Prison Walls

This was a shot I framed a while ago during one of my visits to a prison in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. The Superintendent was showing me around this (thankfully) unused, depleted part of an old British structure where I came upon this interesting wall outside one of the cells. As usual, aroused by the ruins and in seeing the enigma of perfection in imperfection and upon pondering what this possibly could have been, I was told that this used to be one of the many "isolation chambers" in that block, which was said to be used to break the deadliest, hardest and the crookedest crooks. The metal slide like thing you see open (click on the picture for a clearer view) used to be the space through which food was pushed inside for the person held within (mostly freedom fighters). Think when the White Man said "isolation", he meant 'no-human-contact-whatsoever.' Isolation, today, is supposed to be the deadliest of human torture/punishment in the civilized world and is often considered worse than hanging. Talk about the power of loneliness to kill! 

Anyways, cool picture right?!

Tell Me Why?...

From when wilt thou return

from the mountain dews?

From those high peaks that rub my imagination through.

Where oft doth thou disappear

from a fragile trail of foot prints that reappear?

From where the frantic cries of the reaper submerge dies.

What hath thou so wonderfully witnessed

from a town so tinsel lies?

From where the condemnation forked displayed.

When thou art gone

for what must I still low lie?

From whereever, tell me how, tell me now, tell me why?

Bottomline: “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” Mother Teresa