Thot I would start my writing on my south african trip with the most inspirational part of my journey...Robben Island...the surviving relic of the apartheid era...the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 17 of his 27 years of prison life....now a national monument and a major tourist attraction.....it is located about 22 kms from Cape town and we reached by ferry...
It is ironical that a prison that holed mainly black political prisoners would have the words "we serve with pride" atop its main gateway....as we entered the starkness of the place greeted us...it was bare...no trees, no animals, no life....just a long winding road taking us to the maximum security prison...we were greeted by a former inmate of the prison who was imprisoned for treason when he was 17...he took us through the many nooks and corners of the prison....where the classes were held, where the reception was, where the prison warden used to sit....and finally brought us to the compound where prisoners were made to work...the attached pictures shows this inmate standing behind a row of three pictures......one of which includes a picture of Mandela which apparently was a staged picture where they were given proper clothes......this was also the place where Mandela hid his the first draft of his book "Long walk to freedom"...if one peers closely the trees in the snap is where he hid the book for years...
The next stop was the prison cells..and we were taken to the famous cell of Nelson Mandela..a small cell which held his bed, his desk and a bucket for answering natures call(attached picture)........to think that he lived like this for 27 years was just unimaginable....I wondered whether living in these conditions, Mandela ever thought one day he would get out and people, both black and white, would be able to come and click pictures of his previous room .....We were then taken to the previous prison dorm of the tour guide....Interestingly one of the boards giving details of a prisoner for our benefit was that of a mallu nair called Billy Nair who was arrested for sabotage and whose religion was put as Hindu.....that single moment was enough to give us a snap shot of Indian involvement in South Africa....my aunt proudly told them he is from our village.....
The island had all the facilities for the prion wards and guards- tennis court, church, hospital and schools....a part that apparently the prisoners never got to see.....and the island also housed another leader called Sobukwe.......a leader who had fought longer than even Mandela...and who lost everything including his family..his two children were adopted by Andrew Young who was the Governor of the state of Atlanta... an act that South Africans are grateful for even now....
for the first time i understood the strength of character to actually forgive someone.....it is so much more difficult to not react than to react...so much more difficult to love than to hate someone....this man had imbibed Mandela's teaching of reconciliation and had chosen to forgive his previous enemies...yet one could sense in his words a feeling of helplessness brought about by the paramount question of "why did it have to be this way" ....now he accepted reconciliation as that was the way forward for the country.....
It was simply an honour to see this place...even though I share a country and even a birthday with the man I think I saw more of Gandhi here than I have seen in India.... Gandhi lives on in this country more than he does in India....
I came away from the prison feeling small.... for a person who gets angry if the internet is not working at home i wondered how long I would have survived in a prison of this nature...and most importantly whether I would be able to live in the midst of my wrong doers so peacefully.....
This visit was an inspiring trip...one that I throughly enjoyed....I discovered a unique history of the country that i was visiting...
and I also discovered in myself the long lost girl who once dreamed of making a difference to this world....maybe .... someday ...
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