All the world is a Tihar cell

It took me some days to locate the phone number of my friend because I had erased it from my phone book of friends in ‘low’ places. My jail warden friend was surprised that I had asked him to ‘‘look after’’ an eminent lawyer. ‘‘He is very comfortable,’’ was the reply.

‘‘You know, mingling with convicts and drug peddlers would not be good for the status of a lawyer who is wrongly framed…’’ I argued. ‘‘Don’t worry. He has good company,’’ the warden pointed out. ‘‘When he wants to reminiscent about good-old Delhi he chats up with the former DDA vice chairman accused of corruption. When it comes to deteriorating law and order in the capital with increasing rapes and murders he gets a bird’s eye-view from a former IGP of police accused of killing a journalist. The lawyer does get confused about shares so he walks up to former chairman of a bank accused of bank scams and when he wants the latest inside story he calls on a journalist arrested for blackmail…’’

‘‘All this must be too heavy for him,’’ I opined. ‘‘Far from it. For relaxation he thinks of Bollywood and he spend time with this film actor who has been accused of possessing a habit of running over pedestrians in slum areas, and if he really wants to relax although jail rules do not provide it he can look up the former Miss Bangalore and a former Miss Calcutta charged with soliciting…

I realised that Tihar jail was really ‘happening.’ I began to worry whether anything could really move in the outside world with some many people in jail.

The warden interrupted my thoughts, ‘‘These people are comfortable…but it is the commoners I am now worried about.’’

‘‘You mean these chaps are being harassed by common criminals,’’ I asked.

‘‘Far from it,’’ argued the warden, ‘‘These are all high-profile well-publicised Tihar inmates. For the average petty thief these men have become role models. The problem is now social. A pickpocket was beaten black and blue by his wife for not making the kind money these chaps have…’’

‘‘What can these pickpockets do?’’ I wondered

‘‘Many of them have started studying law, few want to go in for civil service entrance examinations,’’ revealed the warden, ‘‘They have resolved to become police officers, lawyers and heads of financial institutions.’’

‘‘It may require some effort,’’ I pointed out.

‘‘Studying for entrance exams is nothing compared to what they have to cope with in the streets,’’ reasoned the warden, ‘‘If they are caught as pickpockets they are beaten by the public, forced into jails and harassed by the police. As respectable citizens if they are arrested they get a proper jail facility, they are released after sixty days on bail, rarely convicted and a enjoy new found respect in society.’’