Ravaneshwaram was not a place; it was a concept of suffering. The prisoners were made to break rocks under a sun that peeled their skin like overripe mangoes. The food was rice water with a single piece of kayal (dried fish) a week.
One night, during a cyclone, when the watchtower lights flickered, Chandran made his move. He scaled the western cliff—the "Devil's Throat"—where no one had tried because the fall was three hundred feet into rocks.
The year was 1968. In the bustling port of Kochi, where the smell of fish and cinnamon mixed with diesel fumes, lived a young man named Chandran. He was not a thief by nature but a sailor by blood. However, a single night of betrayal changed everything. A bag of smuggled gold was planted in his dinghy; a jealous cousin whispered to the police. Chandran was arrested not for what he did, but for what someone feared he would become.
