Taking a break from a stressful work schedule or from the demands of caring for a newborn child is a familiar need for most people. Small breaks are opportunities to refocus one’s energies. There may be a call during intense negotiations to take ‘take five’, a term based on the time taken to smoke a cigarette.

Slightly longer breaks are recommended for personal conflicts that reach an impasse, such as a quarrel that is in danger of escalating, or a problem whose solution evades one. People are asked to sleep on it, look at it again with fresh eyes. People in high-powered jobs look forward to their annual vacation, often marketed as escapes or getaways.

There is a whole other world of stepping back from the all-enveloping pressures of everyday life. Retreats for artists unlock creative energy. Nuns and monks go on retreats to focus on devotion. Ashrams are spiritual retreats for people of all faiths or those searching for something to believe in. Hermits or anchorites are extreme cases of living in complete isolation, often in the wilderness, on islands, in forests or isolated mountain tops.

Some retreats take the form of chillas, or 40-day periods of complete withdrawal from the world. Chilla-nashini is practised by Sufis to remove all unnecessary worldly thoughts and needs, to allow a higher Truth to reveal itself to them. One of the most famed chilla-nashini was that of the Persian poet Hafiz Shirazi, undertaken at the age of 60. He sat for 40 days and 40 nights inside a circle he had drawn, finally attaining ‘cosmic consciousness’.

While we all seek out periods of respite to recharge, for some people isolation is enforced. But that too can spur creativity

Gautama Buddha reached enlightenment after sitting under the bodhi tree for 49 days. In Hindustani classical music, chilla kaatna is a training ritual where the student isolates himself from the world to focus exclusively on his music. Abdul Karim Khan, the 19th century singer and founder of the Kirana Gharana, described chilla as “lighting a fire under your life. You either cook or you burn. If you cook, everyone can enjoy your flavour — otherwise, you’ll be a mass of cinders, a heap of ash.”

Forty seems to be a magical number to attain spiritual knowledge across cultures and religions. The Prophet Moses spent 40 days and nights on Mount Sinai, where he received the Ten Commandments. He then spent 40 years wandering in the desert with his people. The Prophet Abraham is said to have been cast into fire for 40 days, but Allah removed its heat.

Noah and his people, safe in the Ark, endured 40 days and nights of rain. The Prophet Jonah, or Yunus, spent 40 days in the belly of a whale. The giant Goliath taunted the Israelites for 40 days, after which the young Prophet David defeated him in battle. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) received revelation at the age of 40.

Sometimes isolation is enforced by pandemics, or by imprisonment. It is estimated that 3.9 billion people were in forced lockdown across the world at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. At present, 11.5 million people are in prisons, an institution that is only 200 years old and that many question the reformative value of. For most people, lockdown and prison time is a traumatising experience for them as well as their families.

For a very few exceptional people, prison time can become an opportunity for spiritual or creative renewal. Famous books were written in prison — Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Marco Polo’s travelogue, to name a few. Allama Fazl-i-Haq Khairabadi wrote a history of the 1857 War of Freedom in prison on Andaman Island. Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar wrote his autobiography, My Life A Fragment, during his imprisonment in Karachi.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib Jalib and many others wrote some of their best poems while in prison. Political prisoners often become stronger leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, the Ali brothers and Martin Luther King Jr, who was arrested 30 times in 13 years and whose 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” still inspires those seeking social justice.

But for the majority of prisoners, is imprisonment a ‘time out’ or being taken out of time itself?

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist. She may be reached at durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 1st, 2023