The Stories of Horror

Written after a visit to the Cellular Jail, Port Blair, Andamans.

Ayan Adak “While most of us are delighted to see the paradise islands of Andaman when we fly into Port Blair – complete with cerulean seas, white sands: indeed, the best beaches in the county – a visit to the Cellular Jail, Kalapaani, comes as a morbid shock in Paradise. It was here, so far from the mainland (the islands are closer to Myanmar than India), that hundreds of freedom fighters were jailed, tortured, maimed and boxed inside an unthinkable life from which there was no redress. Many were driven to insanity, the rest tortured to death – only a thin sliver of inmates made it back to tell their tales. The atrocities were limited not just by the British Empire, but also by the Imperial Japanese who had briefly taken over these islands in 1942. In a rare glimpse of hope for the freedom movement, it was in the Andamans in 1943 that Netaji Subhas Bose hoisted the National Flag and declared it to be the first Indian soil liberated from British rule.

The stories of horror were already carved deep within the walls by then – years later, in 1979, the Cellular Jail was declared a National Memorial by Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Today, the Andamans are a rising tourist destination, with luxury towers popping up along the soothing turquoise coastline of Port Blair and its adjoining islands; yet it takes just one visit to the Cellular Jail to hear visceral stories that can show that Paradise depends not just on the content of nature but also on the intent of the people who live – or once, lived there.

As I was walking inside the Jail that day, I wondered for a brief moment, if we had to keep these painful memories. The answer was a resounding Yes – even if these were memories we wouldn’t want to remember, more importantly, these were memories we shouldn’t be allowed to forget, such are the ways of the Past that has led to the paths of the future….”

- Composed by Ayan Adak.