Menwhopause played a gig at Tihar Jail a couple of weeks ago.

I was very skeptical about  if their music will work inside Asia’s largest jail, but they proved me wrong. Menwhopause, instead of just going in there and playing their all-english music ended up working with ‘The Flying Souls’- a band made up of inmates from Jail No. 3 and did a fantastic job of encouraging them to play and write. It wasn’t like a regular gig. Menwhopause is the first band I ever photographed. These are songs i’ve been listening to for years and they took on a whole new meaning inside the Jail. Especially when the inmates were singing them. These 3 weeks with Menwhopause and the music they were making seemed like the only sense of normalcy for people inside the jail. I came out feeling a whole range of emotions starting from empathy when I was inside and umm, all sorts of doubt when I was back outside. Its a whole ‘nother world, surprisingly not that far removed from what you read about or see in movies.

Menwhopause at Tihar Jail – Images by Shiv Ahuja

Shiv