Locked Forever !!

      It’s so easy to lock a door by putting a key inside the keyhole and turning it around anti-clockwise. Similarly, while opening the lock all one needs to do is put the key again in the keyhole and turn it clockwise. Now for a moment imagine what would happen if the lock doesn’t open!! All you can do is to keep trying. You put the key again and again in the slot, trying to rotate it clockwise but it’s just not opening. Suddenly you start panicking and what next, one has to break the lock (hope it’s not a Godrej Lock). Now since it was a metallic device and you can afford a new one, you decided to break it.

     But in life, there are instances when few things get locked and locked forever. Unfortunately, these locks can’t even be broken. As per records, there are 3.73 lakh prisoners in India. 2.45 lakh have yet not been found guilty. They may be innocent. Nevertheless, they are behind the bars ‘24*7*?’. The ‘?’ here refers to the days which has no definite number. Yes there are men/women/children who are guilty and deserve to be punished but what about those who have yet not been found guilty!!

     When someone is accused of theft/rape/drugs, etc and is put behind the bars, most of them try for a bail, especially if they belong to a well-to-do family. Some can’t even afford a bail. Some get a bail, some don’t. The trial and hearing continue in courts for days/months/years....lawyers keep changing….judges keep changing….dates keep getting postponed and what not. Suddenly one fine day few of them (at times most of them) are proved innocent and are set free.

     Now the question arrives whether justice has been done in true sense?? It's easy to say that once you are out of jail you can start your life with a new frame of mind, a new beginning, a new dawn, etc. All this is easier said than done. People enter into the jail with some frame of mind and generally when they are out it’s a completely different mindset altogether. They are a different human being, to say the least. At times thoughts like vengeance/insult/self-hatred/dejection/vendetta get instilled in their heart and mind. In fact the mind and the soul go through infinite tortures/molestations/harassment inside the jail. One becomes hollow from within. Initially there are rays of hope that they might be free by the “NEXT” hearing but time passes on and by the time “NEXT” arrives, the hope had died.

     Someone was at the zenith of his life, someone was climbing the ladder of success, somebody had just started to see his dreams come true, somebody had just planned something new for his wife/kids but something happens that leads them to an arena behind bars. Now when that person is out of jail after a long trial, a life may start with a passage of time but all those ambitions/desires/dreams get locked somewhere in that jail forever.

There are lives behind bars, they have rights too….

Beyond Bars but not Beyond Justice!!

Note: - This article has been inspired from a Madhur Bhandarkar movie JAIL and is dedicated to all those prisoners who have yet not been found guilty. They may be innocent.

....@ Debashish