Mind Without Fear

by Rajat Gupta

  My spirits lifted a little as the holiday atmosphere penetrated even the prison. Inmates bought food items from the commissary to contribute to a special dinner and dessert that the cooks would prepare. Although I wished I was at home surrounded by those I loved, I felt gratitude for my friends inside and for the effort everyone made to brighten the day. The next morning, the first half of my family arrived, since visitors were limited to six at a time: my brother Anjan, my sister Kumkum, my nephew Nikhil, and my nieces Nandita and Natasha. On Saturday, Anita and the girls followed.

  On the legal front, I continued to fight. December brought an interesting development. My lawyers called to tell me about another case that could prove relevant to mine: United States v. Newman had overturned the convictions of two alleged insider traders, and in the process established a new standard for what could be considered “benefit” to a tipper. The case held that the benefit received by a tipper “must be of some consequence” and reflect a true quid pro quo.2 It clearly established that mere friendship was not enough to constitute “benefit” in an insider trading case, and if that was the case, surely it should raise questions about my conviction, given that no substantive benefit had ever been demonstrated. My lawyers immediately requested that I be allowed to file a new appeal, based on this ruling. I did not hold out much hope for our Supreme Court appeal, which was pending, but this seemed more promising.

  The Main Prison

  For the last eight months of my sentence, I was transferred from the camp to the main prison. I had mixed feelings about this move. Given my status, I should not have been sent to this higher security facility, but the counselor had come up with some line about me having “poor living skills” to justify it. On the one hand, it was a better facility with more resources, private cells instead of dorms to sleep in, a large indoor space for walking when the weather was bad, air conditioning, and all-day television. I was given my own cell, with its own sink and toilet, and appreciated the greater privacy. On the other hand, there were greater risks, stabbings were common, movement was more restricted, and the food was awful. And I would leave many friends behind in the camp.

  My new digs didn’t turn out to be too bad. I got used to staring at barbed wire and soon didn’t notice it. I developed a routine and made new friends. We even formed a “dinner club” for the nights when the cafeteria food was particularly bad. We’d purchase various items from the commissary and pay someone to prepare us a meal. One guy introduced himself to me on my first day as Manny, sparking a moment of sadness as I thought about his namesake, my friend Mani in the camp. This new Manny, a Haitian lawyer who was writing a regular column for a Haitian newspaper from the prison, would also become a friend. It was he who first told me, “You must write a book!” In fact, he insisted on helping me get started, listening to my story and making notes and outlines in notebooks from the commissary. We quickly got into the habit of eating meals together and kept up a running game of racquetball.

  Besides Manny, I got to know many of my fellow inmates, and began to interview them and write down their stories. These surprising friendships gave me insights into lives that were vastly different than mine, as well as a glimpse of the underbelly of the criminal justice system and the so-called war on drugs.

  My roommate for a period was a big Puerto Rican guy who was in on a drug charge. The first thing that struck me as I entered the cell we were to share was that he was already settled in the lower bunk. There was no ladder or even a chair from which to climb to the upper bunk, and I did not see how I could do it without injuring myself.

  He must have seen my face, mortified at the situation, for he graciously got up and said, “Please take the lower bunk.” I very much appreciated his kindness. Although he was twenty years younger than me, he was a heavy man and it certainly wasn’t easy for him to get up there.

  My roommate told me he was born in Puerto Rico in 1965 and came to the US at the age of seven. He never finished high school, married an older woman at sixteen, got divorced in his twenties, then remarried and had two children, a boy and a girl, whom he adored. He had a decent job as a truck driver, but a serious accident disrupted his life and rather than returning to the job, he turned to drug dealing. Within days he was busted by a trap: his very first sale was to an FBI informant.

