Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘After the pandemic began, they suddenly shut down the prisons; for three months, we did not know what was happening.’
‘There were no phone calls, no letters, no news from inside.’
‘We were struggling to get any kind of information about them, about their health.’
Your mother is in jail.
You are outside, doing everything possible to secure her release.
Then, COVID strikes.
And, for nearly three months, in the outside world, you are seeing the devastation it has wrought.
And, every second, you are wondering how your mother is surviving the dreaded disease within those prison walls.
But you don’t know.
The situation is chaotic and you have no word.
That is the trauma that Koel Sen, film-maker, columnist and daughter of Professor Shoma Sen, one of the 16 arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case, went through in the first half of 2020.
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Also read:
● Part 2: When Your Mother Is In Prison… (Rediff.com / May 25)
● Part 1: ‘It is very difficult to see my mother like this’ (Rediff.com / May 2022)