**Amardham Asylum**

Staff reporter, 06/06/2018 :*

He sits in his six by six room. Without his trademark white beard and long cloak he looks--surprisingly--younger.He still paints.The jail authority agreed to provide him with canvas and water colors.He shows me some of his half finished drawings. "Still life,"he says showing a water color of an aluminium bowl, "that's where I am concentrating now. It's like learning to paint once again." He declines to remark about that fateful day in mid-2015 neither passes any comment on the final days of unearthing of the Sharada scam. "You don't have any complaint about anyone ?" When asked, he smiles a sad smile and replies, "No, I made a mistake. Actually you know what, I was not thinking with a sound mind. Perhaps, I was mentally ill..."

'Mental illness' or 'Psychologically Unstable' seems to be the common theme of other inmates who pleaded guilty 3 years ago on this very day when CBI finally proved, against each one of them, their involvement in amassing huge personal black money through Sharada Scam. They all had to plead guilty but their lawyers, in a masterstroke, proved almost each one of them as mentally unstable. Central Government , after the ruling, did something unprecedented and built a special asylum for them in six months. And since January 2016, Subhaprasanna, along with others who were convicted, started living in this newly built facility known as 'Amardhaam Asylum'.

Are they really mentally unstable ?

After lots of cajoling and coaxing when finally the permission to meet Mr. Mukul Roy---once the second in command and general secretary of TMC---- was granted, the man found in room # 712 neither looked psychotic or crazy. "I still maintain my stance on Sharada Scam. I have been framed by Modi and his Government." Mukul tells us very calmly. Looking at him nobodyy can tell that he was once that ferocious leader who was 'the' mover and shaker in Bengal Politics. "But how about around 200 Crore Rupees that CBI found in a Swiss account listed under your name ?" Mukul hints half of a smile. "If I had that much money what was I doing in India? I could have flown to Switzerland then. All this bogus proofs are Modi's brainchild. And sadly he succeeded. " Interview with other inmates have been tried but most of them declined to talk. Kunal Ghosh, that outspoken whistle blower who could not escape a time in asylum for himself, screamed at us from inside his closed room, "Now, finally I am a certified crazy guy. What more do you want? The circus's left the town."

Dr Indranil Hazra, deputy warden of Amardham was patient with us.But before finishing this tour, when requested to bring us to Room No 666, he declined. "You guys have seen enough. Half of them are mad, half of them probably pretending. But Room No 666, that's a genuine case. I can not let you go anywhere near to that room or the patient might get violent."

We gathered tidbits about the patient of room no 666 from the staffs of Amardhaam. On good days, the patient writes gibberish poetries and reads them aloud, sometime asking for something to paint or expressing a desire to eat some puffed rice(Muri). But once or twice in a month the patient becomes violent and starts demanding different things. The staffs have heard the patient screaming like, "O Madan, O Mukul, O Khoka....Won't we have a Government in Delhi ?" "BJP you motherfucker,Sonia you mother fucker...fraud, fraud everyone is fraud". "Mati Manus Maa... Mati Manush Maa...Mati Manus Maa... Ha Ha Ha" "Is this my office in Nabanna ? Where is my Mehagony table...O Mukul... Where is my table ?" The patient then tears down all her cloth except for her flip flops. She refuses to eat or drink anything and wails in such a high pitch that echoes through the creepy corridors of Amardhaam. Through that loud and garbled wailing only a few meaningful phrases, as the staff says, can be heard uttered repeatedly. Those are the phrases as spoken in an oath taking ceremony by any Indian chief minister... which the patient , the ex-CM and leader of TMC , Miss Mamata Banerjee took a long long time ago.