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

me for my eternal doubt and pessimism. Others swore by the prophesy of Aravinda Ghosh. When Aravinda got his discharge while others with him were sentenced to long terms of hard labour in India or across the seas, he had addressed them from the prisoner's dock in the following words: "Go, you young men go, you are sentenced today, but I assure you that you will come back free within three years from now." Aravinda's vision of Krishna The rumour then was that Aravinda Ghose, as a prisoner on trial, had a vision of Krishna in the jail in which he was confined during the hearing of the case, and it was this vision which had emboldened him to make that prophesy. Naturally, these prisoners had put their implicit faith in it. If the prisoners from Calcutta caught in the Bomb Conspiracy Case were bound to be free, why not the prisoners from Agra and the Punjab who had spread sedition by their writing? And if all these were sure to be let off, why should the three Maharashtrians alone lag behind? Thus the logical chain was complete, based as it was on that great prophecy of Aravinda Ghose. All will be free then—that was the firm conviction of them all. The question now remained was how to count these three years, from what date to what date. In whatever order of time we counted them, the reckoning did not fit in with the date of the Jubilee or the Coronation Durbar at Delhi. However with an amount of hair-splitting common to all logical disputants, somehow they made it according as they were anxious to interprete it. According to them the period of three years had definitely marked out the month of December—the Coronation Durbar Day—as the day of general amnesty and pardon, and, therefore, the day of our liberation. There was, as such, no end to our hope. We were to be free; we were to see the faces of our dear ones as fresh as they were when we were taken away from them. Two or three years would not make such a difference. We shall tell them the story of our prison-life in the freedom and happiness and love of our hearths and homes. What a pleasant dream it was ! The men from Bengal were flush with it and they wanted their Maharashtrian friends to come to their homes and make a sojourn there ! So also with the Punjabis who extended similar kind invitations to me. Everything was fixed for the journey, none thought of any hindrances in their way. Of course, I was among the invitees. Men in my division of the jail flocked round me and talked to me with candour and affection. Every one came to me and accosted me, "Tatya, do please come with me; do please pay a visit to our side of the country." Bengal and Punjab were equally enthusiastic in welcoming me. And, if I seemed indifferent or hopeless of my release, they tried their hardest to shake off my despair and indifference. Every one of them was deeply pained to realise the hardship of my imprisonment of fifty years to run in that jail. And then deep sympathy for me made them more happy over my own release than their own. At last the blessed day came nearer. It was to dawn tomorrow. The news went abroad that orders had already been passed and received for our release on that day. Even