Achi news desk-
2 hours ago
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A thump-thump-thump sound echoed in the damp and dimly lit corridor. Dressed in high heels, a red saree and a black blouse, Dr Reena Malik was walking slowly through the prison yard to her cabin. Dr. Reena was posted at Yerwada Central Jail to counsel inmates. He had no idea what fate was planned for him in this prison.
Reena, who returned to India after completing her doctorate from the University of Georgia, had no one to call her own. Therefore, she spent most of her time within the prison walls, understanding the prisoners and looking after their mental health and well-being. In the remaining time, she would either teach the children of female prisoners or prepare research papers by recording the experiences of the prisoners through counselling. During his PhD in Criminal Psychology, he had noticed that there was little or no study on the mental health and psychology of prisoners in India. That’s why she wanted to work in this field.
She was teaching the children when the prisoner sent her an emergency call. It has been revealed that prisoner Rohan Shah has tried to kill himself for the third time. Today he hit his head on the bars. He was currently undergoing treatment. The prisoner asked Dr. Reena included this prisoner on priority in his weekly schedule. Counseling was really needed. Reena returned to her cabin with her case file.
The next day, Rohan was standing in front of him, bandaged. By now Reena had come to know that Rohan, who was serving a life sentence, had arrived here after his wife’s murder. Earlier he had also counseled patients with homicidal and suicidal tendencies. So he did not find this case difficult. But even after an hour, when Rohan didn’t say a single word, Reena understood that this case was not that easy.
The court found him guilty of murder after the suspicious death of his wife and Rohan was found with a murder weapon at the scene of the crime. From the time he was arrested until the hearing of the case was completed, he said nothing in his defense and did not admit his mistake.
Reena took special permission from the prisoner that she could meet Rohan whenever she wanted during the day. He had also placed Rohan barracks in front of the corridor. Now she could see Rohan’s activities from her cabin window. She started recording her every move, every activity in her diary. Rohan would get restless as soon as the siren sounded at seven in the evening. He would go for a walk in his barracks or hold the grill and constantly try to see something outside. The rest of the time he would either lie down or keep his head bent, his eyes down, looking towards the floor.
After a week, when Rohan’s head bandage was removed, Reena looked at him as a human being and not as her patient. High height, fair complexion, strong body and eyes looking for someone but lost somewhere. If he hadn’t been in jail, then Rohan’s personality definitely meant that passing girls would definitely look back at him or at least think about him once.
Reena decided that she would try to talk to Rohan only in the evening. His week of hard work paid off. The prisoner was happy that Rohan had at least started looking towards Reena. However, even now Reena feels as if she is talking to a stone. But he did not lose courage.
The next week, Rohan was still crying throughout the session. She was happy that her toughest ‘subject’ had finally started to respond to her words. Reena tried to get to know the details of Rohan’s life from him, but Rohan became restless as soon as he touched the wounds of the past. Reema took permission from the prisoner that she wanted to keep Rohan out of the barracks for two or three hours.
Seeing the improvement in this case, the prisoner also gave this permission. After reading Rohan’s case file, Reena had set up her cabin for this session just like the room where Rohan’s wife’s dead body was found, Rohan froze as soon as he stepped into this room, but Reena held his hand and took him inside. . Today for the first time Rohan said to Reena – ‘She was very nice. I didn’t want to kill him.
This was a great success for Reena. Now she had increased Rohan’s sessions and would try different techniques in them. Its effect also began to become visible. Rohan started opening up in Reena’s session. Reena wanted to get to the bottom of her guilt and she regrets it and knows the whole story. This seems to be his only objective at the moment. Now his sessions were also getting longer.
Reena could see that if Rohan was scratched, he would bleed internally. Rohan would keep his head in his lap and cry for hours. Reena had to calm him down like a child. Several daily sessions and Reena’s assessment revealed that Rohan was living with the guilt of a crime he probably did not commit. But don’t know why Reena was not ready to accept her own result.
She thought that Rohan was holding something inside him. Perhaps this is the hesitation between the doctor and his patient. Reena believed that only by coming out of this dead body would the mystery of Rohan’s guilt and his wife’s murder be solved. The more she believed that Rohan had murdered his wife, the more she sympathized with Rohan. The extent of Rohan’s torture ended with his daily torture. For the next several hours of this session, Rohan would lie on the floor without eating or drinking as if someone had given him an electric shock. The prisoner also asked Reena once or twice whether Rohan’s condition was getting better or worse. But after Reena’s assurance, the prisoners also became quiet.
