“When I first entered the jail premises I had no idea where I had landed. I was hardly 23 years old and though the inmates called me madam, I was very small. We were given no training earlier and were shown the jail only from outside. It was only after I started my job, that I realized how difficult it was”. Shashikala Kadam’s 36 years of service as Matron in the Aguada Jail were not smooth sailing but for her, these are memories of her second home. She was the first one to take up charge in 1970 and fulfilled duties until she retired in 2006.
Kadam was also selected for a job of a nurse during the same time. “My father being a policeman, told me to choose this job and I agreed,” she says while recalling the several instances where she had to put up with fights with the inmates.
“There was no vocational training. I realized they had to be engaged in doing something worthwhile. So I started teaching them to make brooms from coconut leaves. I had learnt it from my mother. There were lots of coconut trees in the vicinity. The sale of these brooms also earned them money. Later a sister called Jean came and taught them to make paper bags,” she informed.
And while Kadam recalls how the women inmates refused to talk during their early days of imprisonment, she also tells of women who were filled with remorse and are now living peacefully. “There was a lady who murdered a small child after stealing her earrings, and was found guilty. She never intended to kill the child but did so with a fear that the child might tell others about the theft. The lady always felt guilty about the crime she had committed and spoke to me. She remained in jail for 15 years.” Then there were also those who never committed a crime yet had to undergo sentence.
In the year 1997, one of the walls in Aguada jail came crashing down due to a heavy downpour. It was the room where the lady inmates were kept. “I had no option but to shift them all into my room and latch it. I then called up the superintendent who rushed to the jail and made alternate arrangements. I was all alone with the inmates surrounding me. They could have done anything to me, says a sturdy Shashikala Kadam as she recalls her 36 years of service.
While she dealt with prisoners day in and day out, she even had to face life threats. “We had certain high profile prisoners who threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t treat them differently,” she said. Not only threats, there were times when prisoners tried to flee and she had to run after them without caring for her life. “One of the woman prisoners ran away and tried to hide in a hole of the prison area. When I spotted her and one of the male officers charged towards her, she caught hold of his neck. Sometimes I even had to beat up such prisoners to get them on track,” she said.
Married to a jailer, Ratnakar Naik who died on duty, Kadam feels sorry when she hears cases of prisoners running away or caught with mobiles and money. “This was not the case during our times. They could not even get a cigarette in and had to buy it in the canteen if needed,” she informed.
For Shashikala Kadam, jail was her second home.
