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

I began to pick oakum. The Havildar and others had left the place. Once again I found myself alone confronting my punishment, each, as it were, making better acquaintance of another. Soon we became familiar friends. There was no doubt about it. Though without hope, I had still hoped that the Hague Tribunal would come to my rescue. But there was an end to that hope. It was now certain and beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was doomed to pass the rest of my life, rotting in one cell or another, in this prison or in another far away. What then? I must face it, come what may. Adversity Is The Rule In my life, crushed as it was under a mountain of calamities that I had brought down upon myself, one rule. Bitter though it was to start with, that had sustained me throughout, more than any other, was to take it for granted that the worst always happened and that the mind must be kept ready to bear and endure it. Those who are unfortunate to be born in time, a country or circumstance as adverse as ours, and who yet aspire to rise above them, beating, fighting and conquering them on their way to realise their ideal and to usher in the dawn of a new age, must needs digest the poison administered to their lips by cruel fate. If we once resolve to face up and fight the adverse that we know to be our lot herebelow, the favourable that comes in our way gives us a joy twice blessed, and its faint smile delights us. But hoping for the best makes the worst that befalls doubly cursed for us. The unfortunate ones like us, born in times of utter helplessness, have always to look forward to a fate equally adverse. And, then, the vain hope is apt to crush us completely when the bludgeoning blow of circumstance falls on our heads! Let the fortunate swans of Manas Sarovara, in the exultation of their triumph, feed fill on the lotus fibres, and drink deep of the pearly drops, that float on the crystal waters of that calm lake. But men like us, who are condemned to wade up to their ears through the miasma of dead waters, defeated efforts, and hopes that turn into dupes, must beware that life for them is ever a grim battle, and they must be prepared in mind and body to pass through the severest ordeal. The Blow Had fallen Hardened though I had been to bear the worst that could happen, the blow felled me completely, so terrible was its reaction upon my mind. Its suddenness almost staggered me. My arrest in London had prepared me for twenty-five years’ transportation to the Andamans. My recapture at Marseilles-when the whole world was positive in its conviction that I would be restored back to France-made me conclude that I would be sent to the gallows. But, at last, both these forecasts had proved entirely false. And here I