मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

As I was lost in the contemplation of the bright future which imagination had depicted for me, my hands were busy uncoiling the hard entangled threads of the oakum before me. That very day I composed some fifteen verses of my song by the time I had finished the hard work allotted to me. My hands were cracked and covered with blisters, and blood oozed out from them. I cannot say today how long I had to stay in the goal at Dongri from the time that the Hague decision had gone against me. What was my daily routine during that period- you may very well ask me. It was as follows: Every morning I had my usual walk in the square below. During that hour I recited the Yoga Sutras, and thought upon them in their order and context. Then I returned to my cell and set myself to do work assigned to me as a prisoner on hard labour. While engaged in that work I compose the lines of my meditated epic. I used to recall the lines composed on previous days, and add to them the fresh ones that I had recently written out in my mind. After the evening meal when the door was shut upon me, and everything around me was wrapt in perfect silence, I practised concentration and meditation as laid down in the Yogas. I retired to bed punctually on the hour of nine. During all these days I enjoyed sound sleep. This solitary life, with its fixed routine from minute to minute, wherein I tried my hardest to control the mind by the power of thought and dispassion, sometimes became so intolerable, that I felt, on occasions, that my grief and anxiety were sitting on my chest like a night-mare with their grip in my throat that had almost strangled me. In such moments I could hardly breathe for relief; I felt then that I could even bear this, if I were, sure that my cause would prosper through my sufferings. But then……? Instantly I recovered from this dark despair, and I was myself over again. The poise came back to my mind, as if nothing had happened during the interval. Sir Henry Cotton One day the news went abroad that a certain high official in England had forfeited his pension on my account. I could make no head or tail of this report till, a few days after, I fell upon a cutting from The Kesari of Poona which I found dropped in a corner of my room. That cutting helped me to piece out the news and gather up all its threads. It was thus; In London the Indians had a public meeting in connection with the celebration of the new year. The chief guest of the evening happened to be Sir Henry Cotton, the author of New India, and the president of the Congress Session in Bombay in 1904. in the hall where the meeting was being held, they had put up my portrait and Sir Henry Cotton happened to notice it. Looking at the portrait he said a few words in my praise, and regretted that a young man of such adventurous spirit and fervent patriotism should be reduced to a pass that had blighted his life for good. He expressed the hope that the International Court of Justice at Hague would restore me back to France and thus save itself from being the instrument of trampling under foot every man’s bare right to hold his own opinions without any molestation from the State. This reference to me by Sir Henry Cotton had raised a storm of criticism against him in the political dovecotes of England. To sympathise with Savarkar was such an abomination, even though the praise