  The draconian drug laws took over. He felt forced to plead guilty and did not go to trial, even though it was a first-time offense and he was caught with a relatively small quantity. He was promised a shorter sentence, but the judge reneged and gave him fourteen years. He had been shuttled from prison to prison; this was his second stint at Devens. After several days of conversation, this proud man admitted to me with shame in his voice that he did not know if his wife wanted to be with him any more. She neither wrote, nor took his calls, or visited, and the same was true of his kids. He was worried that maybe she already had another man.

  This sad story made me appreciate my own loving, loyal family and their commitment to visiting and writing to me. My roommate struck me as a good man, a gentle giant whose faith gave him strength. Without fail he prayed every morning and evening and before every meal. He ate healthy and worked out to stay extremely strong and fit. His only goal was to get out of there as fast as possible and reconnect with his family. But fourteen years is a lifetime. I taught him card games and showed him some basic meditation techniques that I hoped would help him find equanimity through the inevitable trials ahead.

  This story, I would soon learn, was typical of many inmates’. I got to know dozens of men like him during my time in prison. I often marveled that they were still alive, let alone cheerful and kind, after all that they’d been through. Yes, many of them had broken the law, but more often than not the punishment seemed to far outweigh the seriousness of the crime. Double-digit sentences seemed to be routine, and recidivism rates were high. I saw how the cycles of poverty, addiction, abuse, and mental illness feed into one another and set people up to fall on the wrong side of the law. It made me think a lot about destiny—where the cards fall for each of us, and how much control we have over our own fate in the face of circumstance. Could these men have lived different lives? Perhaps. But it would have been hard. Would I have done differently had I been born into a family or a community like theirs? What did it take to win true freedom from what Tagore called “the anarchy of destiny”?

  What also struck me, over and over again, in the stories of my fellow inmates, were the terrible flaws in the justice system. So often, there was rampant prosecutorial overreach, and the misuse of plea-bargaining. “We’re going to send you away for twenty years,” was a common threat, even when the evidence was thin. “But give us the names of three other people, and we’ll get it down to five.” And so these guys gave out names, and more people went to jail, some deservedly, some not. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with almost 2.3 million people behind bars, one in five of them for drug-related offenses.3 These men left behind families, children, often spiraling down into further cycles of poverty and crime in the absence of their breadwinner. Some of them would live out most of their able lives behind bars. Surely there was a better way.

  These issues weighed heavily on my mind during my time in prison, and my feelings toward my adopted country were deeply conflicted. America is clearly a land of opportunity, a land where immigrants can succeed, meritocracy holds, and hard work pays off. It had afforded me an education and a career, and given me and my family a standard of living we could never have achieved at home. For all of this, I felt very much in America’s debt. Yet the same country that had given me so much had taken away my freedom as punishment for a crime I did not commit. And now I was witnessing the incarceration crisis first-hand. How could this coexist with the America I had grown to love and respect? Before long, my consultant’s mind was hard at work devising a new and better criminal justice system on the back of cafeteria napkins.

  Cards with Raj

  There were many more inmates in the
main prison than there had been in the camp, but very soon my attention was drawn to one in particular: Raj Rajaratnam. Just like that day when I’d seen him in the visiting room, a strange mix of feelings passed through me at the sight of him. I could not help but hold him accountable, to a large degree, for getting me into this mess. Yet I did not feel bitterness or anger toward him. I also felt sorry for him—he did not look well at all.

  We had not spoken since early 2009, but I figured if we were going to spend the next several months locked up together, we should talk some things through. So we took a walk around the prison. He seemed uncomfortable and was quick to defend himself when I brought up the Voyager affair. I had to remind him that he was the reason I was in here, for a crime I never committed. But I also thanked him for not fingering me to reduce his own sentence. I thought that this demonstrated character. It was clear I was not going to get an apology from him—he’s just not the type. Anyway, I had forgiven him. From then on, we coexisted, even playing the occasional game of cards, chess, or Scrabble. We never discussed the case again.

