The building does not let you be a tourist
The first thing you notice at Cellular Jail is that the corridors are narrow. Not dramatically narrow, not narrow in a way that photographs convey, narrow in the way that makes your shoulders tighten, that makes you aware of your own body taking up space in a place designed to remind its occupants they had no space left. Port Blair's most visited site receives thousands of visitors every season, and most of them go quiet within five minutes of entering. That silence is not reverence. It is the silence of people who came expecting a history lesson and found something that does not behave like a lesson at all.
