Listen...

Arrival at the gate to ward number 6 was like arriving at the LAX Tom Bradley terminal. The security screening procedures were brutal and slow. We had to sign in with a guy at a desk then step into a line and sit on the floor until we got called behind a curtain to get our private parts checked for any smuggled items. After the curtain check and getting fondled by the prison guard, we were then let in through the big metal door into the prison. Above the the door, hand painted on the wall, an inspiring legend read: “Thank you for cooperating, your lack of cooperation will be violently punished”
I crossed the door and headed back to chuckee number 8. Another day passed and those three days to freedom were now 6 days of incarceration. I was beginning to understand everyone lies in India. Maybe everyone lies in the world? Human nature is distorted, corrupt, un-healthy. Human nature is anything but natural anymore. It is conditioned to objects, things it can purchase. Everything in human life functions in relation to what a human can buy for itself. Everything else seems to have fallen into an abyss. Sitting in chuckee number 8 where I am nothing more than my human self I started to understand how far we have strayed from being human. Only in this place, where not even my name matters, do I begin to understand how far I have been from myself for all these years. Longing for things instead of loving life as it is. Being tortured by compulsive thoughts of lack and misery instead of fully embracing all that I did have in my life, freedom the most important thing of all. Freedom to move, choose, eat, dance, sing, love, live! What an asshole I have turned into. How numb have I become to the amazing experience of being alive. How hypnotized have I let myself get by the system? It had to all be taken away for me to be able to see it clearly. There are things we can only see when they’re not there, because they leave a space that cannot be filled by anything else. Freedom is such a thing. I was feeling frustrated and angry that our bail had been denied. That another day was wasted. That another Indian lied to me, again. Who was I going to be able to believe in anymore? I felt more alone than ever before. But something in me started awakening. Something I still couldn’t understand.
As I lay to sleep, Hui and Wei sat beside me in our chuckee. Wei was sad too, their bail had also been denied. We were all stuck in jail for who knew how long. We all needed comfort, so Hiu started singing a song in Chinese.
Tianmimi, ni shao de tinamimi
Nide shaorong namelal shushi, wo…
Yi shelal shiangbu chi tianmi
Ni shao de dup tianmi, shini, shini
Wo meng lal de jin chini, chai meng lal li…
I had no clue what the song was saying but it made me feel at ease. It made me feel less lonely and less far from home. She sang it so sweetly and lovingly we all fell fast asleep listening to her sweet voice. Sometimes you just have to stop wanting. And have the ability to just be where you are.

The next morning I woke up with a guard kicking my feet at 5 am. Not a pleasant way to wake up to your already shitty reality. They’d wake us up and haul our buts out to the yard for head count. As if anyone could actually escape those medieval cells we were locked in? The steel barrel bolt went through the foot and half thick wall into a smaller space where a huge medieval lock secured it from outside our cell. We stood in the patio as our heads were counted and waited in line for some hot chai and bread, our breakfast. I don’t think I have ever felt as hopeless in my life. I stood there in the middle of the courtyard on that dark morning and wondered if I was ever going to dance again? Was this going to be my life for the next 10 years? Was I ever going to see my father alive again? I knew that if I was locked up for years he wouldn’t be able to survive the experience. My mother was already in her late sixties, was I ever going to see them again? Life could go any which way at this point. It was terrifying. My own mind was terrifying. I went back into my chuckee and started crying. I couldn’t help it. Hui and Wei stared at me and tried to console me but I was devastated.
I was in jail. My brain could not wrap itself around the experience. My heart felt crumpled up like a piece of waste paper. My hands shook. My voice trembled. I couldn’t eat. I got so upset I started throwing up. I ran to the bathroom and puked my heart out. The smell of rotten stagnant water on the floor helped me puke out the rest of me onto that old broken sink. This was my life. I had to live it. I went back to my room and curled up on the floor like a kitten. I covered my face with my hands and started breathing deeply. I needed to calm my ass down or I was gonna have a heart attack. Then from outside my room I felt someone looking at me. I looked up. It was a young girl. She was holding half a loaf of bread. She extended her half a loaf out to me and smiled. “For you” she said in broken English. “Eat,You ok.” – I couldn’t believe my eyes. She had nothing and offered half of her nothing to me. I politely accepted her loving gift and hugged her. As soon as she left tears flooded my eyes, a strange joy overcame my being. Something was speaking to me through life. I had to start listening.