num_pages: 287
description: Born in the cradle of upper-middle-class privilege in a Bombay Parsi household and educated at one of India’s finest schools, Kobad Ghandy’s life and career could have scaled heights in the bustling world of corporate finance. Only it did not. Instead, he chose to declass himself and to become a radical activist working for the oppressed of the country. Shocked by the racism he witnessed in the UK as a student and learning of the horrors of colonial rule in India, he determined to serve those struck the harshest by the cruel inequalities of his country.Fractured Freedom takes you through the journey of an honest man and his partner, Anuradha, to a difficult destiny. Here is a story of people who dedicated their lives listening to their hearts pouring with empathy and service for the marginalized, and who believed that true revolution required direct action for a more human and just society. Part memoir, part prison diary, Ghandy bares it all looking back at their lives, love, loss and politics, so intrinsically tied together. Having languished in Indian prisons for over a decade, he tells of his long incarceration, of his fellow prisoners, and of the Kafkaesque experiences with the Indian legal system sending shivers down one’s spine. This is the candid and unfiltered account of how an unjust system breaks the brave and bold hearted. A story of a life in extremes – the height of privilege and the depth of despair, a story of our times, of a path many would shy away from.'Many ask me that while people from my background, in their youth, often turn communist, but, as they grow up, they settle down with family and jobs, leaving their idealism behind – why did you and Anu not follow this norm and trend? Well, I don’t really know; with the comforts we had been used to, it was no doubt, difficult living a frugal existence, traveling in crowded buses and trains and eating simple food. It would have been far easier to settle down with all the inherited wealth. But then, when I think again, would that have given us happiness? Anu was such a natural, honest person she could never have compromised with her convictions. And I would never have been comfortable in the corporate world of greed. So, communism seemed the answer for both of us.’
language: English
title: Fractured Freedom: A Prison Memoir