The Jail achieves the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco Film Festival

Santanu Saraswati

santanu_saraswati@hotmail.com

Kolkata, November 5-- If Ratnakar could become Valmiki, why not the Nigel Akara become a complete reformed man and go back to mainstream life?

The Jail, a documentary film on the reform process in West Bengal prisons was awarded by the Jury in the category Special Prize of Best Documentary Film, on Thursday, in San Francisco Golden Gate Fiction & Documentary Festival—an award received by second film in Bengali after Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali.

It was a nine-month long journey of making The Jail—started in 2008, when the director of the film, Abhijit Dasgupta, first saw the stage show of Valmiki Pratibha—Tagore’s famous dance drama on the transformation on dacoit Ratnakar into Valmiki, by the lifers of the Presidency Correctional Home. And Nigel was playing the central character of the dance drama directed by famous classical dancer, Alokananda Ray.

“Given the opportunity of not just shooting inside a jail but also to freely interact with the inmates, it is a lifetime moving experience… to feel the agony, pain, and despair of these hopeless inmates. It also is a mixed feeling where you also feel the pain of those who’ve lost their dear ones for these criminals. And an award like this would obviously encourage me doing more films on these people,” Dasgupta told Hindustan Times over telephone from Bangkok.

There were obviously few hundreds of questions in Dasgupta’s mind before making such attempt. “I was asking myself can these branded criminals, after decades within the walls find back the rhythm of life? Will they face yet another wall – the wall of social injustice, stigma and ignorance? What about their rehabilitation? And Nigel is obviously a real Ratnakar,” Dasgupta said.

Nigel was convicted for abducting and murdering a businessman in Jorasanko area in late 90’s when he just a graduation student. The dark tall handsome youth, who was obviously the best choice for Valmiki—both by Ray and Dasgupta. Starting from Rabindra Sadan, to Pragati Maidan, from Shantiniketan to the four boundaries of the Presidency Correctional Home—where ever there is a stage show or rehearsals of Tagore’s immortal dance drama, Dasgupta was there with his crew to shoot the process of correcting the life of the convicts—from rogue to reformed.

For the state additional director general of police, B D Sharma, who made this film see the light of the day, is obviously an achievement for the work he is carrying out since last four years irrespective of all red-tape-ism and obstacles of bringing out lifers out of the jail to provide a real taste of freedom. “How many of us are aware of the conditions inside jails in which the inmates live, some for only a brief period and some for longer and even life. How these - a murderer, a rapist, a terrorist, an arsonist or a petty thief spend their time in closely guarded and watched confinement and even in solitary seclusion in individual cells? They are not even allowed to vote, a basic and fundamental right guaranteed to every citizen by the Indian constitution. Most live in a state of depression, despair and hopelessness,” Sharma added.

To them, life within the four walls of a jail, is a continuous pain – a cycle that repeats itself relentlessly… daily the same food, the same faces, the same routine inscribed in the jail manuals … an endless, unchanging boring schedule. It is a moving experience of seeing hard core criminals, shunned by the society, men without any hope, slowly getting back into the main stream of life. It is seeing real-life transformation… the outcome of an experiment that induced these hard hearts to participate in an opera. Some are so reformed that the judiciary is releasing them – giving them a chance to go back to normal life beyond the walls. The Jail is obviously a landmark achievement—for the inmates, the jail department, and a Bengali Film-maker.