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

Hotilal's letter This Hotilal had made things very hot for all Officers of the prison from Mr. Barrie downwards during the days of our strike against being put on the 'Kolu.' He was a man from Northern India and spoke Hindi as his mother-tongue. But he had an equal command over Urdu and English. He had travelled all over the world including Russia, China and Japan, and had seen and enjoyed life to the full. He was imprisoned in a solitary cell, apart from all others, as one of the "irreclaimables". A strict watch and ward was kept on his' movements. In that cell, notwithstanding the surveillance upon him, he had written that three-columned article upon us. None knew anything of it except his two or three most trusted friends. One fine morning Mr. Hotilal managed to smuggle out the letter with one of them who was being sent for work outside the prison. Hotilal had put his signature to it and had also put upon it the number of the cell and the chawl in which he was locked up. He contrived to send out that letter despite the strictest watch upon all his actions. He did it in the rush of prisoners going out for their day's work. It went out of the Silver Jail no doubt, but it had yet to cross the barrier of the Andaman Islands, which itself was a big prison settlement. But the letter travelled all the same. It travelled in the envelope of a trusted friend on voyage and reached its post at Calcutta safe and sound. It went into the hands of the famous publicist and leader, no other than Surendranath Bannerji of Calcutta and the editor of The Bengali. In those days of terrorism and Press Act, Mr. Bannerji published it entire in his widely circulated daily, and wrote a leaderette on it. As soon as The Bengali had published the letter, other newspapers had no hesitation in taking shelter behind that paper and writing their own comments upon it. At last, the letter became a subject of questions and replies on the floor of the Imperial Legislative Council. If it was difficult to send out news from the Andamans, it was equally difficult to get the news from India in that place, and still more difficult for it to reach us in our jail. Hence, those who had done the coup were naturally anxious to know if the surreptitious letter had reached its destination or if the friend who took it across had dropped it in the sea, or had delivered it straight into the hands of the Government. While they were so nervous about it, all of a sudden we got the news straight from the horse's mouth, from Mr. Barrie himself ! He played the postman for us in the following manner. Mr. Barrie inflamed One morning, without any apparent reason, Mr. Barrie came to our quarters in uproar and all red with anger. He had gone through all the seven divisions of the prison- house dashing his big stick upon the floor and showering abuse upon every one he met on his way. The warder, the petty officer, the jamadar and the poor prisoner had each his full share of recrimination and abuse. The prisoners were confounded with this sudden outburst of temper. The petty officer could not account for it and all of us were dumb- founded. Mr. Barrie kept on shouting, "You rascals and rogues, I will teach you a lesson