Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita are student activists who were arrested in May 2020 and implicated under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for leading peaceful protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. In June 2021 they were released after 13 months, while many more falsely accused students, activists, and scholars continue to be unjustly held for over three years now.1 Here, Devangana and Natasha contemplate the sound of time passing in their prison barracks, and the ways in which listening became a constant companion. Their account underscores the idea that one cannot think about city sounds without taking into account the silences and sounds that have been silenced by the state.

Every morning as the sun rose, the old Bollywood classic «Aae malik tere bande hum» (O Master, We Are Your People) would echo loudly through the corridors of all prison wards. We were lodged in Ward 8 of Jail No. 6 in the Tihar Central Jail, New Delhi – the only women’s prison in South Asia’s largest prison complex. Lata Mangeshkar’s high-pitched voice in this almost hauntingly sad song stirred unexpected emotions on that first morning inside the prison cell. The lyrics felt strangely poignant. We had been falsely framed and imprisoned as «terrorists» under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) by a vindictive regime for participating in peaceful protests for equal citizenship against the CAA-NPR-NRC, protests that stood against a politics of hate to proclaim the power of unity and love.

«jab zulmon ka ho saamanaa / tab tu hee hamein thamanaa /woh burayee karein hum bhalayee karein /nahi badle ki ho kamanaa / badh uthe pyaar ka har kadam / aur mitein baeyr ka ye bharam.»

(when faced with injustice, then hold us firm you must, they spread evil, we spread goodness, with no urge for revenge, may every step ahead be filled with love, may every thought of enmity be banished.)

This song that played at dawn and dusk everyday without fail would become an integral part of our prison life over the next 13 months that we spent inside – a marker of time for the cell/barrack locks to open and close.

In Ward 8, where we spent our first month of prison time, the quarantine cell had no clock. We were to be locked alone in these «isolation cells» for the first 14 days as part of the COVID-19 protocol that had been instituted for new entrants into prison. New to prison life, the heaviness of time that needed to be conquered came to be embodied in the sound of the ticking clock that hung outside in the open area of the ward.

We were aware that when charged under UAPA, bail is extremely hard, if not impossible. How long will we be here? Will we be here forever? Alone in the cell with only one’s thoughts for company, it was a whirlwind of emotions. As the clock ticked, so did one’s emotions – anxiety, fear, despair, longing, and an endless struggle to hold on to hope. The mind would always ask – will we be able to survive this? To the feelings of doom, we would sing:2

«yeh gam ke aur char din, sitam ke aur char din, yeh din bhi jayenge guzar, guzar gaye hazaar din.»

(four more days of grief, four more days of torture, they too shall pass, like a thousand days have before them.)

On days when we could gather courage, we would dare to sing aloud, «ayengi zulm mitayengi, woh toh naya zamana layegi!» (she will fight against oppression, she will usher a new world).3 To the prison walls we would hum Habib Jalib’s immortal lines that had also reverberated through the protest sites: «Kyun darratey ho zindaan ki deevaar se, zulm ki baat ko, jehl ki raat ko, main nahien manti, main nahein jaanti!» (why do you scare me with prison walls? The oppressor’s words, the night of ignorance, I refuse to accept, I refuse to recognize).

Dawn would bring a barrage of fears for the future, but it would also be filled with a cacophony of bird songs. Every now and then, a bird would sit on one of the bars above and sing. One often wondered, what made the birds stop by prison. On that fateful afternoon when we were arrested from our home, many black kites had gathered on our balcony ledge, where we used to leave water and meat for them. The police inspectors were completely amazed to see these majestic creatures so close. They even halted their interrogation for a moment to exclaim, «the cheels4 have come to protest!» One wondered if the black kites with their evocative cries that we would hear from our prison cell were the same ones that we would encounter on the balcony of our home. Had they come to check on us, give us strength? Soon in an adjoining cell, arrived Geeta Di, who spent many grueling nights in tootan – a searing pain that would reverberate through her entire body because of the withdrawal she was experiencing after years of smack addiction. Unable to get any sleep through the night, she would greet the morning birds with an incredible repertoire of whistles and imitations of bird songs. The birds liked to hop around her cell. According to Geeta Di, the birds told her who was going to get bail that day, but she was to keep it a secret. If a crow cawed too loud and too long, it was a good sign.

Along with the birds and their songs, there also arrived the clanking of a huge bunch of keys being carried by the matrons coming to open the cells/barracks to usher in the khuli ginti (open time). Anyone who was not awake yet, would be shaken vigorously and asked «jinda ho» (are you alive)? In their morning count, the matrons had to determine that everyone who was locked in the night before, was still alive! It was a strange ritual to wake up to. The sound of gushing water would alert us that it must be around 7am. Simultaneously, loud fights would also erupt amongst inmates as water clean enough to bathe only came for one hour in the morning. Since there was barely enough water for everyone to bathe or fill their buckets, tensions would run high, gaalis (verbal abuses) would flow in abandon. One such morning, we were most surprised to hear another voice amidst the commotion – a faint and repeated murmuring saying «kholo kholo». It was coming from a child, barely two years of age, who must have been brought in along with her mother the previous night. Even the little girl had to undergo quarantine time inside the cell with her mother. Her heart-breaking pleas for the cell door to be opened so that she could run around would fill us with the most unbearable sense of helplessness.

