Booked under the dreaded NDPS (Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act of 1985, a British national named Nigel had already spent the better part of a year in jail. In early November 1994 he sent a letter to the Inspector General of Prisons requesting permission to perform a Christmas play within the prison complex. He also requested the Prison Administration for costumes and sound equipment.
It was an ambitious request. Nothing of the sort had ever been attempted before. The IG decided to put Nigel in touch with us. “There is a foreign prisoner who wants to form a theater troupe,” she told us. “Will you help him?” We agreed.
I liked Nigel the moment I met him. He was short, bearded, and animated, and reminded me a bit of the bad guy in the movie Air Force One, but without the menace. He told me he had had a spiritual awakening of sorts a few months ago and felt compelled to share the joy of the Christmas story with all 8000 inmates of Tihar.
So excited was he about his project that he had already assembled a theatre troupe from amongst the other foreign inmates and had begun rehearsals. He showed us the script he had written. It was original. His notes for the Third Act read thus:
Act 3
Scene 1: Joseph and Mary on way to Bethlehem.
Scene 2: Joseph gets picked up by the police on false charges of possessing drugs and is thrown in jail.
Scene 3: There, he meets Noah who has been incarcerated for attempting to build a boat without a proper license.
“It’s for an Indian audience, man. Needs a little masala, you know?” he chuckled as he introduced us to the actors in his ensemble. Inmates of various nationalities, some undertrials and others, convicts, were chosen to play the roles of the kings, the shepherds and the angels. A short, stocky Nigerian was selected to play Joseph.
I finally asked Nigel the question that had been bothering me from the time we first heard about this production.
“How are you doing to pull off a Christmas play without a Mary?”
But Nigel didn’t seem to see a problem.
“We have a Mary,” he responded cheerily and introduced us to a tall, bald, unsmiling Dutchman. “We’ll put a shawl and a lipstick on him.”
My worst fear had just been confirmed.
§
Rehearsals were held for the play every morning and every evening for 2 weeks. Also part of the play were Christmas carols to be performed by a choir of 12 Nigerian inmates. They looked good on stage and moved well together as they sang. The only problem was that most of them were tone deaf and Chuck and Thomas, the biggest and worst tempered of the lot, did not get along. But these were minor issues in the larger scheme of things. We had bigger things to worry about.
The toughest part of the production, however, turned out to be the choir! They just could not carry a tune. With only ten days to go for the first show and tensions running high, I called a friend who owned a studio and asked him for advice. He said, “Let me create music tracks for you that these chaps can sing on. Make sure the music is louder than the vocals. It just might work.”
And it did! The singers were thrilled to discover that they actually could sing karaoke style to backing music tracks. So inspired were they with their new ability to sound melodic that they practiced for two days straight without fighting and on the evening of the second day managed to sing Jingle Bells, O Come All Ye faithful, and Silent Night in the same key. The relief was huge. They fist bumped and high-fived, and that night I slept in peace.
§
December 18, 1994.
The day of the first Christmas show arrived. The Tihar Theatre Troupe was to debut in Jail No. 4.
Nigel, every inch the nervous director, gave last minute instructions to the actors who took up positions behind the stage. The 2000-strong population of the jail filed into the chakkar, the common area used for cultural events and started sitting in rows under the watchful eyes of the white kurta pajama clad numberdaars, the convicts charged with maintaining order amongst the rest of the inmates.
Rohit Kumar
Tales from the Jail – Christmas in Tihar and Other Stories
Notion Press, 2016
There is something unnerving about looking out over a sea of prison inmates sitting cross-legged in neat rows and waiting for a show to begin. Events at Tihar were carried out in style. Marigold garlands festooned the gigantic concrete stage, carpets covered it and a podium waited off to the side.
The play was in English and since it needed a running translation in Hindi, I had volunteered to be the narrator-translator. There are things I have done years ago which still bring a smile to my face. Helping Nigel organize his play is one of them. Being his running translator is not.
The play began.
