Ahmedabad, Sept. 19: Bharat Parmar is 36 and looking to start his life anew with a clutch of degrees and diplomas when he gets out of jail in November.
Sentenced to life in 1991, Parmar has waited 14 years to make up for time that was lost but not wasted.
He has been hard at work, studying at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) study centre that was opened at the Sabarmati Central Jail here in 1994.
Parmar is ready to face a ?new world? that he believes ?has changed beyond his imagination? but even his eight degrees and diplomas have not conquered his nervousness.
He is apprehensive about his ?acceptability in society? because of his ?murderer tag? and the ?uncertain future? that it could spawn.
Parmar regrets the events of October 8, 1990, when he was found in Bhavnagar with the body of his ?girlfriend? after he refused to marry her. She had left home after a quarrel with her father, vowing never to return.
The girl was found poisoned and Parmar was arrested on the charge of murder and subsequently convicted.
All his hopes are now pinned on his Bachelor?s degree in English, Master?s in library and information science, post-graduate diplomas in translation and distance education, and certificates in food and nutrition, computing, and PC software.
Parmar also has an ace up his sleeve, an MBA in human resource management from Ignou. He is in the fourth semester and will complete the course in June 2005 before applying for a job.
He is, however, aware of his limited choice. ?I know, being a convict, government job is ruled out. The options now open are only NGOs and private companies,? he says.
Parmar knows the stigma is going to make the job-hunt ?difficult?. ?But I know there are companies that are least bothered about one?s background, past record, if one can deliver. I will have to look for such a company and prove myself.?
Parmar, who has set a benchmark for fellow inmates and made jail authorities proud, is not the only one who is working for a turnaround.
Fifty-four other convicts are slogging at Ignou?s jail study centre. At least, eight have got degrees and diplomas ? ranging in number from four to five each ? in subjects such as disaster management.
They stay together in a separate barrack, equipped with a television set, VCR, audio cassettes and study material.
The most popular among the lot -- or for that matter in the entire jail -- is Parmar, who also monitors the study centre.
Everybody (3,600 inmates; 70 per cent under trial), he says, recognises and respects him, including the jail authorities who project him as a ?success story?.
He was not always one. Parmar recalls the first few months after his arrest when he was depressed. He overcame the blues by becoming an avid reader of spiritual books. He says he soon realised that ?what has happened had to happen. It was destined?.
The man from a middle-class family in Bhavnagar used to be a supervisor with the district-based Excel Industry. He had joined it soon after completing a diploma in electrical engineering.
But that?s the past. Parmar is now looking forward to the day when he will be free and the only concession he will make for the past is remembering the jail where he studied and dreamt of a new life.
