ANIMALS IN PRISON
JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889-1964), India's First Prime Minister was popular among the children as 'Chacha Nehru'. He was a man of rare sensitivity. Educated at Horrow and Cambridge University, he became a barrister after studying Natural Science and Law and Returned to India in 1921. Deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, he joined Indian Politics and soon emerged as a leader of the country's youth. However, he was not a mere politician; he was also a dreamer, idealist, humanist and artist in words as well. His works- An Autobiography, The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History and Letters from a Father to his Daughter- are remarkable for a rare vigour and beauty. They establish him as a master of English prose. While in prison before Independence, he read books, observed nature, dreamt at times, and wrote in his powerful and poetic style about all that he thought and felt.His elegant poetical prose is best captured in his autobiography. The following extract, taken from An Autobiography, reveals Nehru's love for nature. It is remarkable how he derives pleasure from watching different animals and gives respect even to the tiniest animals. The piece is a wonderful of 'live and let live'.
ANIMALS IN PRISON
- For fourteen and a half months lived in my little cell or room in the Dehra Dun Gaol, and I began to feel as if I was almost a part of it . I was familiar with every bit of it: l knew every mark and dent on the whitewashed walls and on the uneven floor and the ceiling with its moth-eaten rafters. In the little yard outside I greeted little tufts of grass and odd bits of stone as old friends.I was not alone in my cell, for several colonies of wasps and hornets lived there, and many lizards found a home behind the rafters, emerging in the evenings in search of prey .If thoughts and emotions leave their traces behind in the physical surroundings, the very air of that cell must be thick with them, and they must cling to every object in little space.
- I had had better cell in other prisons, but in Dehra Dun I had one Privilege which was very precious to me. The gaol proper was a very small one, and we were kept in an old lock-up outside the gaol walls, but within the gaol compound. This place was so small that there was no room to walk about in it and so we were allowed, morning and evening, to go out and walk up and down in front of the gate, a distance of about hundred yards, we remained in the gaol compound , but this coming outside the walls gave us a view of the mountains and the fields and a public road at some distance. This was not a special privilege for me; it was common for all the A and B Class prisoners kept at Dehra Dun. Within the compound, but outside the gaol walls, there was another Small building called the European Lock-up .This had no enclosing wall, and a person inside the cell could have a fine view of the mountains and the life outside. European convicts and others kept here were also allowed to walk in front of the gaol gate every morning and evening.
