I am confused. This doesn't look like a cell. It looks like a slightly more orderly motel room. The bed, while basic, seemed comfortable. There were no bars on the windows. The floor looked clean. And the bathroom, though small, did not have an ounce of mold or grime on its surface. I looked over to the small dresser drawer. I thought I would find a Bible, and instead I found a copy of the Communist Manifesto.
"These people worship Marx the same way an Englishman worships God." my father said.
Here, they think political theories will bring me the same spiritual awakening a desperate European can get from Christ. What loons!
****
"That was the day when I realized, that the real prison suit was not the red and black jumpsuit I had been wearing in the last three months, but the Savile Row imitation suit I had worn for the last 4 years. That it was in this so-called prison where I was free."
-Excerpts from When Red Chains Set Me Free
When Red Chains Set Me Free: A Memoir of American Rehabilitation
When Red Chains Set Me Free is a 1996 memoir written by Siride Chatterjee. It recounts Nehru's four months at Sing Sing Rehabilitative Kibbutz, and how his time there gradually turned him from a salaryman to a committed communist. It was later adapted to a 2004 film starring Kal Penn.
Background
Siride Chatterjee was born on November 10, 1964 in New Delhi. After graduating from the University of Delhi in 1987 with a degree in business and working as a clerk at the Tata Group, he was put into an arranged marriage with Aruna, the daughter of a Tata business executive. Chatterjee described his marriage as "more toxic than a cobra", and writes that Aruna would chase after him with a kitchen knife, and that he would often throw bricks at her head. The stress from work and a terrible marriage drove him to alcoholism.
On June 10, 1991, during a vacation to Metropolis, Chatterjee got into a drunken bar fight, where he hospitalized a man with a broken bottle. On July 1, Chatterjee was convicted of assault and sentence to six months to Sing Sing Rehabilitative Kibbutz.
The quality of life, kindness of the staff, and education he received turned Chatterjee into a committed communist. Due to good behavior, Chatterjee's sentence was reduced to four months. Upon his release on November 3, he asked for and was granted residency in the UASR.
Synopsis
Siride Chatterjee is an Indian salaryman, working as a low level clerk for the Tata Group in the city of Bombay. He is overworked by his abusive boss, Jamal Jewerlan, and he gets into several violent fights with his wife Aruna, the daughter of a Tata executive, whom he was forcibly wed to by his parents. The stress from overwork and a failing marriage drives Siride to the bottle.
Out of spite, Jamal sends Siride to a dead end position in Metropolis for several months. To cope with his anger, Siride goes to a small dive bar. After knocking down a few drinks, he gets into a bar fight with a young anarchist who insulted his business suit and called him a wage slave.
A Metropolis judge sentences him to 6 months at Sing Sing Correctional Kibbutz. While awaiting transport to Sing Sing, he learns that he has been fired from his job, and that his wife has filed from divorce from him. During his transport, he is filled with anxiety over what the Reds will do to an Indian bourgeois.
Upon arrival at Sing Sing, the things he finds fill him with both confoundment and frustration. The "prison" lacks border guards or electrified fences. Instead a small picket fence surrounds the facility. His "cell" is relatively clean and his decent appointments. He even can go into town once a week (albeit with an ankle bracelet).
To his anger, he finds himself lorded over by female correctional officers, and. He also exasperated by the various "trust" projects (gardening, construction) he is forced into participating in with his fellow prisoners, and his paid prison job as a short order cook, which his disdainfully considers to be work for the "Dalits". He also is annoyed by the unisex facilities. He also sent a therapist, Doctor Harold Sternberg, who tries to get him to open up about his reasons for drinking.
Early on in his sentence, he frequently gets into scuffles with his fellow prisoners, and angry arguments with the corrections officers who act condescending to him because of him being an "Indian bourgie".
To his shock, he finds that despite doing what he considers "scut work" he is treated better by the corrections officers than he was by his old bosses, despite being the lowest of the low to them. Overtime, he finds himself bonding more and more with his fellow prisoners. In an emotional moment, he breaks down in tears in front of Doctor Sternberg where he opens up about his abusive childhood.
Eventually, he becomes a vociferous volunteer at the various group projects, and slowly starts to embrace American socialism. His good behavior allows him to be released early, but he ends up staying in Ossining.