In the winter of 2000, I got sentenced to seven years in prison, for the murder of my neighbor. How I got involved with this murder case is a different story altogether, but to cut it short I didn`t kill the guy. I was framed and it was so perfectly done that if I had been on the other side of the table and I would have believed it myself too.
Being in prison is tough but when you are newbie the initial days are always worse, and so was it for me as well. I was not much of a tough guy, but slowly with time, I managed to make space for myself in some sense. In prison, time moves very slowly, as you generally don`t have many activities to do. I was never an avid book reader, but in prison, it was pretty much all I did, and gradually I started writing as well. At first, I tried maintaining a daily diary, but there isn't much to write about in prison. Most of my entries looked like:
'Woke up at 6. Formed a line for breakfast at 6:30. Waited in line to eat that same old shitty breakfast which you will never eat even if you get that food for free. But as usual, you get very fewer options in prison.
After breakfast got ready for work at 7:15. Today I worked in the foundry workshop, I had planned to cast a dummy car, I gave it a try but was unable to make a good mould. Maybe tomorrow if the supervisor allows it, I will try once again.
At 11:30 I went back for lunch. Today I found out that Roger, an inmate who had been here for the last 40 years had died in of heartache. I wonder what washe in here for. But I got the usual answer from everyone, "You can get in here but getting out is impossible." I don`t believe all this, these are the imaginations of losers. This new reading habit of mine has filled me with a lot of positive energy and I'm sure I will break free from this place very soon. I'm going to use this time in prison very judiciously; enhance my knowledge and overcome my shortcomings like my short temper, impatience and some of my other issues.
By 12:00 I was again in a line, this time to go for work at stone crusher station. That is something I really don`t like, the kind of work that doesn`t involve any creativity and it makes me very tired. Sometimes it becomes hard for me to even come back and read a single page of a book. This job ends at 4:30.
4:30-5:00 is allotted for showering. After taking a shower I got ready for dinner. Dinner is served at 05:00, which might seem too early but you are really hungry after all the day's work that you could even eat dirt.
At 5:30 pm it`s a time for mail call and medication, this is the time when I sometimes read letters for the other inmates. I like doing this work as it somehow connects me to the outside world. Most of the letters are full of emotions but I have gotten used to reading them. I always wait for the letter which tells me about some latest movie or whether someone has been to some new place for traveling or something. But it was a bad day, I read two letters and that had some sad news in them.
6:00 pm is the time when we got to go outside for recreational activities, television,hobby shop, self-help groups etc. Usually, we don`t get to see much of television as this has caused lots of issues as most of the inmates have a different level of interests. So I started visiting the small library in prison. Usually, it`s a quiet place where very few people visit. Although today I had planned to go to the gym but again, I preferred my good old place library. Today I found that most of the books in the library are very old. Even the magazines are somewhere like 6-7 years old. I'm planning to talk to someone, maybe warden to get some new novels or magazine editions. But I feel afraid to talk to him as I don`t want to get into his eyes much. Its always better to keep a low profile at such places.
At 9:00 pm a headcount is taken and then we all get back to our cells. Cells get locked and we have an hour and half time with lights to do our stuff. After that lights go out. Today I just feel like doing nothing, maybe that letter which I read for Justine is making me sad, I don`t know what is this emptiness which is making me low. But I have to get away with it, as at a place like a prison once you get engrossed with something you can`t get rid of it easily. So after finishing my diary today, I'm going to sleep early.'
So that`s a typical day`s entry. After a few days of doing a daily entry, I found that diary writing became a boring and sad job. So I started writing short stories. But I judged myself that I m not a good writer but I found very good topics to write. So I kept writing evenif it wasn`t so good.
By the end of my first year there, I had made a few acquaintances but not many friends in the prison, maybe I wasn`t the kind of guy whom someone will prefer to befriend. In my second year of prison, some new inmates joined in. And one day I found one of the new inmates has started visiting the library, though we didn`t talk much from his outlook he didn`t seem like a guy who will like to visit the library. He had huge build, with strong muscles all over him. His body was mostly tattooed with strange symbols on him. So normally I would avoid such a person. But he started coming to that same place almost daily and one day he came up to me. His name was Ruffus Nichels, he was imprisoned for some bank robbery where his other partners got killed and he got arrested. I told him my story, though I don`t share my true stories with the others as it seems funny to tell people that you are in prison for no crime. At least I could use to get some respect for 'having' murdering someone. But still, I told him, he took it normally and just asked me one thing: what were my future plans. I didn`t get him completely when he asked me such a thing, I wanted to tell him that I'm in here for next 6 years and he will be here for next 5 or 6 years so what kinds of plans should I think of. Actually, he didn`t give me a chance to say anything, he moved back to the TV room after asking me this.
That night I wondered about his question, what will be my future. After 6 years will it be easyto adjust in the outside world, will I be able to get some job, and how will people react to a person who had served 7 years for murder. These questions were something which screwed my night. It made me remember my initial days of prison when it was so difficult to sleep here. I use to get a feeling that my 7x10 feet room is falling on me, you I m unable to breathe, but then slowly I got used to it. I found my solution by closing my eyes and don`t see anything once those lights are out. So I did the same that night and closed my eyes till I fell in sleep.
Next day, same time in library we met again, immediately I asked him the same question "What is your future?" and he looked at me very strangely, and he said "Have you ever been to the Himalayas, there is a small town, which gets snow only for about 4 months and a full year of sunshine. The view from that place is so beautiful that even the Gods would be jealous. And you know I'm going to live at that place by end of this winters." He was so confident when he told me that thing of his, I thought that he is definitely a crazy guy. I should immediately start avoiding him. But honestly, when I imagined that place it seemed beautiful but only in my imagination, and imagination doesn`t do any good in prison. Before I said anything he asked me "What are your plans, my friend?"
