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

remember the name of Har Dayal. So I made them repeat it. What a miserable condition, this, of our motherland, that those who had lived in other lands and had worked there for her freedom, at tremendous risk to their own lives, should not be known even by name to her own ungrateful children ! The thought almost maddened me with grief. My fellow- prisoners had to pour water over my head to cool my heated brain. The Super: intendent came in the wake of Mr. Barrie, and put me the same question, over and over again. I retorted that, indeed. I had the honour of knowing him as my very intimate friend. He informed me that Har Dayal was accused of murder, and he had implicated himself in the bomb-incident in Delhi. I said, "May be, but that does not lower him, in the least, in my esteem; and my friendship will ever remain the same for him." The Superintendent made out from these curt replies that I was not in my usual humorous and polite mood, that the news had completely upset my temper. He at once changed the topic and, after a time, left me. The political prisoners grew anxious that I should give such rash answers to him. I told them that I knew full well what I was doing, that we must not lake it quietly when they talked in such terms of Har Dayal, that we must not disown him because he was under arrest as they had told us about it. That would be sheer cowardice on our part and I was not the man to behave so. Har Dayal was my friend and I was prepared to suffer any punishment for saying so. The political prisoners ought to learn this, if they did not learn anything else. That was the only way to show our gratitude to Har Dayal.

Gradually I became appeased in mind and set about getting the news for myself. Within two days I learnt that Har Dayal was under arrest in America and was released on bail. We kept on asking Mr. Barrie where Har Dayal was, if he was in Bombay or taken to Delhi, free or under arrest. He deceived himself that we were absolutely in the dark about him. One day he told us that Har Dayal was tried and sentenced, and would soon be despatched in Chalan to Port Blair. We all giggled at him. I told him to put Har Dayal in the room next to my own, so that I might talk to him freely and fully. Poor Mr. Barrie took it all seriously and said he would think of it. It was too much for all of us, and the whole company burst into laughter. Mr. Barrie realised then that we were all fooling him to the top of his bent, and that we had all known that he was telling us lies. Days went by and we learnt that Har Dayal had given the slip to the police in America, and that the American Government itself had helped him in the escape. However that may have been, the news had lifted a burden from our hearts. Now that I am on the subject, I may as well narrate a similar episode about another leader in India, how the authorities in this jail often spoke in contempt about the Indian worthies in order to spite us. This was during the days that my health was completely shattered and I was removed to the hospital for treatment and rest. I was confined to bed at the time and the Chief Commissioner visited the hospital to see me. He was a man who had always been polite to me. In the course of his conversation with me, he said that he had the good fortune to meet Surendranath Banerji on board the ship that carried him from Europe to India.