independence, thousands of men and women were banished to the Andaman & Nicobar islands. Known as Saza-e-Kalapani (punishment of the Black Waters), this was the dreadful incarceration through which few, if any, ever made it alive.

The prisoners were locked up in a monstrous architectural creation known as the Cellular Jail, as menacing in it’s appearance as it was gruesome in the horrors it housed within. The Jail was a red brick structure, with seven starlike arms radiating from a central tower which was used by the jailers to keep an eye on the inmates. There it stood, like an octopus on the edge of the sea. There was nothing but miles of blue ocean all around. No hope of mercy within. No hope of freedom without.

The cells were dark, dingy 6ft by 13ft enclosures, with an entrance wide enough to let in one emaciated human figure at a time and a tiny vent high up on the wall on the opposite wall. The back of one row of cells faced the front of the other, to ensure complete absence of communication among the prisoners. There were no toilets. Each inmate was provided with two metal bowls. One was meant for food and the other one was to be used as a toilet and cleaned out by the prisoners when they were let out each morning. Food consisted of worm-infested rain water and boiled grass. The prisoners were kept locked up in bar fetters, metal rods that ran from the elbows to the knees and cross bar fetters, rods that ran between the feet. Essentially, this meant that the person could only drag their feet painfully along the ground to walk. They could neither bend nor walk faster than they were allowed to. The only time the fetters were unlocked was when they were let out to do work. Physical torture and flogging were common. 

A few feet outside the jail were the gallows where those placed on death row by the British government were executed in full view of all the other inmates of the jail. 

Many lost their lives in the Cellular Jail. A visit to the remnants of the place reveals scores upon scores of pictures of those brave souls on the brick walls. Four of the seven wings of the Jail were damaged during the Japanese invasion of the Andaman islands after the Second World War. The other three still stand on the edge of the ocean, a mute witness to the torture faced by those courageous Indian men more than half a century ago.  

Ross-isms

Me: How do you feel having spent $100 on a shirt?

Ross: Like an idiot 

Ross-isms

Just tumbld in

I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog for a while now. It seems like the cool thing to do these days and I have been (very kindly) reminded  by tumbleweed occult that I’m falling lower and lower on the ‘coolmeter’.

So here’s to my first tottering steps on the coolmeter.

 ps. Weedy, can I rejoin the ‘inner circle’ ?