My tryst with jail

One fine morning, I got this brilliant idea of writing a novel. Detective-novels being a popular genre, I tried imitating Edgar Wallace with this first sentence: “There stood a man with the gun!” But with neither the gun nor the man moving any further, I thought, “Why not try a hand at something pleasant, like bringing out a novel on the lines of the popular Pride and Prejudice?”

But alas, I didn’t like the hero Will Darcy, so my novel could never become a second Pride and Prejudice without him. Imitate the other popular novel-Wuthering Heights then? With that devil Heathcliff as the hero? Good god, no modern heroine would agree to walk into that, I mean in my Wuthering Heights! Then? Do I try my hand at bringing out a second Gone with the Wind? “Hey Ram, it will be like attempting a Mahabharata!” What then?

As I sat pondering, a melodic title which had unobtrusively nestled in my poetic mind for a while now surfaced suddenly, bringing forth imaginary  wisps of shadows in its wake; shadows struggling to form themselves and find their identity in this world of reality.

Thus was my novel Veena, oh Veena born. Oh,what a heavenly experience it was, with hitherto unknown thoughts flowing unbidden, forming into characters and leading me on! I savoured the  ecstatic experience of inspiration till my pen suddenly hit a wall! I could go no further!

The snag? My hero was in jail — he had to be, in accordance with the fate the writer in me had decreed — and since it entailed quite a few years of incarceration, I had to portray a real picture. For that, I had to visit the place at least once to ascertain for myself the prison-life of my protagonist.

“I have to go to the jail,” I broke the news to my husband as soon as he returned from work. “When did you get the summons?” he questioned without flickering an eyelid. “Not me, I mean my hero. The hero of my novel is in jail, so I have to study the conditions over there before proceeding further.”

“Why did you put him in Jail? Wasn’t there a better place? Like Lalbagh or KRS where he can romp about singing duets with heroines like you? A circus would have suited, too.” “My hero has committed murder, so has to be in jail,” I tried to explain calmly.

“Why should he commit murder?  Can’t he go to office like me?” my husband tried his best to cajole me out of it, but finally gave in to my persistence and agreed to take me there. So overjoyed was I, that I recklessly announced to all my neighbours that I was going to the prison, without revealing the precise reason. As such, one can imagine their astonishment when I went without any police escort and returned intact likewise.

Never can I forget that night! Moved by the predicament of the convicts I met over there, I wrote like one in a frenzy, finishing the last 150 pages at a stretch. A golden aurora was suffusing the sky by the time I put down the pen. For me it was the dawn of my literary life, with the first novel I had finished so emotionally.