Ten and a half years in jail can leave you longing for many things. What Sudhir Sharma missed most was books. Five years after the Goa Central Jail inmate fought for and won his right to read inside prison, the 39-year-old is out and running a library in Jokehra, a remote village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. Books, they say, change your life. It couldn’t be more true than in the case of Sharma, a Delhi University student whose story took a turn for the worse when he moved to Mumbai. There he became friends with underworld don Karim Lala’s nephew Samad Khan, and started an affair with a ‘‘penfriend’’ from Jodhpur. It all changed when Samad was killed and his girlfriend left him. Sharma became an addict and began to peddle drugs till he landed in jail. That was late 1992. More than five years passed before Sharma’s life took another turn when The Indian Express ran a story on him in January 1998, titled ‘Letters from a Goa prisoner to writers’. It talked of Inmate No 797 in Goa Central Jail fighting a lonely battle to get books to read. It narrated how Sharma, who had been corresponding with writers and film directors like Vikram Bhatt and Tanuja Chandra, had received books from them only to see these being returned by the jail authorities. Prison officials had also claimed that Sharma had violated rules by writing letters clandestinely. Sharma still remembers what happened next. ‘‘Two local papers picked up the story and ran it on their front pages. A local woman filed a PIL in the Goa High Court.’’ The HC would go on to not only question the police contention that books were a risk to discipline and security but also expand the scope of the petition. It was to ask the petitioner to suggest programmes for introduction in the jail, which would include TV, and books for inclusion in its library. ‘‘I don’t have words to express my gratitude for those 600-odd words (of the Express article),’’ Sharma says. But some would insist what he is doing now is enough. Since he took over the Jokehra library job three months ago — on a salary of Rs 1,000 plus free accommodation — it has seen a three-fold jump in visitors. From eight to 10 people every day, the Sri Ramananda Saraswati Pustakalaya now gets 30-40 daily. Inspector General Meerut zone and a Hindi litterateur himself, Vibhuti Narayan Rai, who was instrumental in getting Sharma to Jokehra, says they never hid his past from the villagers. While the people were initially reluctant, the ice was broken when Sharma started interacting with the children. He would read them stories from books, talk about cleanliness or just chat away. Soon others started coming in. Giving credit to Sharma for the turnaround, Rai says: ‘‘This is proof of his social acceptability.’’ The IG first came to know of Sharma when the latter wrote to him from jail. At that time Rai was DIG in the Border Security Force. ‘‘I felt a fire in Sharma.I met him and asked him to come to me once his sentence was over.’’ However, Sharma admits, that’s not what he did. ‘‘After my story was published, I started dreaming big and once I was let off, went to Mumbai.’’ His first stop was the artistes and directors he had corresponded with. But Sharma soon realised that at best, they could give him chores of a spot boy. He eventually decided to meet Rai, and the latter suggested this library in Jokehra that he and the other members of the local community had set up. Now the library is Sharma’s top priority, and on his agenda is making it a resource-documentation centre for communal conflict. He has attracted the attention of personalities like Shabana Azmi, who recently contributed Rs 13 lakh. Rajya Sabha MP Kuldip Nayyar has promised an equal sum. In the immediate future, Sharma is organising a literary event to be held in October. An autobiography, he says, may be on the cards. But for now, there is only one thing Sharma wishes for. That he can earn some money so that he can go to his family in Delhi with head held high. Refusing to let himself be photographed, Sharma would rather have them believe he is still in jail until then.
