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

कृष्णाय वासुदेवाय हरये परमात्मने । प्रणतःक्लेशनाशाय गोविंदाय नमोस्तु ते ॥ Looking at him wistfully, I promised to carry out his behest. They had departed. Without looking back, I walked inside, clanging my chains as if I could wear them easily. But my mind was not so easy. It repeated vehemently the words I had spoken to them and tried to frighten me. But my will tied it down as a wild animal is tamed under the yoke. Exhaustion and fatigue overcame me completely. As soon as I had entered my cell and the Havildar had locked the door on me, I collapsed on the floor. I had almost fainted when I heard some noise over my head. I looked up and I saw the young little ones of the two pigeons in the tiles above, cooing and crying with a shrill wail. The mother-bird, I learnt, later, had been that very morning shot by the bullet of our goaler, while she was carrying in her beak food for her youngsters. The little ones waited and waited, and, in sheer desperateness and hunger, flapped their wings and were raising that wail. Alas! It was a picture painted for my eyes of the suffering I was experiencing. The Creator had chosen such a dark and tragic background for it in order to spite me. The tension was too great to bear, and I passed into sleep where I lay in the ground. “Wake up, hoe dare you sleep? If the boss sees you sleeping during the hours of work, he will rate us severely for your lapse.” So said the warder passing by my door, while he beat the bars with his stick to rouse me from my stupor. I got up, I picked up the coil; I began to pound it; I spinned it and I pulled out the threads-the same dull process over and over again! It must be a mouth now that I was serving my sentence in this gaol. All the same I was being given the same food that I used to bet before I was declared a member of this fraternity. Milk was, therefore, a part of my food even now. I had hardly finished my food when the Havildar called me out, and I saw the Superintendent right in front of me. “Take up your bedding”, he said. I felt within me that the time had come for my transportation to the Andamans. I came down to the gate of the prison and saw the prison van drawn up before it. I was put inside, the shutters were down, the door was closed, and I could see nothing around me. Only the rumbling and rolling sound of the carriage wheels told me that I was moving to some place outside the prison I had left behind. Suddenly the van came to a standstill. I was let down, and, behold! I was in front of another prison-gate. I passed through all the ceremonial of a prisoner to be freshly ushered into its sanctum! I was put into the cell assigned to me for my stay in the new place. This gaol was drearier and more lonely than the one I had left behind. I saw in the distance a warder coming in my direction. Dinner was served. The warder, who put me in this gaol, was not an Indian. He was a foreigner. Casting his look round about him, the