Beneath the heinous crimes committed by Rohan, the immense pain in his chest and many layers of guilt, Reena could see the light of an ordinary man. Reluctantly, he went deeper in search of that light. Reena found her inner self in cell number 112, amidst the narrow walls of the prison. Her patient Rohan had taken over her thoughts.
Reena remembered her college days when the whole class laughed at her on the subject of ‘Hybristophilia’. This name was given in criminal psychology to develop romantic feelings towards a criminal despite knowing his crimes and thoughts. Despite maintaining a professional character throughout, Reena began to feel helpless at Dil’s hands after Rohan’s session.
To escape the grip of this magic, Reena thought it better to take a break for a few days and get out of the prison. However, the outside world seemed more complicated to him than prison. One such night, she was sitting alone in a bar drinking a beer when three men tried to tease her thinking she was alone. At first she ignored them, but when they came to her table and one of them held her hand, Reena took two beer bottles kept on her table in both hands and turned them and hit him on the head. There was a stampede in the whole bar. That boy lying on Reena’s table was drenched in his own blood. The bar manager had called the police. By the time the next sun rose and Reena’s drunkenness subsided, an event had occurred that she had never imagined even in her dreams. The boy was in a coma and Reena became a prisoner in the same prison where she was a doctor.
He got cell number 112, next to Rohan. When Rohan tried to talk to her, Reena turned her face away. But when he told Reena, ‘After you left, I remembered what happened that night’, Reena couldn’t control herself. Rohan said that he and his wife Sindhu had to go to a party at a friend’s house that night. Rohan didn’t feel like going at all so he was drinking alcohol since the evening.
His wife Sindhu had been asking him for many days to change the fuse of the house, which he had been avoiding. That night, as soon as Sindhu plugged in the hair straightener, the lights in a part of the house went out and she screamed loudly. At first he thought that Sindhu had screamed in anger, but when her scream did not stop, she ran inside. Sindhu was struggling due to electric shock. He switched off the hair straightener and pushed Sindhu and her head hit the cupboard and did not get up after that. Hearing Sindhu’s scream, the servants also came. He called the doctor and the doctor called the police. Sindhu had left this world. He was accused of electrocuting his wife. After Sindhu’s departure, he remained unconscious for several days and considered himself a criminal. So he calmly accepted what the police were saying.
Reena screamed from her cell that you are lying. You are the one who killed my sister Sindhu. Because you love someone else and not him.
Rohan was shocked to hear ‘my sister Sindhu’. He said that Sindhu told me that she has no one in this world.
A voice came from Reena’s cell – That’s because despite my repeated rejections, we were both dead for each other after deciding to marry a wretched person like you. But blood relations do not die. That is why I came here to hear the story of my sister’s murder from you.
Rohan said in a disappointed voice – ‘Then you will also have to be disappointed with me like Sindhu had to do. He married me despite reading my diary. I could not overcome the heartache and guilt of marrying Sindhu and started drinking alcohol. He was the one who found my ex and befriended her so he could normalize me. On the night of that accident, we were going to go for dinner at my ex’s house. I didn’t want to go there, but she was doing all this just for me. Why would I hit him, Reena?’
After this, there was silence in both barracks and after some time, Reena started sobbing. Rohan may not be her sister’s killer, but there was definitely a reason for that accident. But whatever feeling she had felt towards Rohan for the past few days and which she was trying to avoid at all costs, the same feeling had started to surround her again.
Reena was at a crossroads should she stay away from the person who was the cause of her sister’s death or listen to her heart? After thinking all night, he realized that truth, love and justice are things that probably cannot always be seen in black and white. Sometimes these are also found in shades of gray between black and white.
The next morning when Reena’s lawyer brought her bail papers, the decision taken by Reena can be called beyond logic and understanding. He said, ‘Rohan needs Bel more than me. He is serving a sentence for a crime he has not committed. You should prepare to reopen this case. Whether I stay on this side of the bars or that side, I have to advise the prisoners. Why Jailer Saheb?’
The prison guard standing outside his cell smiled and said – ‘Why not.’ You have to teach the children at night too. It has been a long time since he opened the book.
Hearing the word book, Reena remembered the first line written in her book – ‘The journey of healing and forgiveness is taken together.’
– Geetanjali
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