Why I had believed till that point that two thousand prisoners were going to watch a Christmas play performed by foreign inmates in respectful and appreciative silence I still don’t know. But the moment ‘Mary’ walked on to the stage, I realized respect and silence were not going to happen.
Mary, if you recall, was a tall, bald Dutchman. Dressed in a red saree, head covered by a brown shawl, and sporting a bright red bindi and even brighter lipstick, he looked grotesque.
“Je kaun hai be?” (“Who the heck is that?”) asked an inmate sitting in the front row in coarse Haryanvi in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard by at least thirty others.
“Manne toh vilayeti kinnar lage!” (“Looks like a foreign eunuch to me.”) responded his friend.
This was not going as expected. And it was just the beginning. Jail No. 4 was about to witness the most unintentionally funny comedy they had ever seen.
Nigel narrated, “In the town of Nazareth lived a young woman called Mary. Mary had found favour with God. One night as she was sleeping, an angel entered the room.”
I translated.
The angel ‘Gabriel’, a jovial Italian walked onto stage with a decidedly un-angelic swagger. He stood over Mary, stretched out his arms, and announced in a singsong voice, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you! You are going to blessed with a son who will be known as the Saviour of the world.”
Mary, expressing appropriate awe, replied in thick Dutch accented English, “But how can this be, seeing I have never known a man?”
I did not bother to translate that.
The play progressed.
Joseph (in deep voice): “Hey, Mary.”
Mary (in equally deep voice): “Yes, Joseph?”
Joseph (in deep voice): “Bethlehem is crowded. All the inns are full. What are we going to do?”
Mary: (in equally deep voice) “Please, we have to find a room. I am going to give birth. The baby is about to come.”
The audience dissolved in peals of laughter.
Just as Baby Jesus (a cloth doll) was about to come into the world, Joseph knelt beside Mary said, “Come on, Mary, push!”
At that point I heard someone in the audience mimicking a baby’s cry. Others imitated and soon about a thousand people joined suit.
And then it happened! The moment of Jesus’ birth!
Joseph stood up, holding not a cloth doll but a real live baby in his arms! The crowd went wild. I lost my power of speech.
As we later discovered, some of our actors – the shepherds to be precise – had discovered a baby behind the stage. It was the child of a woman labourer who along with others had been brought into the jail to do construction work. The actors had ‘borrowed’ the baby and managed to pass it on to Mary and Joseph on stage. It was a defining moment in the drama.
The three kings – dressed in Indian king costumes replete with Indian crowns and Indian beads – walked in and offered ‘gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh’. And as they knelt before Indian baby Jesus, the choir walked up on stage, surrounded the nativity scene and sang ‘Silent Night’.
I will never forget the silence that followed. The Nigerian choir sang pitch-perfect. They were magical! Was this the same choir that had come to blows just days before? The actors joined in as did those few in the audience who knew the carol.
“Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright…”
By the time they finished singing, a hush had fallen on the crowd. Some sort of heavenly peace had indeed descended on Jail No. 4.
The play ended and Nigel gave one last speech. It was halting and went something like this:
“Friends, I know Diwali was a difficult day for you. You wanted to spend it with your family but you spent it here in jail. This is my first Christmas away from home too. Mary and Joseph were far away from home too. In the company of strangers. And yet, they were not alone. Neither are we. Christmas reminds me that we are never alone….”
His voice broke.
“…. And when you think there is no hope left, something wonderful will happen. I know it will. And you will be given the strength to carry on. Tomorrow will be better than yesterday. Merry Christmas.”
As the sun set, the crowd dispersed and started heading back to their barracks in high spirits. The actors laughed, hugged and congratulated each other.
Many years have since passed. I lost touch with Nigel and his team after he got acquitted. But every December I remember the Tihar Theatre Troupe and give thanks for the memory of Christmas 1994.
Excerpted from Tales from the Jail – Christmas in Tihar and Other Stories, an anthology of a prison counsellor’s memoirs by Rohit Kumar. The author can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com.
