MY TIME IN YERWADA CENTRAL GAOL
http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/epapermain.aspx
http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=15873&boxid=16489421&uid=&dat=5/18/2014
HOW I WON THE CERTIFICATE OF HONOUR AT THE YERAWADA CENTRAL GAOL
The year was 1962. I was in Wadia college, Poona...enjoying the balmy weather
of that beautiful town in the
Deccan....pursuing, not so assiduously but extremely pleasurably, the long
lissom-limbed Parsi-beauties and doing
not much else. Life was good.
This serene lassitude was badly jarred one morning, as I lay shaded in a bower
of that wonderful campus so very
conducive to lie and dream sweetly, by the approach of a college factotum
delivering a peremptory message from
the principal, P.R. Damle, that I should repair to and report to his office
without further ado.
A most ominuous event to happen. Some mighty portentous incidence must surely
be in the offing; for, any minor
misdemeanour was, usually, sorted out by one of the two vice-principals. Was I
to be shown the gate with instructions
to the head-keeper never more to be let in as a gentleman or collared jumping
over it far after-hours, as no gentleman
should.... but what had I done this time?
As I approached the lodge and into the forbidding eminence of puny principal
Damle, my legs, already reduced to jelly
were rendered further flatulent when I was introduced to the portly gentleman
who was with him as Mr. so & so, the H'ble
governor of the noted, and very notorious, Yerawada Central Gaol: a much
prized, if not as fabulously glittering a
jewel, of this metropolis of many an institution of incarceration, penal and
educational..
However, it soon proved, I had nothing to fear as both the gentlemen hastened
to explain, sensimg my palpable jitters; not
a thing was remiss my side. It was only the formidable Yerwada dungeon that was
facing a crisis of unparalled proportions
before which a massive breakout would prove a blessing.
The imposing Yerawada complex held five-thousand, or more, inmates, lifers most
of them, in her numerous facilities: penal,
vocational, agricultural, mental and so on. Thus they run various workshops,
emporia, educational establishments and,
the largest printing works in the state of Maharashtra. It was this last
facility which was facing the problem.
Not that it had broken down and I was to set it right but rather, my assignment
was to help them with a huge order of printing
work they had been awarded....to be executed with the maximum dispatch.
The newly accquired territory of Goa, India's latest, until that point in time,
was to be set on a course of democracy but had none
of
the infrastructure essential for the execution of that process. To
start with no electoral rolls among sundry other essentials.
The rolls had been compiled in a great hurry by deputationists imported from
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and so on....
These worthies who may have been or may have not been literate in their own
noble tongues indubitably found Konkni, and
specially its Romi version, prove as much a formidable hurdle as classical
Greek would be to a Papuan...a hurdle that not even
Pentecostal grace would help overcome.
My
task would be to set the rolls right....render them legible; a task
that would have made even the Theban surely shudder at first
sighting the Augean mess.
Principal
Damle told the gaoler, as cool as a cucumber, something to the effect:
This here is Alfred, a man of considerable merits. He is from Goa. Here he
has, generally, nothing much to do....thinks he can teach his
professors. He can be useful to you. Pray take him with my best compliments;
you may keep him in your establishment as long as you wish...and may the
blessings of the Lprd go with you. You will need them.
I
went with him to Yerawada. The task, as I surveyed it, lookd formidable
and, indeed, it proved to be very much so. I firmly insisted
on having help, was allowed it and chose my fellow classmate Lotlicar cousin,
Ismael Gracias.
And
how we toiled, day after day. The names, on the rolls, were so jumbled
up, untangling them was sheer frustration: a rather well-written
"Fernandes" would stand as "Farpandhas" a "Mascarenhas" rendered
"Faskarans" and thus ad infinituum....
We were treated royally if
not like veritable royalty. Out of the thousands inmates we had the
pick of the herd. The governor was a kind, humane fellow, dedicated to
his wards and well loved by them----each and all.
A high up
foreman in the printing-press turned out to a Goan, an Aldonkar named
Gomes, forget his pronom. A tall story-weaver, he use to keep us
enthralled with his feats; how, nearly the entire establishment,
depended upon upon him.; wouln't even outlast him a week without turning
into shambles; hadn'nt been able to even take a week's holiday, to his
beloved Aldona, for some years... his poor mummy fattening pig afte pig
to regale him on and so on. He limpeted himself as my A.D.C.
The thousands of inmates were
regimented according to the period of terms they were undergoing by the varied
coloured caps they compulsorily wore at all times: thus white caps
denoted the 5-year internees, the least number of years qualifying for
incarceration in Yerawada, yellow for the 10-year servers, blue for the
15-year chaps and red being for the seniormost, 20-year and lifers. Our
Goan Gomes sported a bright red cap.
Having completed our task
"most comendably" the kindly Governor, overjoyed with relief, proudly
anounced that he waould bestow upon us the Yewada Central Gaol order of
merit, the "most coveted" honnour that only a very few of the most
exemplary inmates were awarded on completion of their terms exemplarily.
However, when we, in turn, most proudly exhibited them, here and there, they
were most profoundly frowned upon and we, unceremoniously scorned.
It
was the always understanding, Mario Miranda, that explained us the reason
for this disdain and added a kindly advice: "Best you can do is put them
away, out-of-sight; but save them. For they might come in handy when you
have, indeed, served a term in Yerwada, later on in life, and let out without
such a
'precious' document."
Alfred de Tavares,
Stockholm, Sweden.
TEL: 0046 8 759 6214; cell: 0046 70 295 4091
