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

think of meting out to him." Mr. Barrie was foolish enough to show this to me and to tell me that I was not to reveal it to any one else. Mr. Barrie's gentility in harshness In this record of my experiences in the Andamans I had to expose so frequently the wicked disposition of Mr. Barrie. But there was another side to it which I must not omit to mention in this narrative, for I regard it as an act of justice to give every man his due, and not to blame him except when he deserves the blame. In the position of a jailor as he was, and of a prison in which the worst class of criminals in the whole of India was sent for custody and proper management, it was but natural for a man like Mr. Barrie to be stern and severe, and to come down with a heavy hand, sometimes, on the rebellious mob that he was called upon to rule. And I often told him that if he did so, he was not to blame for it. Years of contact with such a class of people had developed that temper into an ingrained habit of his mind. At least, that was true enough about his prison administration. He was hard, cruel and autocratic in that office. He could not discriminate good and bad. He really believed that he was the demi-god of Port Blair. And that was a blemish, a defect in him. The bother and fuss of prison administration were both the amusement and the concern of his solitary life. Yet out of prison and in the midst of his friends and family, he was not a cruel man or a martinet. And he allowed himself to be flattered and fooled by any one who chose to do so. He was not a learned man and yet desired to show off his learning by repeating some stock quotations from English poetry. He knew only a few of them and when one pressed him, he repeated these five or six poems with the pose of a born actor. Occasionally he had a fit to dazzle me by his erudition. And then he would repeat them all to me in one breath. Leaving aside his behaviour with me as a jailor, I must say that he cherished a sincere regard for me. Whenever some merchants, editors or military men visited the Andamans on business, they often visited the prison to see me. In the days of war, the naval officers on submarines came here to enquire after me and exchanged a few words with me. That also may be the reason of his high esteem for me. Among the members of his family his wife was a saintly woman and his only daughter of seventeen had been to Rangoon where she had passed her Matriculation and was reading for the Teacher's Diploma. Mr. Barrie's wickedness was considerably softened by the influence of these two women. The prisoners often told me that they often restrained him in his hard conduct towards them. Both the wife and the daughter felt deep personal sympathy for me. Miss Barrie from her very childhood till Mr. Barrie's death, whenever she happened to be in the Andamans during her holidays from Rangoon, used to visit the prison, talk with me for half an hour or so on topics of general interest. And she left always with a word of sympathy for me. Individually and on such occasions I behaved with Mr. Barrie with perfect familiarity and good will. On occasions Mr. Barrie sent me fruit from his own garden, and he did so with a wish that I should be on good terms with him. I accepted the gift with sincere gratitude, and I keep it on record in these pages. But whenever he found that I would not give up my political friends in that prison, or abandon activities like Shuddhi and the spread of education which I had undertaken for the uplift of prisoners in his jail, he repented for his kindness towards me. And for some days after, he used to be very harsh on me. Those of