Since we were supposed to be in quarantine, we were not allowed to come out of our cells. From within the walls of our cells, we would hear the chatter of inmates who had finished their isolation periods and were allowed to roam around. It was oddly reassuring to witness the rhythms and routines of prison life – a testimony to life that survives and lives in that wretched place despite being stripped of any form of human autonomy or dignity. Our fellow inmates were in circumstances far worse than ours. Seeing them still managing to laugh, cry, fight, sing together, form intimacies and friendships – gave us the strength to imagine that we too may be able to survive this ordeal. Even though no-one was allowed to come near the quarantine cells, every now and then, when the matron wasn’t carefully looking, one inmate or another would drop by to ask us how we were doing, who we were, reassuring us and urging us to hold on. These stolen moments of forbidden interactions made the horror of the isolation cell bearable – to be able to connect with another human, to share pain and build hope together. The inmates in the nearby barrack would play the TV in full volume, so those of us alone in our cells could at least have some music to keep us company. Hearing familiar songs that we knew from the outside world would flood the mind with so many desires and longings – «Jugni mel mel ke, kood faand ke, chakk chakaute jaaye» (the firefly, jumping and meeting all, flutters everywhere). The mind would wander and imagine, seeking desperately to transcend the prison walls that the body couldn’t.

A regular feature of our quarantine time was Mama Jamaica’s loud evening prayers just before lock up time. An old woman suffering from multiple ailments, charged under the stringent NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, she had already been in prison for more than three years. Every evening, she would lead the prayers for a group of African inmates, exclaiming and singing repeatedly, almost in trance: «I have a father who never ever fails me». Mama’s prayers were reassuring for all, non-Christian inmates would also join her sermons, seeking strength from the power of the Almighty in a context where access to justice from the criminal justice system remained largely elusive. Most women whom we met in prison did not have the resources to hire a private lawyer and had to solely depend on the extremely slow and mostly ineffective government legal aid system. It is hence not surprising that undertrials constitute 77.1% of the total prison population in India and the majority of them belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and religious minorities, particularly Muslims (NCRB 2022). Successive years of National Crime Record Bureau data has shown that those from historically marginalized communities or religious minorities are criminalized and jailed in numbers that are much higher compared to their share in population at large (Chawla 2022, Radhakrishnan and Nihalani 2022).

During the day, there was a barrage of numerous announcements blasted on the loudspeakers installed in the prison wards orienting movements of inmates around the prison. X must turn up for work, Y must go for their mulaqaat (meetings with family/lawyer), Z must arrive for her turn at the weekly phone booth or the canteen, the munshis (convict warders) must come to collect the food vessels and so on. Lists of prisoners’ names would be called out throughout the day for attending their online court appearances. The most dreaded was when one’s name was announced to report to the Superintendent’s office! No prisoner could venture outside her ward unless it was commanded on the loudspeakers. The most eagerly awaited, was the announcement of the rihai parchas (release slips) that would happen every night around 8/9pm. Squeals of happines or laughter would suddenly be heard, there would be emotional goodbyes and promises to meet again. Every rihai (release) was a shared joy, a glimpse of hope for those still left behind.

However, as the night progressed, the torture of quarantine time and the battle with one’s thoughts would return. Sometimes one may hear someone talking loudly to the walls, having a conversation with the self in the absence of another to share. Sometimes there may be shattering wails through the haunting silence, sometimes incessant sobs through the whole night. Often, inmates would try to break the loneliness of the night by shouting and talking to each other across cells. Many conversations would be had like this – how we have found ourselves in prison, who we were, who awaits us outside. We sang songs, cursed the police, and gave solace to one another – screaming away until the matron on night duty arrived to silence us.

Even as the Supreme Court framed guidelines to decongest prisons during the pandemic by granting interim bail to many categories of prisoners, the rate of arrest by the police also simultaneously increased manifold. This meant that there were not enough cells to isolate all the new inmates that were being brought in. Soon the tiny cells began to be stuffed with minimally three inmates. We were shifted into an isolation barrack. After being locked alone inside cells for days, it was a relief for everyone to find company, the barracks were bustling and alive with numerous conversations amongst inmates, pain and suffering collectively held. Nights were no longer lonely, there would be singing and jam sessions, a bucket would become a make-shift dhol and some would even dance. BB, a migrant worker originally from Jhansi, would lead the singing. In her high pitched voice, she would sing many folk songs. Even though we often could not understand all the lyrics, her voice would touch many tender corners of one’s heart. One of her favorites was a song about Sita’s pain as she lived in exile in the forests: «kismat ne kaisa daga kiya, jo van me akela chod diya!» (what a betrayal by destiny, leaving me alone in these forests!).5 Soon everyone began to sing aloud «kismat me kaisa daga kiya, jo jail me laake chod diya» (what a betrayal by destiny, bringing me to prison and leaving me here). Oh the wretched games of fate!