  On the whole, despite its dark moments, my time in prison is most memorable for the camaraderie, courage, and humanity of the people I came to know. Even though the authorities try to ensure that prison does not become a community, most of us look after each other and help whenever we can. This is remarkable given the stress everyone is under and the long sentences most inmates have to endure. As with anything in life, my incarceration had its ups and downs; its good, bad, and ugly; its harsh reality and its tender moments. I would not wish it on anyone, but it was one of the most interesting times of my life. And the most interesting part of all was the part that seemed the harshest and most unfair: a second stay in solitary confinement, midway through my sentence, lasting for seven full weeks.

  18

  The Gita and the SHU

  Never be afraid of the moments—

  thus sings the voice of the everlasting.

  —Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, 59

  FMC Devens correctional facility, Massachusetts, April 16, 2015

  “It’s my Bible.”

  I used my most firm and authoritative voice, looking the prison guard steadily in the eye and daring him to question the validity of my religious text. On the table between us sat my copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Hindu holy book containing profound teachings on the nature of the self and the path to liberation, recounted through a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield. The guard held my stare for a moment, then dropped his gaze and pushed the book back across the table toward me. I gathered it to my chest, breathing a sigh of relief. I might be going back to solitary, but this time I would not be alone.

  It was April, almost a year into my prison stay, and the day had started out with a feeling of hope. As I walked the track between breakfast and the morning count, enjoying the mild spring sunshine, I was feeling quite content—until I returned to find my bunk-mate anxiously waiting to tell me that the counselor was mad at me and coming to shake me down.

  I had no idea what I’d done wrong, but I knew that if he wanted to find a reason to punish me, he would, no matter how carefully I’d been following the rules. Sure enough, he did, this time in the form of a pillow. On searching my bunk, his eyes lighted on the offending object, which a fellow inmate had helped me stitch together using towels purchased from the commissary, to support my back.

  “What is this?” he demanded, brandishing the pillow. I tried to explain, but to no avail. Never mind that it had been sitting there in plain sight for months; he declared it to be “contraband”—an unauthorized object. He was writing me up, he told me, rather than simply confiscating the pillow. “I will report the incident to internal security and they will take whatever action is appropriate.” My heart sank. I knew that was code for a trip to the SHU.

  This time, I knew the drill, but I was still frozen with shock. Mani came by, full of concern, reminding me that he’d warned me some days earlier that the counselor was mad. I’d tried my best to play by the rules, but there were so many of them, and they were so inconsistently applied, that sooner or later I always seemed to trip up. I cursed myself for being careless. But this wasn’t the moment for recriminations. I might only have minutes left, and I needed to call Anita.

  It was a hard call to make: if the infraction seemed arbitrary to me, after ten months in this place, it was incomprehensible to my wife. I tried my best to assure her that I’d be okay, but I didn’t know how long I would be gone or when I would next be able to call. “Tell my lawyers,” I instructed her. “They’ll be allowed to speak with me even in the SHU.”

  Back at my bunk I found my friends gathered to help me pack my stuff. My first priority was to take down the precious photographs that papered the underside of the bunk above my head. I’d spent hours carefully disassembling an album Sonu had sent and creating this collage of loving faces; now I had just minutes to take it down, trying not to tear the pictures. My handful of possessions went into plastic bags, my commissary food was divided among my friends, and my valuables went to Mani for safekeeping. Awad, another friend, came running in and offered me his radio, since mp3 players were not allowed in the SHU.

  When the packing was done, Dave said, “Let’s have our ice cream.” It was Thursday, after all. “Don’t worry,” he tried to reassure me, “it’ll just be a few days. You’ll be back here for ice cream next week.” But we both knew the system was unpredictable. As we sat in his cubicle, enjoying our sweet, cold treat in silence, we couldn’t escape the possibility that we might not see each other for some time. Who knew when we’d be able to resume our weekly ritual. Mani, too, said goodbye as if this parting could be an extended one. We promised to keep in touch, no matter what happened.

