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Unable to be a passive bystander while all of India seethed with unrest and her brethren fought and suffered to free their beloved India. Urmila Shastri dived in and became involved with the Meerut Congress participating in boycotts and protests. She went from being a sheltered 21-year-old newlywed to the latest sacrifice for the cause; her crime inciting college students; her sentence six months; her destination Meerut Central Jail. Seldom has there been a longer six months that those spent in prison. A large part of the population will never know what it is like to be stripped of their most basic human rights by prison and are undoubtedly thankful for that but curiosity and its macabre leanings mean that there remains a curiosity within; What is it like? Even if it is entirely placatory in nature to make their beds feel all the warmer, their morsels sweeter and their freedom all the dearer. Even the hardships of prison life, though familiar, are still worse than most would imagine. The inner workings of the prison; the turnings of the wheels and cogs in this merciless machine that she was crushed between; bones turning to dust, hope turning to dread and dreams turning to nightmares. We see in the microcosm of the prison system; the splintering effects and the chilling efficacy of the divide-and- rule policy of the British. Dividing prisoners into various classes and offering slightly preferential treatment in order to separate them. Furthermore is the maddening isolation, partly due to the fundamental nature of her confinement and also due a distinct class separation. Her daily schedule was one of the few stabilising factors; adhering to order and routine in a requiem for sanity. It is a complex psychological portrait which shows the circuitous machinations of someone trying to justify their actions, reconcile their subsequent loss of liberty in order to validate their suffering and consolidate their identity. It is hard to separate the justifications and rationalisations from her actual beliefs but she seemed in a constant state of flux suggesting she had trouble separating these as well. During her never-ending cycle of emotional turmoil she held fast to her beliefs as espoused by Gandhi, while she fantasised desperately about freedom. It is also a look at the sociological and psychological consequences of colonialism; a nation fragmented and a citizen conflicted. And what society does with those elements it deems unsightly in their criminality and inciting in their vision. The memoir is raw, honest and disconcerting. It appeals to the voyeuristic nature of all humans; the same part that keeps people’s eyes fixed on accidents. There is a basal, primal compulsion; we don’t want to know but we need to know. The book’s layout presents the translation in the first 91 pages, while the rest contain the original Hindi publication; providing the reader the opportunity to read Urmila Shastri’s account in her own words. For the English version is an artistic interpretation rather than a strict translation. Hardly masters of our own fate many have felt bereft in those moments when they had no control and no freedom. Given the choice between the moderate pretence of freedom under the British yoke and the abject lack thereof; Shastri chose boldly and opted for the latter. When there were only hard choices to be made; Urmila Shastri chose her cause over the comfort of her home. Whether she did so to her detriment is subject to the reader’s opinion but nothing can negate the sheer courage of this act, the level of her commitment. This did not mitigate her suffering but she never wavered from the knowledge that she did the right thing, nay the honourable thing.
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