With the community of barrack-life also came an unwanted companion – the television. Over time, we learned to read, write, and sleep through an endless background soundscape of movies and serials blasting away in high volume until the TV connection was cut off at midnight. Undesirable it may have been for us, but watching TV was an important way of passing prison time for most inmates. Occasionally, we too enjoyed a film or danced to music playing on the TV. Many months later, when we had been shifted into another ward, we discovered that the TV also had an option for FM Radio. This led to many amazing discoveries of the wide diversity of music that All India Radio still played – from Begum Akhtar to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to Tracy Chapman to Mozart. To be able to hear these songs that we held so dearly would bring a tremendous sense of solace and calm. We would wait in anticipation every day, wondering which of our favorite songs may play on the radio today.

We had slowly begun to adjust to the rhythms and sounds of prison life. But one afternoon, we suddenly woke up to alarmed screams from prisoners in the adjoining cells. They were also incessantly ringing the emergency bell that is there inside each cell. The cells were locked as it was afternoon bandh ginti (closed timings). A young Muslim woman, Fiza, had torn her clothes to make a rope to hang herself from the fan of her cell, where she had been lodged alone. Brought in a few days ago in an alleged case of theft, she had been crying the whole time, but no jail official had bothered to care. Despite many requests, she had not been given access to her first call to family or provided any legal counsel. Desperate and disheartened that she would have to spend her whole life locked in that cell, she attempted suicide. We would have lost Fiza that afternoon if it was not for the inmate lodged in the cell opposite hers, who noticed what she was doing and raised an uproar. This was not the first time that suicide had been attempted in an isolation cell. One woman had even succeeded in taking her life – the mourning screams and cries of her inmates in nearby cells had raged through the whole night, just a month before we had arrived in prison. No one was hence kept in that cell for a long time fearing the presence of the dead inmate’s troubled spirit.

We were still in our isolation barrack when we heard the emergency siren for the first time – a jarring unbearable blazing sound that would just not stop. All of us new to prison, we had no idea what it meant, we could only feel panic as our heartbeats raced. It was difficult to breathe! Some broke down crying, some shivered in fear. No meals were served that day until late in the evening. The matron who came to lock the cells and barracks yelled at us and said that no one must ask any questions, we must maintain silence as the whole jail has been put under «lockdown» now. Our phone calls and even online court appearances were suspended. We could sense that something terrible had happened. Slowly in the next couple of days, stories trickled in from fellow inmates about the horror that had unfolded that day. A few African inmates had held a peaceful protest demanding that they too be granted the interim bail given to Indian prisoners because of the pandemic. They were holding placards that said «We are humans too». There was a brutal crackdown on their protest, male police officials with batons were brought into the women’s prison to attack the protesting inmates. Many people sustained brutal injuries, including Mama Jamaica. Ugandan undertrial prisoner, Jesca Sarah Kafeeco, was not even a part of the protest. She was attacked by the police during this action just because she was a Black woman. Two months later, Jessica died due to internal injuries that she had sustained during this incident and for which she had not been provided adequate medical attention (The Hindu 2020).

That night as we slept in our barracks, the heart heavy with sorrow and fear, there was another sound, but this time a familiar and reassuring one. It was the horn of a passing train from the station nearby. In contrast to our imprisoned lives, the train whistles held a precarious hope – the possibility of movement, of freedom that may arrive someday.

YouTube Playlist

A playlist of songs that have been shared by the authors in this piece and that compose the soundtrack to their prison diaries.

• 1. Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi are amongst those who are still unjustly incarcerated and awaiting bail despite repeated appeals and statements from various public, political, and humanitarian fronts to release them. Gulfisha, Natasha, and Devangana were lodged in the same barracks in prison together.
• 2. «Tu Zinda Hain», written by Shankar Shailender and composed by Salil Choudhury was one of the most popular songs of IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association).
• 3. These are lines from a famous protest song of the Indian women’s movement: «tod tod ke bandhano ko dekho behne aati hai» (breaking the shackles of bondage, look, the sisters are coming).
• 4. Hindi name for black kites.
• 5. In Hindu mythology, Sita is Lord Ram’s «devout» wife. She is supposed to have spent 14 years in exile with Lord Ram and his brother Laxman. During this period, she was kidnapped by Ravana and a whole war was fought to secure her release. However, after her return, Sita had to undergo a second exile in a forest because her husband, who was now the king, did not want his subjects gossiping about how he had taken back a woman who had been with another man, even if it was in captivity. Sita was pregnant when she was exiled. This folk song seeks to capture the intense pain that Sita must have felt on being abandoned and banished by her husband.