PART 3
Solitary confinement
That was terrible. I spent a year in solitary confinement. I stayed
there for weeks and weeks. I wouldn't wish for anybody to spend a whole
year in solitary confinement. Really, it is a terrible thing. You sit
and think. Walk to the window. The window was right up; I had to stand
on something - the toilet was next to the window - so I could stand on
the toilet to see a little hole there at the window. And you still don't
see anything because the cell was downstairs, underground. You stay there
in that cell, sit for a while, and then walk for a while. It was quite
a big cell. Then I sit again. Sometimes I would sing some songs. You
talk to yourself but you don't know what to say! You hear people talking
outside but you can't even see them. They take you out for exercise for
about five minutes maybe, every day. In the morning they take me out
into this little space; I just had to go up and down and then come in
again. Sometimes in the afternoon they take you out again and you walk
up and down, and then they come and lock you in again. Even when I was
doing the exercise I don't see anybody. They didn't even question me,
interrogate anything or me; they just left me there for a whole year.
I didn't see anyone else except the ones who bring me my food.
They cook food for you there in jail. But when they bring it to you
they open the door and they kick it in, and maybe some of it spills but
they don't mind. Then you must pick it up and eat it.
When they first put me in that cell there was no water or anything. There
was a toilet in the corner of the cell, but no tap or anything, and no
water. I had to drink the water from the toilet. I used to wash at that
toilet too. But after a few days they brought water for me to wash and
drink, and that was better.
I begged and asked them to give me a bible to read, or something, anything.
But they refused. A whole year without anything to read and no one to
talk to. And a light on in the cell all the time. All day and at night
too, the light on. You can't sleep. I was so thin when I came out of
there! I remember one person who met me when I came out of there, it
was one of those SBs [special branch] who took me there, one of the black
policemen, and he was there when I came out. Whoo! He got a shock of
his life. He said, 'Mai! Jhoo! Is that you? Why do you look like this?
You never looked like this!'
I said, 'Well, what do you expect? I've been in jail for such a long
time.' That man couldn't believe it.
I think they were trying to kill me somehow, but my spirit was too strong.
I have always been a churchgoer, but they wouldn't even allow me to go
to church that time I was in solitary. But my spirit kept me alive because
I knew that freedom would come one day, and my faith in God too, kept
me strong. The only thing that kept me alive was the hope that one day,
what I'm here for, I will get it.
I spent that whole year, a little bit of exercise sometimes, and then
just sit and sit, and no-one to talk to, and nothing to read, and I
try to look out of the window and watch the cars go past. Day after
day with nothing to do. And so a whole year went by. And then after
that year they took me to court now for my case.