  The guards still hadn’t showed up, so I decided to take one last walk. With each step, I reflected on the many peaceful hours I’d spent on the track—the sunrises and sunsets, the brilliance of the fall foliage, the bitter cold. Then my name rang out on the loudspeaker and it was time to go.

  Four cops came to pick me up. When I told them the nature of my transgression, they laughed out loud. A pillow? I didn’t think it was funny, since I had no opportunity to appeal this ludicrous charge. I gathered a few items I hoped to take with me: Awad’s radio, a list of phone numbers, a book on Pranayama yoga, and the Bhagavad Gita. Not surprisingly, the guards objected, but I held firm, and while the radio was confiscated, I was allowed to keep my sacred texts. Clutching the two books in my cuffed hands, I followed the guards away from the facility that had come to feel like home.

  Upon arrival at the SHU, I was issued an orange jumpsuit, underwear, and canvas shoes. Another attempt was made to take away my books, but I repeated my insistence that this was my Bible, and once again it seemed to work. I was taken to a cell just like the one I’d occupied before: twelve by eight feet, cold steel bunks, thin, lumpy, plastic-covered mattress, shower, basin, and toilet all exposed. How had I ended up here again? In a state of shock, I took the mattress from the upper bunk and laid it on top of the one on the lower bunk, and collapsed.

  Sannyasin

  Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. Hoping to banish the pointless self-recrimination that consumed me, I picked up the Gita. The version I’d brought contained the original Sanskrit text, an English translation, an English transliteration, and then commentary. Although I was familiar with many parts, I had never read the entire Gita from beginning to end in its original form. This was an opportunity, I told myself, to immerse myself in the scripture. I even managed to summon up a sense of gratitude: maybe the injustice of this confinement would be a catalyst for deeper spiritual growth, like a retreat. It struck me as strangely appropriate that the SHU uniforms were orange, since this was the color of the robes worn by renunciates, or sannyasins, in the Hindu tradition.

  With no material possessions besides my Gita and one other book on the tradition of yoga, I felt a momentary kinship with generations of seeker
s who had given up their worldly life for a life of the spirit. I had not done so by choice, of course, but I could embrace the outcome nonetheless. When feelings of despair, rage, and helplessness closed in on me, I would return to my reading, determined to use this ancient wisdom to rise above the degradation and indignity of the SHU. Every day, I studied my Gita, immersing myself in the ideals that had inspired my country’s great sages and heroes.

  That first night, I began with the opening chapter, which contains a long and detailed description of the battlefield of Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata (the great war between good and evil). Although impatient to get to the spiritual heart of the book, I enjoyed the colorful scenes and the beautiful poetry. Keeping my voice low, I read aloud to myself, taking great pleasure in the powerful vibration of the Sanskrit diction. Soon, the cell walls faded, and I was transported into the chariot with Krishna, an incarnation of God, and Arjuna, the great warrior.

  Chapter two opens with Arjuna declaring to Krishna, his charioteer, that he cannot take up arms against his cousins and other relatives who make up the opposing army. This begins one of the greatest sermons delivered in human history. Krishna explains to Arjuna the notion of the One everlasting soul (Atma). “Never is this One born, and never does It die; nor is it that having come to exist, It will again cease to be,” he declares. “This One is birthless, eternal, undecaying, ancient; It is not killed when the body is killed.”1

  Lying in my cell, these familiar words took on a deeper meaning for me and provided great comfort. All the trials of my life began to seem less harsh when considered in light of the immortality of the soul. The idea that there is something within me that is beyond the physical, intellectual, or emotional ups and downs we all go through and that my life force is connected with some universal force and is immortal somehow made it so much easier to accept being in the SHU. My current incarceration was merely a passing shadow. Even the deaths of my parents appeared in a new context. The shedding of their bodies did not mean they ceased to exist. One verse described death as being like the Self taking off a set of worn-out clothes before putting on new ones. I meditated deeply on these ideas, until at some point in the night, I fell into a deep sleep with the open Gita resting on my chest.