Welovewhatwedo.org - Showcasing little pieces that form our life!

The Solitary Show

It all begun where I always believed my incarceration was to be temporary. Looking back, the conditions seemed tolerable, although I chafed desperately at the time, but then I also had that essential ingredient- HOPE.

With all the aspects of life in prison, security was the foremost consideration. The daily banter among the inmates was normal: grumbling, jokes and the odd curse. On their own or during their activity periods, they tended to form racially polarized groups, but jail policy forbade such segregation in the blocks as the guards knew it merely guaranteed violence. But the judges who’d made the rules were guided by principles, not reality.

Inmates, of course the same was true, and what went on was no different in principle from what happened on a battlefield or in the shadows war between intelligent agencies. Tactics evolved as measures and countermeasures changed over time.

Some prisoners were craftier than others, and some were geniuses. Each class of them required a slightly different form of scrutiny, and the demands on the guards were severe. It was inevitable that some mistakes would be made.

I thought some more, remembering a group of youth who was sitting on the low walls, doing nothing except talking among themselves. As I could see, they were typical young prisoners who had nothing else to do but loiter. Now I considered it afresh, later on as luxurious.

Everyday I woke up to find bright daylight pouring into the room, as the events of the preceding day flooded my mind immediately. Physically I was never alone, yet I had never felt so isolated and lonely in my life. Now I knew, how much the simple encounters with people one ordinarily takes for granted. Realizing that I’d miss the human contact badly, the last shreds of illusions were torn from me and I faced up the truth which I had known for sometimes, but refused to acknowledge.

Living in a mind of prehistoric, for periods I hadn’t been able to make a decision. The constriction was stifling, especially to someone like me, used to having my own ways. With new realizations that I was a convict came a new determination to survive. Had I any idea what was in store for me, I would have given up there and then. I had no illusions that I will be released, only hope that my future would not be worst, judging by the treatment I was receiving, the regime was getting harder, rather than more tolerant.

Previously, I had held on the hope that my released was imminent. Now I had to face the fact that it would take years and adjust my mentality accordingly. During the months, it was by no means inhumane at that stage. I had to live each day as it came. In the present, however unpalatable that might be, rather than in the future, which had been frozen.

I began to keep a dairy consciously, marking a tally inside my head. The food was unremarkable, but edible. Breakfast lunch and supper- since it was the kind of food that quickly assuaged one’s immediate hunger, but also left one feeling a little puckish an hour or two after having had the meal. I didn’t eat a great deal and was always ended up throwing the food away, which I rather resented. I wasn’t starved, but I certainly wasn’t overfed. And I hated throwing food away which, had it been more palatable, I would have eaten. Lumpy, unpleasant to look at and not particularly satisfied in terms of diets, a great deal of that met its fate in the dustbin.

I decided when I wanted to do a thing that takes its place or time. Inside the cell, even with other detainees, I had complete choice over my own environment, as miserable and small as it was. I could do as I felt like within the limited confines of my existence as a prisoner. I developed a routine of a kind; I’d eat, and then exercise myself. My impromptu exercise would last for an hour or less, but its benefit was twofold; I was keeping my muscle moving so that they didn’t atrophy in my confinement. But I was also making a positive gesture, more to myself than anyone else.

Brought missing for numerable days, and nights of desperation, I understood that I would survive this, and I will come through.

Just there is no consensus about when life will begins, there is also none about when it ends. The precise time about life is, in fact, to verify one’s mistakes. For the man, who used to fawn, now frowned. The truth was the so-call friends from the social circles had made him tired, who had spent the most precious years keeping up appearances and living on false promises and vain dreams.

The hundreds of adolescent dreams I had had on it, all gone in vain. There were no such thing as love or kindness, and all the affections people expressed were false and conniving. Everyone just made used of everyone else in this cold and calculating world. I became withdrawn and reserved; no longer willing to trust a world that had suddenly became so alien and unkind, yet so harsh and materialistic.

Fact was, life was a mere farce within which no real hope existed. No one could be trusted, and the only true friend was one’s own self. They only appeared when things were going good, but the fact was they weren’t really interested or even care about it. They were only there to share in the limelight, to join in when I was basking in the sunshine of my prime. And I had wasted the most precious years of my life, trusting them who disappeared as soon as my popularity had waned.

Then i learned far more from my loss than i do from my victory. When i lose , i ‘ll contemplate, i ‘ll analyse, and regroup, then i ‘ll plan a new strategy. Unlike winning, i learn only little. Mistakes are feedback on how we are doing. Winners make far more mistakes than losers. They are getting more feedback as they continue to try more possibilities. The only trouble with losers is that they regard a mistake as such a big event while failing to recognise the positive side to making mistakes.

Mistakes are not really mistakes. I expect to make some errors in the judgement and welcome them as part of the learning process. Also, if i don’t take it too seriously, it is a whole lot easier to live with a few mistakes.

So for my past, the shame is never having failed, the shame is only in not having tried for a new life.