December 8th, 2010
Not surprisingly I didn’t sleep well my first night in the
police detention cell. The combination
of feeling chilled due to the dropping temperature and my mind racing thanks to
the dire situation I was now facing did not permit a restful slumber. The morning light illuminated the pale yellow
cell walls lined with erratic black streaks, some graffiti and cobwebs in the
corners. My thought from the previous
night that the black marks were smeared feces was thankfully wrong. Perhaps the slightly better possibility of
chewing tobacco spat on the walls was the case but thankfully I later found out
that that it was ink that previous inmates removed from their digits after
being fingerprinted.
I closed my eyes again, hoping to escape this new and
unpleasant reality facing me but was awoken abruptly by an old skinny hunched
over man wearing dirty dishevelled clothes on the other side of the cell
door. He was holding a small metal cup
and a small package wrapped in newspaper.
He grunted at me as he passed the two items through the bars and slowly
shuffled off down the covered walkway. I
sat back down on my bedding as I unravelled the package to discover a stale
white bun. In the cup was some super
sweetened lukewarm chai. I guess this is
breakfast. I sucked back the tea quickly
as I was parched. I didn’t dare attempt
to drink any of the water from the tap beside the toilet as this was not a
place where I fancied fighting a bout of diarrhoea, especially possessing no
supply of toilet paper. While eating I
noticed some shackles that were attached to the bottom of a couple of the bars
of the cell door. They looked archaic
and I shuddered as they reminded of those I had seen in documentaries worn by
the African slaves being transported to the United States.
After my small snack I decided to check out wait lay behind
the other door in the cell. Another
small tap was on the wall, a few feet up from the floor which was strewn with
garbage: newspapers, plastic wrappers, water bottles and lots of bird
shit. There was a barred window high up
on the wall that also had a wire grill on it so birds must have come through
the main door and been trapped in the small room, but they were gone now. On one wall someone had written “Don’t think
too much” in the same black ink that adorned the cell room walls. Great advice I thought. So much so that I soon learned the Hindi
equivalent of this wise proverb: “Jada mat socho.”
Prison cells seem to have the ability to warp time; for
seconds seemed like minutes, minutes like hours, and days like weeks. The mind can be a powerful ally but also your
worst enemy. I kept running through
“What if?” scenarios in my head. What if
I had gone to my hut to roll the joint?
What if I had just waited another 2-3 minutes before starting to roll
it? What if I had offered the officers a
bribe before we got to the police outpost?
These thoughts would plague me for a while.
Later in the morning a guard came to the cell and told me
that I had some visitors so he unlocked the door and led me to the small office
beside the main room of the police station.
Who could it be? Was it Manu or
Panna, one of the two brothers who manage the Olive Garden restaurant where I
was arrested? Perhaps one of my new
Israeli friends? No, it was Daniel and
Marie, my two French friends who were with me when I was arrested. Wow, was I ever glad to see them! Friendly faces. It was my first emotional upswing since I had
been in custody and I revelled in it.
After exchanging hugs Daniel immediately began speaking in
French to me, a wise choice as the police sub-inspector Sachin was sitting
right there. They were primarily
concerned with how I was doing and of course I’d been better but I attempted to
put on a brave face. Thankfully they had
brought me some bottles of water, toilet paper, a toothbrush and paste, a few
pastries and also my book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. I immediately cracked open one of the bottles
and sucked back a large swig, not realizing how thirsty I really was. Our visit was short but it definitely lifted
my spirits immensely. Before I was sent
back to my cell, Sachin told us that I shouldn’t be in custody for long as it
wasn’t a big offence that I had committed, but this would turn out to be one of
many lies he would tell me.
Back in my cell I was reinvigorated. Being able to clean my teeth and pass time by
reading my book was a life saver. “I can
do this, I can do this. It will all be
over soon. I will live and learn and
move on” I kept saying to myself.
Later in the morning I was put in the back of a police jeep
and taken to a nearby hospital for a routine check up to see if I was fit to
stay in custody. It only consisted of a
blood pressure check and a quick examination with a stethoscope. I couldn’t help but notice all of the
piercing glares that I received from the local women lined up outside the
doctor’s office as I walked by with my police escort. I did seem to be cutting ahead of all of them
straight to the doctor but it was more likely the novelty of seeing a white
foreigner criminal that caught their attention.
Nevertheless, for me their glares felt as though they cut through to my
soul, I felt like a low life scum. It
was a dehumanizing experience.
Back in the cell, lunch arrived somewhere around 1pm but I
really didn’t know for sure as I had no way of telling time. The meal, served on a round metal plate,
consisted of white rice with some brown coconut curry paste smeared on the top,
some kind of green diced vegetable that was a cabbage derivative and a tiny
baked mackerel that contained no more than one mouthful of fish. I removed most of the curry paste as it was
fairly spicy and avoided the cabbage and the fish. Oh how things would change the longer I
stayed in police lockup...soon I would be devouring all of it. Of course I had to scoop up the food with my
hand, an art I would have to practice.
Mid afternoon the guard told me that I had some more
visitors. This time it was three
Israelis that I had met over the last few weeks: Zohar, Noa and Avishai. They also brought me water and some
pastries. Again I was buoyed by this
visit and Sachin claimed that I should be out of custody by tomorrow at the
latest.
About an hour later one of the police officers who had been
on duty all day came by my cell. He was
short and skinny, probably weighing 120 pounds soaking wet, sporting a thick
moustache and dark round eyes. I had
chatted with him earlier in the day and found him to be a friendly fellow. He motioned for me to approach the door. He looked nervously back down the covered
walkway but once he was happy that no one else is around he leaned in and in a
quiet voice said “I don’t like what is happening here. It’s not right. You seem like a good guy...and I just don’t
like what’s happening.” I couldn’t agree
with him less, I didn’t like being locked up either but I wouldn’t fully clue
in on what he was talking about for another couple of days.
That evening I was called out of the cell again, this time
to meet a lawyer. The night before
Sachin kept stressing that I could choose any lawyer I would like. He could get someone in but if I wasn’t
pleased with him then I could find another.
I also had the option of one supplied by the state if I could not afford
one myself but this could take time and I could be in lockup for 6-8 nights...no
thanks! Get me out of here as soon as
possible, one night was hell already.
I was not overly impressed with the short balding
lawyer. He didn’t introduce himself to
me and didn’t ask any questions of what had happened, how I was feeling or whether
I had any queries. Most of the time he
spoke in the local Konkani language with Sachin. I kept interrupting, asking him to speak in
English. I thought it odd that he never
spoke to me privately without Sachin present.
He didn’t offer me my options and it was like pulling teeth to get
information out of him. I asked him what
possible penalty I could be facing and he said that worst case scenario was
five to ten years! Five to ten
years! Holy shit! But Sachin piped in and said that that would
never happen. I also asked the lawyer,
Partekar, what his fees were and he told me that he would tell me tomorrow,
when the bail application had been granted.
This struck me as odd as well.
Back in the cell my mood was solemn again. The day was filled with ups and downs like a
roller coaster ride and after this meeting I was on a serious down slope. I tried to abide by the wise graffiti to not
think too much and tried to transport myself to another world by reading my
book.
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