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Thursday, March 25, 2010

View of Port Blair from atop the Cellular Jail watchtower

The Cellular Jail may have had an infamous past, but the views from atop the watch tower are simply stunning.

There are satellite dishes amidst coconut trees nearby. Then we have the bluish green waters of the Bay of Bengal. And in the yonder, we have the views of many tropical islands that are dense and green.

Very picturesque indeed!

Cellular Jail Museum – Remembering the infamous past

As I kept wandering about the various wings and corridors of the Cellular Jail, I came upon the Cellular Jail Museum.

This is where one can see life size models that depict the life of a Cellular Jail inmate.

The prisoners were punished in various ways. For a certain type of crime, they were whiplashed by the jail officers and made to break huge rocks into small stones for hours.

Then, the other punishment was to strip the prisoner, make him stand on the main portico and whiplash him till he fell unconscious. This was done to send a lesson of fear to the other jail inmates.

Then, the most infamous one was to get the prisoner to grind groundnut/palm oil and whip him if he stopped due to fatigue or pain.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Cellular Jail Gallery!!

The Cellular Jail at Port Blair, which is a national heritage site features great galleries.

Painters and artists alike from all over the country have contributed their works here.

These paintings in the Cellular Jail gallery are not only fabulous in design and taste, but are also monumental in helping tourists visualize life in the jail and outside (around Port Blair) during pre-independence days.

While some paintings illustrate the atrocities meted out to the Indian prisoners, the others provide chronicles of the lives of Indian freedom fighters.

Then there are some that show fights between the bows and arrows of the local Andamanese tribes and the guns of the British officers.

Cellular Jail at a glance!!

Most Indians would have heard about the infamous Cellular Jail or the Kaala Pani punishment.

This is where the British during pre-independence days made the Indian freedom fighters suffer for standing against them.

And, what suffering it was!! I literally cringed at the sights when I visited the Cellular Jail that is being maintained as a National Heritage Monument at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

The buildings are like dungeons. The narrow corridors and the narrower dimly lit jails are awe-inducing.

The two-floored gallows are also a very disheartening sight. But, if one were to see this all from the sight of a building, then one would hardly feel anything. They would just be seeing brick and mortar.

But, if one were an Indian, and even better, if they know the history of Cellular Jail, then seeing these will bring out one’s patriotic spirit and would ooze hatred against the British and the Indian servants who followed their wicked orders.

The atrocities and the punishments meted out to the denizens of this jail would make even the strongest person cringe in pain.