Andy sure made his mark at Shawshank. He came along, made his mark and left in a dramatic fashion, unlike when he had come in. He got a library built, he played music to the prisoners via the PA system, disobeyed warden Norton a couple of times, called him obtuse to his face and finally screwed him up. He got one of the most notorious guys in the prisoners beaten to pulp by simply being an asset.
Welcome back Andy. He sure was back. Not the Andy who had being cuckolded, not the Andy who was wallowing in self-pity, but the Andy who was not afraid to take risks. The Andy who dared hope when the future was only a bleak dungeon. The Andy who took his wife to a picnic in a field in Buxton and proposed. That is the Andy who was back. The Andy who was not afraid to trample you over. The hurricane had given him a thorough tear down, but sure the storm was over. And when the storm passes on, everything comes back to life.
When I was young, I used to see prisoners as the worst of mankind. The people whom the Bible condemned, whom the priest prayed, and requested us to, pray for every Sunday during mass. The bad people. They killed people, they stole, they did everything bad. I remember one day, I had gone to a market place. Then one of those huge wire fenced lorries pulled up on the side of the road so that the warders could buy some groceries. I looked at the tiny window near the top and saw faces crammed, trying to get a glimpse of the outside world. It was as though they were trying to get a taste of freedom by simply looking at guys going about the daily mundane activities. They pressed against the grill of the jungle green lorry, their faces scaly, their lips dry, but some of them were smiling. Then a woman went near the window and passed pieces of sugarcane via the square spaces. I don’t know how it started, whether a prisoner asked for it, or she simply felt that is the least she could do. Others followed suit, sugarcane and bananas passed through the wire grills. The smiles broadened, some broke into grins, the initially expressionless faces broke out into a smile here, a laughter there. The wardens did not seem to mind. Maybe, the fact that there was no commotion inside the lorry contributed to that. Then I started to see them differently. Only that this time, I didn’t know the exact word to give them. I was not convinced they were human. Only felt that they could be good, at times. Until one of the catholic brothers in the catholic boarding school I attended showed up one day with a van that had a motto, Prisoners are people too.
So sometime towards the end of last year, I happened to find myself in Industrial area remand prison. One of my cousins who live in the shanties around that area had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman. That is when I first experienced what had been planted in my mind the day I saw those prisoners smiling from behind those grilled windows, there could be innocent people in prison. Now my young cousin had indeed wronged that particular lady, he had verbally abused her, the person who had fought with her was a sister to the guy who was behind bars. Apparently, the said lady and my male cousin had an affair which the mother disapproved of. She was older than her by more than ten years. A cougar in every aspect. Somehow, it had not worked out, to the lady’s chagrin. Now it was her chance to get back to him. Unfortunately, I was not of much help, but my aunt, having lived in the slums new how to work the system, and sure the boy was released.
Every man has a breaking point, but for Andy, it was restarting point. He had had enough. He wanted to kick it and get on with it. Life was waiting. He had to get busy living or get busy dying. He did the unexpected, the unimagined. In his entire life, Warden Norton never imagined a prisoner could ever escape from Shawshank. The imposing walls, the brutal guards and most importantly, the thought that you can never manage to escape out of that place had successfully kept the record of break outs at near zero. Till Andy made to carve his name onto the cell wall and the wall chipped easily. Your life is as good as your imagination. The simple knowledge that the wall could chip set Andy on his first step to freedom. True to the warden’s mantra, salvation lay within.
It all depends on how you view the world. To Andy, hope was a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good things dies. Well, philosophically. But to Red, hope was a bad thing. It made you think of things that you would not achieve. And when you fail to achieve them, it leaves you bitter. Like Andy talking of the Pacific, that was “down there”, and yet they were “up here” in Shawshank. But Andy had hope, and a plan. To him, hope was complementary to the plan. For the plan to work, he needed to hope. For without hope, there is no need to attempt anything. Hope is all you could have, it is the only thing that someone cannot get to, touch. It is the place made out of stone. It is hope.
Sometimes we may have the best of intentions, but if we are not informed, we may be doing more harm than good. Heywood, he always intended to help, but ended up doing more harm. However, at times, intentions are all you need.
He called him obtuse, the warden, the most feared man in Shawshank, the one who could make your life hell, or even kill you. Andy called him obtuse to his face. A man doesn’t have to be meek when he knows what he is saying is the truth, or fighting for your life, and the other man is not getting it, or pretending not to. Okay, a little tact is required but at times you may be gripped in the moment that all you see before you is a man who is well, obtuse.
No matter what, try not to be institutionalized. It could be the rat race, it could be in school, it could be the mob mentality. Try to avoid the patterns. Red and Brooks were. That is why they were afraid of the outside. It is hard. Life is funny at times my guy. But try.
Don’t remind a man in power of his Achilles heel, even with the best of intentions, or to show goodwill, or even in the name of brotherliness. Andy told Norton he won’t mention his shady deals once he gets out. He pissed him off big time. Outcome? A long time in solitary. They know you know, mentioning it to them shows you are always thinking about it. And it is not cool to think about it.
Give men what they have really missed over a long time and they will be highly indebted to you. Andy asked for beers for his colleagues in exchange of his help. And they sat and drank on the rooftop with the sun on their shoulders and felt like free men, and they never forgot Andy for being mad enough.
If someone messes you up for his benefit and you get chance to give him a polite payback, please do, but make it loud. The relationship between Andy and Norton is a good study of how men relate. Their competitive nature cannot allow them to leave a humiliation unchallenged, or to keep the other down when you are in a position of power. When Andy got his payback, it was destructive. He took everything away from Norton.
Finally, we are all born free. But some of us have a greater spirit of adventure. It is not a cool thing to keep people chained. When you meet someone, be it a spouse, girl/boyfriend, friend, brother, employee, let people enjoy their freedom, their horizons await and nothing you can do can hold them back. As Red nostalgically says after Andy’s escape
Some birds are not meant to be caged
Their feathers are too bright
And when they fly away
The part of that knows that it was insane to lock them up does rejoice
But still, the place where you live is much emptier when they are gone.
After all has been said, I still wanna ask, how often do you look at a man’s shoes … (though ladies do say they measure a man’s worth by his shoes).
*******
I wrote this after watching the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption starring Morgan Freeman. He is a cool actor, Morgan is. It is a cool movie. I am afraid you have to watch it to understand the gibberish up there.
Native Essays 