Touch down... Port Blair...
And before I know it... being driven to meet the rest of the family who are already visiting the Cellular Jail..(infamously known as Kālā Pānī ).... .Send shudders down my spine... literally
Seeing it.. a reality check... I am in Paradise... But......Reminding me that the beauty and freedom we enjoy ... was won with a lot of pain...and sacrifice... and we better not forget it....
The Cellular Jail is the mighty, invincible prison where countless martyrs of India’s Independence struggle laid down their lives... Once can only wonder how much torture our brave hearts endured so that we can now do some "sight seeing" at this altar of persecution...as someone rightly said one the murkiest chapters of colonial rule in India....
This menacing structure... called the ‘cellular’ because it is entirely made up of individual cells for the solitary confinement of the prisoners.. a mute witness.. to the tortures our freedom fighters were meted out at this "psychological nightmare" - hell to say the least... Now I knew why they called it the Kaala Paani...You could feel despair and despondency hanging heavy in the depressing environs of Jail.. Even now...
Was a relief to step out.. But I go away with a true "reality check"......
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