A different kind of prison

My room has two large windows, through which I watch the world.  I'm not sure you can call a few houses, lush green trees and half a dozen servants working outside a world, but for now it is mine.  It's the weekend and I have no work so I am confined to this room for today, at least.  And I can't really complain, because if confinement is for you, here's as good a place as any for it.

Eldridge Cleaver said: 'those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.' Right now, this particular prisoner would do anything to walk the 500 metres to the local shop to buy a can of coke and a bar of chocolate.  Then this prisoner would sit cross legged on the pavement outside, eating and drinking and feeling the oppressive sun on her head.

Such a journey is impossible for me because I'm a woman and because I'm white.  It's not the done thing for any woman to walk in the street alone. Less so even for a white woman, who would attract buckets of attention.  Meaning possible danger of one form or another.

There is no doubt that part of my imprisonment is a product of politeness to the people who have hosted me.  That and my unwillingness to enter into the cultural norm of 'sending your servant' for what you need.  If I walked out of the house now on my own, no-one would stop me, but they would be upset and worried about me.  Alternatively, I could have my coke and chocolate, but someone would have to go and get them for me, and when I say someone, I mean a servant.  And, stupid as I'm sure it is, I just can't bring myself to do that.  I also must be truthful and mention the lack of friends.  Friends would be able to take me out and show me Lahore, but (only I hope) so far I have very few!

So here I am, as the sun goes down, a window between me and a confusing world. In the most privileged sort of prison there is.  One created by people who worry about my safety, and my own choices.  My prison of marble floors.

Pakistan is a strange place.  No amount of time in a room will help me understand it.  And yet I get the sense that I could spend a lifetime here and still only understand a fraction.  How can I reconcile the people who have made me so welcome with being told that if I walk on the street alone, I will be in grave danger of harm? How can I reconcile my prison of marble floors with the prisons full of torture, corruption and injustice that others face?

A young boy is arrested for murder.  He is tortured for a few weeks before he confesses to the crime. He is told the equivalent of £350 will buy his freedom.  But for this boy, the price is too high.  With no money to mount a defence, he is sentenced to death.   Years later that same man is still on death row.  He cries when he is told that someone is going to take on his case. The thought of any degree of human kindness is so alien to him, that he cannot believe it can be true.  "Why would anyone do that for someone like me?" Someone like me.

I have a great deal to learn about Pakistan and its legal system.  Unsurprisingly, the greatest extremes exist, with everything in between, just perhaps on a grander scale than in the UK.

But as I sit reading about the country in my prison of marble floors, only one thing stops me complaining (too much) about my lack of coke and chocolate:

Someone like me.