Kopal Khanna relays her impressions and insights of working in an Indian jail in her novel “Almost Whole”.
Story by: Kopal Khanna
“If I could find words to describe how I felt back then my pen would write them down but our language hasn’t reached where our emotions have and hence, certain emotions can’t be written down they can merely be felt.” – Almost Whole
In the summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to teach women inmates and their children in a jail located near Lucknow, my hometown in India. I still remember my first day at work; the huge iron gates and just the mere thought that I was going to be working with a group of outlaws gave me chills. However, back then, I did not have even the slightest clue that the people here would go on to have a very profound impact on the way I looked at life and what I wanted to do with mine.
Over the three months that I spent visiting the jail, I learnt a lot of things and I wanted to share the insights I gathered. Thus, I wrote my first novel, Almost Whole, a work of fiction inspired by the stories I heard from the inmates. Almost Whole revolves around a 23-year-old free spirit who is in the jail and finds companionship in an 11-year-old wonder seeker. Their bond and journey to feeling whole are the focuses of the novel.
Almost Whole examines the social and legal issues surrounding the women inmates and their children as well as their emotional journeys. The most important lesson I learned and wrote about in my novel is finding happiness in the smallest of things. I found that the inmates were hopeful and giving and every single day they taught me how to be the same way. They offered me food when they themselves hardly had any; they gave me reasons to laugh when they were going through the most turbulent phases of their lives. Some of the inmates hadn’t heard from their families in over five years and others hadn’t had a fair trial in the jail. However, they continue to persevere since they consider that to be the only way forward. As written in Almost Whole, “so many people [were] just waiting, longing, seeking, praying, hoping, yearning and wishing. Things with no definite end. You could go on doing these things forever; things that are endless, but you still do them because that is the only option left.”
The most incredible thing to me was the children who stayed in the jail with their mothers. They were in confinement through absolutely no fault of their own and yet hadn’t lost that curiousness and naïveté of a child. Many children bombarded me with questions every time I went to the jail and I was amazed by how inquisitive they were.
I couldn’t have kept these beautiful stories with me and hence, I decided to write about them. You can learn more about my novel and how to purchase it here.
Kopal Khanna is a graduate student in the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and from India.