ABSTRACT
Inever thought I would see her again. I have photos of her from almost fifteen years ago when she was a pre-trial prisoner in Naini Central Jail in UP — one of the first jails I researched at length (and breadth, and width, and all other dimensions that a jail purports to have). I spent hours and days on the records, on interviews, on examining and understanding the layout, on the activities and facilities and why they are what they are, on why the surroundings were so stark and bare, on why the prisoners in the carpentry and foundry sections were actually making handcuffs and leg irons as part of work, on why their wages were still calculated as ‘4 annas’ when we had gone metric in the year 1956 and when daily wages had been revised so many times in the outside world. I also made several visits with the Chief Judicial Magistrate to understand the actual process of remand extension and the manner in which he conducted it within the jail precincts — the questions he asked and the replies that he got. I was impressed with the magistrate’s agreeable manner while he conducted the sessions.
