None of the men in the class had acted in a play or even recited a poem at a school event. Most could not read or memorize a script. But each of these prisoners, some of them jailed for heinous offences, came to Mahmood Farooqui s drama class because they wanted respect and validation. And thus began the improbable journey of a wildly successful prison experiment. Farooqui, a brilliant scholar and acclaimed stage performer, was himself a prisoner, jailed for a crime he steadfastly denied committing and of which he was finally acquitted. Breaking his silence on the darkest chapter of his life, he has written a radiant memoir. The Tihar Players is one of Asia s largest prison seen through the eyes of an erudite, observant, meditative, wickedly funny writer; a lapsed atheist; a voracious consumer of Russian literature; an indefatigable memorizer of epic poems and a deeply emotional man, both fragile and resilient.

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