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

this lonely place of a prison-house books FL utilised in this manner all them. Three means I employed in my opportunity to train that laborious task of self-education. These were lectures delivered at Sunday meetings, oral Instruction on every other occasion of personal contact, and, lastly, the use of the prison-walls for purposes of writing. One great draw-back But the life of these writings on the wall could not be longer than one year. They could not last for centuries like inscriptions on the bricks of Babylon. Every year the wails were being white-washed, and, as the process went on, the writings on the wall began to perish. They were completely effaced. Hence the month before this operation was my month of serious and Intensive repetition, not unlike the time-honoured recital of the Rig Vedas. I had to recall all the verses that I had composed in my mind and scrabbled on these walls, and learn them by heart during this transition period. But there was one advantage in using this wall as a sheet of paper to write on For, though the writing lasted only for a year, the fresh wash on it gave us a new blank sheet of paper to write on for a whole year once again. The paper as such was subject to the processes of time. It was bound to get old and worm-eaten. But these walls for fourteen long years furnished a broad sheet that was ever new and ever white to write on Sometime, whale the white-wash was proceeding, our secret would come to light. But such a thing rarely happened. For the writing was carefully rubbed out before the process and the faint lines that survived made any deciphering an Impossibility. Besides, I wrote in Marathi and on abstruse subjects like political economy. This made the task of deciphering a hopeless job altogether. Mr. Barrie could not read the writing much less could he decipher it. He was so learned and wise after all, that he finally opened that it was a wicked attempt to spoil and disfigure government property. My brother was caught in this prison using the thorn of the cordage plant and was punished for it. His offence was to write comments on Vivekananda's lectures on Vedanta in which he had raised some doubts and answered some objections. The book was his own and he had marked certain passages in it and written some marginal notes. These markings and annotations he made in the margin of the book with thorn. And this was his cognisable crime according to the prisons penal code. Mr. Barrie's words were, "This is a jail, this is not a school; if you wanted to learn why did you not learn when at home? Why did you come here? Don't fight, don't read; only work-yes work. I know nothing else here." What avails it to learn? These obstacles to learning were external? but there was one great internal obstacle, and that was that some of the prisoners themselves were averse to learning, Being political prisoners they cared nothing for knowledge. Their motto was action What do we want with pure knowledge?-they would say. Action and sacrifice, that is what we need. I had to make them realise that many of them, when they were released after seven or eight years, shall have to play their part in the Indian world Let them not read anything