Book Excerpt|Unsilenced: The Jail Diary Of An Activist, By Seema Azad

Jails Are Unlike What I Had Imagined  

-20 August 2011  

All my preconceived notions about prisons were shattered on the very first day of imprisonment.

There is an incredible flow of life inside those walls. It is not like water that slowly seeps through the cracks in rocks. No, life here resembles a bubbling stream crashing against rocks. Especially when I saw the many little children living in prison, I was relieved. Perhaps, I thought, it would not be so difficult to spend time here.  

On first entering prison, the children of the ‘sherawali’* women would observe me intently. One of them, a girl named Seva, would feel my jacket and shoes repeatedly, to the point that I was exhausted by her persistent curiosity. 

Since it was winter when I arrived, the buzz of women getting ready early in the morning, then sunbathing in the compound would fill the entire barracks. They picked lice off each other’s hair, tweezed each other’s eyebrows, applied henna on their hair and some even got facials in secret. I realised that beautifying oneself is an inseparable part of all women’s lives. Even in the toughest circumstances, make-up and get-up are essential to their lives. In fact, I think, many of these women would not have had the time or energy to devote to grooming themselves outside prison.  

Most women get their eyebrows shaped within a few days of entering prison. Salma was an expert at the job and in convincing women to go for it. She kept a close watch on out-of-shape or thickening eyebrows and insisted they got them fixed. She had to spend six months to persuade me. When I gave in, everyone was amused and concluded that Salma spares no one.  

At first, seeing so many women spend most of their time grooming felt strange. I would go for my mulaqaat as I was— neither changing into fresh clothes nor even combing my hair.  

Soon, the women I had grown friendly with started objecting. At their insistence, I began changing and combing my hair for the visits. But they still complained because I did put any make-up. During festivals, they would persuade me to paint my nails. One time, they forced me to wear a saree and apply lipstick, an experience that turned out to be quite enjoyable.  

For their mulaqaats or on days they had to go to the court, most prisoners would borrow each other’s sarees and artificial jewellery. I assumed that their relatives would be shocked on seeing them so well-dressed. Young girls dressed to impress the men in prison and within a few days, letters and presents would start arriving for them.  

The most peculiar thing about prison was that the women got into quarrels constantly. In their fights, they used such expletives as I had not heard in my thirty-four years of life. These obscenities were not only vulgar but feudal and quite insulting towards women. Cursing, cussing and condemning each other were considered fitting accompaniments to their fights. The most commonplace way to insult someone was to wish death upon their sons or husbands. This always had the desired effect because the woman at the receiving end would flare up, since the lives of most of these women centred around their sons and husbands. In the beginning, it really bothered me to be subjected to witnessing their fights all day. Gradually, I got used to it.  

While Naini Central Jail is also known as the ‘Prisoner Reform House’, all the prisoners learn here are two things: abusing and chewing tobacco. I managed to avoid both. I have remained unaffected by the habit of using foul language when almost no one is spared after entering prison. Within a month of living here, most women learn to abuse with alacrity. I discovered that the source of the abusive language was the jail’s police staff, right from the jailers to the constables. Women constable’s abuses were unique; they employed strange words and expressions for ‘sex’, in particular. The barrack head Raziya’s abuses were innovative and indecent to the extent that they left the person being abused stunned, while those around would chuckle at the novelty of her choice of words.  

Influenced by the women constables, the other prisoners would swear, too, in turn teaching the children in prison to pick up foul language. Their mothers would sometimes scold the kids for their language and behaviour, but if I was around, I would immediately say, ‘Why stop them? Don’t you use foul language?’  

After I objected repeatedly, many women did regulate their habit of swearing. One of those was Chandravati Didi. I tried to counsel many women, explaining how their utterances were insulting women, but I failed to influence them. The truth is, in their perspective, women really were objects of disgrace—so why worry about abusing and disrespecting those who had no honour in the first place?  

(Excerpted from ‘Unsilenced: The Jail Diary of an Activist’ by Seema Azad, translated by Shailza Sharma, with permission from Speaking Tiger Books)