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

It was noon then We had all known that Ullaskar Dutt had been put in chains, but we had no knowledge whatever, at that time, as was later on described in his own account of it, that his mind had gone so weak as to see the hallucination that he has recorded in that narrative or that he was burning with such high fever as to pass into delirium. We came and stood in front of his room when we heard a piercing cry and the confusion that followed It shocked our heart. It was a usual occurrence in this prison, and the consequences were ever the same. That was the reason of the fright. Five or six petty officers were found ever, in such scene, to sit firmly on the chest of the poor rowdy prisoner locked up in his room, thrash him thoroughly and then run away. And then the cry of helplessness resounded through the whole block of that building. That was our usual experience. Hence we feared that Ullas was, perhaps, meted out the same treatment. The slogan among us about it was `to make one straight'. Mr. Barrie and his myrmidons used to say openly that if they were "to make straight" a prisoner or two of these political prisoners, everything would be calm and quiet and normal in the jail they ruled. I asked the warder whose cry it was that I had heard, and what all this noise about was. He said he did not know. Heart-rending cries, one after another, had filled the whole atmosphere. I saw some of them dragging a man from block No. 5. There were ten of them trying to lift him up and carrying him to the hospital. The cry was coming from him. He cried, he fell on the ground, they were all in an uproar! I saw this from a distance when the warder came running to me and whispered that Ullaskar had gone insane ! Yes! Burning in the hot sun with fever of 107 degrees, manacled and tied up, what else could happen to him than the loss of his brain? The brain and the body, which had been both outraged by excessive pressure upon them, had suddenly gone to pieces. Already he was so weakened in mind that he would easily pass into delirium tremens. He saw hallucinations and visions. The brain was out of gear and the body was out of joint. The latter had repeated fits and convulsions, and ten persons could not control it. The doctor somehow managed to take him to the hospital. Ullaskar was a young man full of laughter and mirth. He would crack jokes and make funs while hearing in court the sentence of death passed upon him. The spirit of humour did not forsake him even in his present state of delirium. The whole night he sent piercing cries of pain that rent the whole building around him. At the same time, like a ventriloquist, he filled the atmosphere with the