The Great Escape

By Manuwant Choudhary

Man's greatest ideas are often not in a study but while he sits on a commode...a friend spent hours doing just that...and when we asked him what he did for hours locked up in a toilet..he replied...`I think and plan...'

But plan for what? Plan your day, plan your sex life..marriage...just about everything you can do sitting on a commode but what a commode can do...even I did not not fully comprehend...until recently when four prisoners escaped from a Bihar prison.

And how did they do it?

They planned their escape sitting on a prison commode!

The Bihar police got into action and were happy to re-arrest three of them.

Even the prison superintendant was happy at news of the re-arrest but happy only until they were all brought before the superintendant.

Prison Superintendant, "I could not believe what I saw....They were covered from head to toe with human excreta...some of it even coming out from their mouth...And they smelt..I told the police to keep them at a distance as I questioned about their escape."

They replied, "Madam, simple..we removed the commode and escaped from the sewer..."

The prisoners were sent first for a long scrubby bath before they could re-enter the prison.

But what about the guards? Why didn't anyone notice the escape.

A home guard on duty replies, "Madam, I was looking up at sky at the corner prison wall where my seniors told me to keep strict vigil as they throw cellphones and ganja for the prisoners."

The prisoners are undertrials in several cases of train robbery and murder.

But did anyone outside the prison see them escape?

One eyewitness, ""Yes, I did see them but I thought they were normal people cleaning up the toilets."

Moral of the story - `FOR FREEDOM I DON'T MIND EVEN THE SHIT'.

On a positive note. As a journalist I have always believed that it is possible to make a difference. Not a big difference but small one's and sometimes one hopes they all add up.

But I did wonder whether some of the causes I fought for really mattered years later.

Like once I noticed that there were many women prisoners who even had small babies but the Bihar government had no monetary provision for their milk, food and play or education.

I did a story and raised it with the then Home Commissioner Mr.U. N. Panjiar and he promised the laws would be changed for the babies.

So I asked the prison superintendant whether prison babies get anything and this is what she told me, "Yes, they get milk and mineral water and baby food and even toys."