Writing off the past

Writing off the past: "nmates of Kolkata’s Alipore jail pen down their hopes and anger in the literary journal, Nabarka.

The jail log tucked under his left arm, Utthan Paul, in his clean grey shirt and brown trousers, has the air of a small-town schoolteacher about him. His “room” is a short walk from the imposing gates of the Alipore Central Correctional Home in south Kolkata. As you follow his five-foot-tall, rotund frame down a quiet alley inside, it takes you past a low iron gate beside a signboard that reads “Hanging Area”. It makes you stop, and think, especially about the implications of the surreal pink, green and blue hand-painted paisleys adorning the board. Paul intervenes helpfully. “Look behind you. People like BC Roy, Netaji and Jagadish Chandra Bose were held by the British in those rooms at the top,” he says with a smile, intent on putting a stop to the flurry of questions running in your head. After 16 years of serving a life term, Paul is a deft mind reader. And a part-amused, part-cynical spectator of life and society — a personality that translates into his sharp essays that have been published in the literary magazine Nabarka (New Sun), brought out by the West Bengal Department of Jails."