“The sky is grilled. The iron bar sky, you can see, but you can’t see moon or sun.” Dr GN Saibaba, 48, an English lecturer (under suspension) of Delhi University, is not reading poetry. He is recalling his worst nightmare, one that he’s lived and survived for the past two years. He’s left that jail cell, but its horrors seem to be welded to him and his wheelchair.

Saibaba was arrested from Delhi University in May 2014, and charged under Section 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act . Under this section of the UAPA anyone who is a member of an unlawful organisation or a terrorist group, can be prosecuted. He spent over a year in police custody, before the Bombay High Court released him on bail in early July 2015. The three-month bail was extended for another three months, till December 2015. His lawyers were also asked to go and get permanent bail from the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court,  which had the territorial jurisdiction over this case. The bench cancelled Saibaba’s interim bail on 23 December 2015, and asked him to surrender. This was six days before the interim bail was to expire. He went from Delhi to surrender at Nagpur.  Meanwhile, his lawyers had approached the Supreme Court for permanent bail too. The SC granted permanent bail on Monday April 4 2016.

Even though Saibaba has been home for nearly two weeks, wrapped in the security of a permanent bail, the professor who was arrested on suspicion of being a Naxal, finds it hard to return to his normal routine.

“I spent two years in that cell,” said Saibaba, speaking to Newslaundry at his home in New Delhi. This was one of the first interviews he was giving since his release. Upon being granted bail, the first few days were spent going to hospital because the years in Nagpur Jail have been violently detrimental to Saibaba’s fragile health. “The diagnosis is that my heart walls are now thickened because of hypertension and irregular medicines,” he said. “I am not able to digest food because I have gall bladder and kidney problems.” Saibaba has to visit two hospitals every day.  “When I was in prison, the family survived on bare minimum expenses,” he said. “With me here, it is more expensive because I need a car, a driver, I have medical expenses to meet. In jail, I had fewer expenses, that is the irony,” he says.

The physical blows, however, are perhaps relatively easier to bear. “I am not able to respond to the outside world as naturally as I used to, as yet,” he said. Despite all the hardship, Saibaba has found he has become used to the high walls of the small cell. The rented apartment in Delhi that he’s living in doesn’t feel entirely comfortable yet and his wife, Vasantha, hovered around him constantly . “I have not been able to [sleep]. I am not at home, or outside. It’s a very strange thing,” said Saibaba.

What Saibaba still feels around him is the infamous Anda Cell of Nagpur Jail. This egg-shaped, high-walled structure was built in a few Central Jails in the 1980s, according to Saibaba. They’re reserved for the toughest inmates awaiting trial or those who have been convicted. The Anda Cell is, as its name suggests, shaped like an egg. It’s closed on three sides and only the top is open. Saibaba, who is over 90% disabled, spent the last two years of this life in one. “Only the top is left open with iron grills,” he said. “So, whether it is rain or sun, it will come directly on top of you, but you can’t see anything.”

As Saibaba is unable to move on his own, unless he crawled on the floor, he was allowed his wheelchair and two adivasi undertrials volunteered to help him when needed. Saibaba said he needed help for everything. It was for the first time in his 48-years that Dr GN Saibaba says he felt like a handicapped person despite being wheelchair-bound for over 25 years. He is ailing, intellectually, emotionally and physically. “I fell unconscious two times in the jail and there was no treatment.”

How does someone stay sane in these circumstances? For Saibaba, there were two saviours: books and his family. However, both were taken away from him, even though legally he was entitled to both reading material and contact with his family. When recalling the one time Vasantha came to visit Saibaba in jail, he said, “That was a horrible experience. We were almost in tears. She was asked to sit in front of me in a chair, two officers stood between us and we had to talk from between them. I knew this was going to happen and she would be disappointed, I would be disappointed, and this pain would be much larger [than] if we don’t meet.”

Lawyers’ visits were entangled in so much red-tape that they too kept their visits to a bare minimum. “You see they wanted to discourage people to come and meet me,” said Saibaba. “Earlier, my mother, daughter, and brother used to come. They would get books, medicines, news clippings.” Perhaps realising that Saibaba enjoyed these simple gifts, the jail authorities took all these first and read them before handing over some of what was brought for him. They would tell him he wasn’t allowed to keep books in his cell, but Saibaba knew his rights. “There was a Mumbai High Court order that prisoners should be allowed to keep as many books as they want,” he told Newslaundry, pointing out that there was a judgement that allowed those in jail to keep as many books as they want and to write articles. However, his jailers were unmoved. “Basically, it is to intimidate you, to remind you every moment that you are a prisoner,” he said. There were frequent raids conducted in his cell and whatever he wrote was confiscated. “So, I stopped writing. I had written letters, to my family, to the president of my organisation, Varavara Rao. I posted through the jail authorities. They never reached; they never came back to me. I used to maintain a journal which was taken away.”

Warmth and hope came from unexpected places. In Nagpur Jail, Saibab realised that there was a jail slang and one of its terms was “Naxalite”. “It is not derogatory, it is a respected term [among prisoners],” said Saibaba. “When they started saying ‘Naxal, Naxal’, I was wondering [if] they are abusing me.  Slowly, I understood that it is a respectable term for them.” For the inmates of Nagpur Jail, Naxalites are educated, urban men who could solve their problems. “I don’t [know] what gives them this idea,” said Saibaba. “‘Naxal’ prisoners in that prison are maybe more educated, and can talk to the officials. So, they have a lot of respect.”

Outside jail, respect seems to be harder to come by. Since his arrest, and in keeping with protocol, Saibaba is under suspension from Delhi University. His family was forced to leave the official quarters and they now live in a rented apartment near the hospitals he needs to visit. The generosity of friends and well-wishers has helped enormously. Saibaba has informed the university that he has got bail and is back in Delhi undergoing medical treatment. “I would like to come back to the university, once I can go back to work,” he says, adding that the revocation of his suspension is a technical matter. The University knows of the developments in his case and has paid most of Saibaba’s medical bills, as is his entitlement. Yet it’s also true that Saibaba was arrested from campus, after raids were conducted on his University-allotted residence. According to the Central University Act, the police and intelligence officers could not have conducted the raid without the Vice Chancellor’s permission, and Saibaba knows this but he chose his words carefully when speaking about the role of the university. “I was arrested from the campus,” he said. “This could not have happened without the VC’s permission, but we don’t have any record to show that VC gave the permission.  If the police did not take the permission of the VC, it was a violation of the University Act and if the VC permitted, then it shows the VC’s part in the entire witch-hunt.”

Saibaba has left it to his lawyers to work out if the University should be included in their case.

Although getting bail on medical grounds has been a tremendous relief for the former professor, there’s a long road ahead as far as his trial is concerned. For now, though, what matters most to him and his wife is to exorcise the memories of Anda Cell, from both his mind and his body.