Skip to main content

Shakespeare in Prison

Robben Island Prison
Image from Britannica Encyclopedia 


It was a pitch-black midnight. The Robben Island Prison stood like a gigantic monster on a grim terrain. The guard who was on watch that night was startled by an unusual sound from one of the dark cells in the solitary confinement section of the prison. What could be that grunt-like sound at this time of the night when all prisoners must be asleep? Even light was not permitted anywhere in the prison. Forget sounds. Was it some ghost? After all, so many prisoners died in those cells succumbing to the brutality of the British police.

The guard moved in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the cell where a prisoner named Nelson Mandela was kept. The guard stood outside the dark cell and listened. “To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer…”

“Mandela, what the hell are you doing?” The guard asked. He knew if the chief heard such sounds that would be the end of the prisoner.

Mandela told the guard that he was reciting the soliloquies from some of Shakespeare’s plays.

The prisoners were not allowed to read anything except the Bible. Later Tolstoy’s speeches and some books of H G Wells were also allowed. Not Shakespeare. But Mandela had managed to get a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

It was an Indian named Venkata Ratnam who smuggled in Shakespeare to Robben. Venkata Ratnam was a teacher at the Durban University and was arrested when he started supporting the causes of the Africans against the British colonial government. When the guard saw a book with him, he was questioned. “It’s Shakespeare Bible,” said the professor. As soon as he heard the word ‘Bible’ the guard crossed himself piously and let the prisoner carry it in.

Shakespeare became a favourite author of many of the prisoners. Mandela loved the soliloquies. Shakespeare was discussed in detail by the learned among the prisoners.

Much later, as a free man, Mandela visited England and addressed a group of students of the London University. One of his counsels to the students was to learn to enjoy the liberating power of good literature. Good literature can be as soothing as a miraculous balm when you are going through tough times. Shakespeare can be a deity in a prison.

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    Hoorah for Shakespeare. Hoorah for Mandela. Hoorah for Venkata. And all like them... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm sure books can keep you feeling alive in prison. 'Shakespeare's Bible!' -- I like that the sound of that. :) That's ONE way to sneak books into prison. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What else but books can engage the mind when one is in prison, especially solitary confinement?

      Delete
  3. Very interesting! The importance of reading is well underlined

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Good Friday and Some Arithmetic

Two and two is not always equal to four, my young friend Tony says. 2 + 2 ≠ 4, he reasserts. Tony doesn’t think linearly though his thinking has the precision of mathematical logic. See these two, Tony offers an illustration, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Then add another 2 to them, Ambani and Adani. What do you get? I smile in answer. It’s dangerous to answer Tony verbally. Now, Tony continues, let’s take two beggars from the street. And then add you and me, another two, to them. What do you get? Tony goes on with more arithmetic because he thinks I didn’t get it. (Modi + Shah) + (Ambani + Adani) = 4 persons (Beggar 1 + Beggar 2) + (You + I) = 4 persons Is the first 4 equal to the second 4? T oday is Good Friday. Good Fridays are sad because they are about the victory of vicious political power over simple goodness. Just a few days back, on what’s known as Palm Sunday among Christians, Jesus was led like a hero to Jerusalem, a political fulcrum in those days, by a hu