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

CHAPTER II In The Gaol At Byculla While climbing up to my cell in the Byculla prison I felt that I had to go one step higher in solitariness and dejection. For the cell here was more gloomy and far lonelier than the one I had occupied at Dongri. At Dongri I had no other person near about me, but the noise of the outer world fell upon my ears. I had, besides, a book or two to read, and some sundry articles about me. Here everything of that kind was gone. No noise was heard here of the humming world without. Not a soul moved here, and articles of daily use were not there, so that I had no companionship here of any kind whatsoever. For want of these, I felt here completely isolated in mind and body and hence more lonely and deserted than ever. I surveyed my room. There was nothing in it to see and inspect. I paced up and down. What must be the condition of my fellow-conspirators and of the revolutionary society we had formed? What plan must we work out for its future? These thoughts occupied my mind at the moment. The evening meal was served. A mind tossed on the stormy ocean of politics and full of conflicting thoughts on the subject found some relief in other kind of occupation. After the meals I cleaned my pots and washed them. I then came up to the door and stood behind its bars. The evening came to pass into night with its philosophic calm. The same day and evening and its thoughts ‘too deep for tears’ have formed the theme of the second part of my poem-Saptarshi. I submitted two petitions to-day to the authorities concerned. In one of them I had asked the Government to allow me the quantity of milk given me in the jail at Dongri. The stopping of it gave me pain in the stomach, as I had to eat my bread dry in the prison at Byculla. In the second I had requested the authorities to permit me the use of my books, - one at least out of the, which they had taken away from me at Dongri. If none of them was to be made available to me for reading here, I should at least be permitted here to read the English Bible, I added. The answer to these was-“No milk, shall see about the Bible.” Some days passed and I got a copy of the Bible. For a good long time now I had read nothing. Hence I opened the Bible so soon as I had it in my hands. The warder, thereupon, warned me that I was not to read during the day and in working hours. It was not to be kept in the cell; he would give it to me for two hours after the day’s work was over. I handed back the book to the warder and resumed my work. As usual I composed my verses to keep company with the work my hands were plying. At last the day went down and the Bible came back to me.