To be continued...
Being in prison is tough but when you are newbie the initial days are always worse, and so was it for me as well. I was not much of a tough guy, but slowly with time, I managed to make space for myself in some sense. In prison, time moves very slowly, as you generally don`t have many activities to do. I was never an avid book reader, but in prison, it was pretty much all I did, and gradually I started writing as well. At first, I tried maintaining a daily diary, but there isn't much to write about in prison. Most of my entries looked like:
'Woke up at 6. Formed a line for breakfast at 6:30. Waited in line to eat that same old shitty breakfast which you will never eat even if you get that food for free. But as usual, you get very fewer options in prison.
After breakfast got ready for work at 7:15. Today I worked in the foundry workshop, I had planned to cast a dummy car, I gave it a try but was unable to make a good mould. Maybe tomorrow if the supervisor allows it, I will try once again.
At 11:30 I went back for lunch. Today I found out that Roger, an inmate who had been here for the last 40 years had died in of heartache. I wonder what washe in here for. But I got the usual answer from everyone, "You can get in here but getting out is impossible." I don`t believe all this, these are the imaginations of losers. This new reading habit of mine has filled me with a lot of positive energy and I'm sure I will break free from this place very soon. I'm going to use this time in prison very judiciously; enhance my knowledge and overcome my shortcomings like my short temper, impatience and some of my other issues.
By 12:00 I was again in a line, this time to go for work at stone crusher station. That is something I really don`t like, the kind of work that doesn`t involve any creativity and it makes me very tired. Sometimes it becomes hard for me to even come back and read a single page of a book. This job ends at 4:30.
4:30-5:00 is allotted for showering. After taking a shower I got ready for dinner. Dinner is served at 05:00, which might seem too early but you are really hungry after all the day's work that you could even eat dirt.
At 5:30 pm it`s a time for mail call and medication, this is the time when I sometimes read letters for the other inmates. I like doing this work as it somehow connects me to the outside world. Most of the letters are full of emotions but I have gotten used to reading them. I always wait for the letter which tells me about some latest movie or whether someone has been to some new place for traveling or something. But it was a bad day, I read two letters and that had some sad news in them.
6:00 pm is the time when we got to go outside for recreational activities, television,hobby shop, self-help groups etc. Usually, we don`t get to see much of television as this has caused lots of issues as most of the inmates have a different level of interests. So I started visiting the small library in prison. Usually, it`s a quiet place where very few people visit. Although today I had planned to go to the gym but again, I preferred my good old place library. Today I found that most of the books in the library are very old. Even the magazines are somewhere like 6-7 years old. I'm planning to talk to someone, maybe warden to get some new novels or magazine editions. But I feel afraid to talk to him as I don`t want to get into his eyes much. Its always better to keep a low profile at such places.
At 9:00 pm a headcount is taken and then we all get back to our cells. Cells get locked and we have an hour and half time with lights to do our stuff. After that lights go out. Today I just feel like doing nothing, maybe that letter which I read for Justine is making me sad, I don`t know what is this emptiness which is making me low. But I have to get away with it, as at a place like a prison once you get engrossed with something you can`t get rid of it easily. So after finishing my diary today, I'm going to sleep early.'
So that`s a typical day`s entry. After a few days of doing a daily entry, I found that diary writing became a boring and sad job. So I started writing short stories. But I judged myself that I m not a good writer but I found very good topics to write. So I kept writing evenif it wasn`t so good.
By the end of my first year there, I had made a few acquaintances but not many friends in the prison, maybe I wasn`t the kind of guy whom someone will prefer to befriend. In my second year of prison, some new inmates joined in. And one day I found one of the new inmates has started visiting the library, though we didn`t talk much from his outlook he didn`t seem like a guy who will like to visit the library. He had huge build, with strong muscles all over him. His body was mostly tattooed with strange symbols on him. So normally I would avoid such a person. But he started coming to that same place almost daily and one day he came up to me. His name was Ruffus Nichels, he was imprisoned for some bank robbery where his other partners got killed and he got arrested. I told him my story, though I don`t share my true stories with the others as it seems funny to tell people that you are in prison for no crime. At least I could use to get some respect for 'having' murdering someone. But still, I told him, he took it normally and just asked me one thing: what were my future plans. I didn`t get him completely when he asked me such a thing, I wanted to tell him that I'm in here for next 6 years and he will be here for next 5 or 6 years so what kinds of plans should I think of. Actually, he didn`t give me a chance to say anything, he moved back to the TV room after asking me this.
That night I wondered about his question, what will be my future. After 6 years will it be easyto adjust in the outside world, will I be able to get some job, and how will people react to a person who had served 7 years for murder. These questions were something which screwed my night. It made me remember my initial days of prison when it was so difficult to sleep here. I use to get a feeling that my 7x10 feet room is falling on me, you I m unable to breathe, but then slowly I got used to it. I found my solution by closing my eyes and don`t see anything once those lights are out. So I did the same that night and closed my eyes till I fell in sleep.
Next day, same time in library we met again, immediately I asked him the same question "What is your future?" and he looked at me very strangely, and he said "Have you ever been to the Himalayas, there is a small town, which gets snow only for about 4 months and a full year of sunshine. The view from that place is so beautiful that even the Gods would be jealous. And you know I'm going to live at that place by end of this winters." He was so confident when he told me that thing of his, I thought that he is definitely a crazy guy. I should immediately start avoiding him. But honestly, when I imagined that place it seemed beautiful but only in my imagination, and imagination doesn`t do any good in prison. Before I said anything he asked me "What are your plans, my friend?"
To be continued...
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